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Thursday, 23 April 2009
Chaparral
 

Chaparral is the name of the ecoregion that extends from Baja Mexico to northern California along the coast and in towards the Sierra Mountains.  The ecoregion gets its name from the Chaparral plant community, which is dominated by shrubs: Scrub oaks, Toyon (has red berries, looks like holly if you are in a hurry, and Hollywood gets its name from this plant), Sage, Coyotebush, Manzanita, Chamise, etc. - lots of plants that you would recognize if you happen to live in this part of the world.  The name comes from the Spanish word "chaparro" meaning green oak. Chaparral is often pretty dense brush - them leather leggins that cowboys wear are "chaps" to protect their legs as they ride through.  Great article about Chaparral at Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaparral .

There are other shrub-dominated plant communities that are part of the Chaparral ecoregion.  Coastal sage scrub consists of California sagebrush (which is Artemisia, not Sage, Salvia as I had thought); also Coyotebush and Lupine.  This is the plant community that dominates the Marin Headlands where it looks common enough.  So much urban development has taken place along the coast, however, that Coastal sage scrub may be an endangered habitat type.  Las Pilitas Nursery has a great run down on this plant community and its plants  http://www.laspilitas.com/nature-of-california/communities/coastal-sage-scrub

The Chaparral ecoregion also includes tree-dominated plant communities, some of which don’t at all look like the Chaparral plant community, so this is a bit confusing till you see these plant communities out in the field in great interdigitated swaths.  I spent much of today hiking through 200 acres of Central Oak Woodland plant community which transitioned to Chaparral, and both of which descended to a riparian plant community at the valley bottoms (in Mendocino County, California, USA).

Although aspect plays a part in plant community dynamics it is relatively minor.  For example a north-facing (cool) slope Chaparral community might have more Toyon and Oak while a south-facing (hot) slope also has Chaparral, though you might find more Chamise.  Far more important is the depth of soils.  Shallow soils – Chaparral.  Deeper soils – Central Oak Woodland dominated by Blue oak, much deeper soils - Central Oak Woodland dominated by Black Oak, which drops a lot of leaf litter and as a consequence builds up an even deeper soil.  It is no accident that some of the best vineyard terroirs in Napa, Sonoma, and Mendocino Counties are on sloping sites that used to be Black Oak stands.


Posted by geoffreykatz at 11:51 PM PDT
Updated: Friday, 24 April 2009 12:03 AM PDT
Sunday, 12 April 2009
LEED AP

In the last week of March 2009, according to the USGBC-NCC website http://www.usgbc-ncc.org/, over 70,000 individuals registered to take the LEED AP exam.  It is evident that having the AP is fast becoming a byline to being recognized as being involved in the architectural "green" world, and it seems that a lot of people are now agreeing with that.


Posted by geoffreykatz at 7:14 PM PDT
Updated: Sunday, 12 April 2009 8:24 PM PDT
Friday, 6 February 2009
Sustaining ecological areas 3

 

Earlier this week I was out looking at salmon streams with Sheila O’Shea of SPAWN http://www.spawnusa.org/ .  San Geronimo Creek rises in a mostly rural / suburban area west of Fairfax in Marin County.  It is a tributary to Lagunitas Creek whose flow is now the controlled spill from Kent Lake Reservoir.  These are salmon streams with no salmon (Coho) in them because the water levels are so low – northern California is experiencing a drought – and the Coho are apparently milling around getting fat in Tomales Bay waiting for their break and trying not to get eaten by sea otters.  Two years ago the salmon had already returned by December.

 

While the drought is producing the absence of salmon right now even in a wet year clearly the urbanization of Marin affects the salmon habitat.  Lagunitas Creek below the dam has adequate flow, points out Sheila, but it is too fast, and were the salmon to come up they would have a hard time finding the pockets of slower water in which to lay their eggs.  And urbanization around San Geronimo Creek causes sudden runoff during rain, potentially producing mini “flash floods” with lower flows in between rains, which could potentially sweep away eggs or reduce oxygen in the water.

Natural areas do not exist in isolation.  At the same time as a conservation plan is developed for the specific ecological areas, performance standards for the wider landscape that affects the ecological area – in this case the watersheds of the two creeks or the master plan area of a land development project – should be set to ensure that ecological systems upon which the natural area depends will continue (be sustained) or be enhanced.  Such performance standards could be set by the municipality or other higher government authority and encoded as policy, and for a land development project required of the developer as a condition of approval for development. 


Posted by geoffreykatz at 12:11 PM PST
Updated: Friday, 6 February 2009 12:12 PM PST
Tuesday, 3 February 2009
Alas

This is a difficult blog to write and maybe it is more like a rant. 

Tennessee Valley in Marin County, part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, is a very popular Sunday destination for people in San Francisco and elsewhere: the trail head is a short trip from San Fran, the path is gently sloping, the valley and hills visually interesting with chaparral, you have a choice of two paths one along the main road and one along a stream, and it all leads to a spectacular beach.  It is called Tennessee Beach after the name of a coastal steamer that was wrecked there about a hundred years ago.  You can sometimes still see remains of the ship when the currents wash the sand away from the appropriate spot.

At about the half-way point down to the beach the road takes a turn and tucks under a shady spot with a magnificent Monterey Cypress.  There was also a very, very beautiful tea rose there – “was” because it was removed in the past two weeks. 

“Tea rose” doesn’t do justice to what this plant was.  It was first of all a huge plant – the biggest such rose I’d seen, and to my mind a heritage plant.  In French they call such plants “eglantine” not “rose”.  The flowers were beautifully-shaped.  The aroma of the flowers was incredibly strong and luscious.  The ridge above Tennessee Valley is one of my regular walks and returning via the valley I would not pass the place without visiting this shrub.  And so did many others – there was a beaten path to the plant from the main road.

So why was it removed?  Because it was not native?  This had better not be the reason, because there is absolutely nothing “natural” about Tennessee Valley.  The hills are scarred with roads, paths, signage, remnants of building foundations, water diversions.  The land surface is covered with a mix of some native grasses but mostly outcompeted by European grasses.  The largest trees are Eucalyptus.  The valley was farmed for a period.  Maybe some young buck planner or landscape architect or biologist with illusions of a pristine native California habitat and armed with a policy document decided that this colorful, heritage plant irritated just a bit too much and reminded them just a bit too much that the landscape was not what they think it should be. 

I could go on and on.  This is a terrible loss, in my mind.  There hasn’t been a pristine California landscape for thousands of years, even the Native Americans shaped their landscape.  And this elegant, hardy, jewel of a plant was a reminder of someone’s care and joy, years ago, when they planted a rosebush at the edge of their home in a then-unnamed valley north of Yerba Buena.

So please forgive the rant.  I make certain guesses here about the history of the place and what actually happened and why.  I will find out what happened and write about this again.  There are in fact important issues here about ecological restoration.  Check back here soon. 

 


Posted by geoffreykatz at 12:01 AM PST
Updated: Friday, 6 February 2009 12:16 PM PST
Thursday, 29 January 2009
Here Comes Everybody

Because building green often has an added cost to it, responsible business / project managers will take a close look at potential benefits, since they are concerned about their bottom line as much as they may be about the environment.

Quoting Clay Shirky in Here Comes Everybody about the new presence of a “social surplus”: many people (in the USA, at least) with a hunger to be of service and to be part of something bigger.  And many people who are concerned about the state of the world – climate change, loss of species, pollution, etc. – are acting in new, sustainable, innovative ways in their daily life: they buy and use biodegradable dish soap, for example.  As a result there is a potential large population of individuals and organizations who may participate in “green building” / “sustainable sites” if it makes them feel good about what they have accomplished in their own gardens / landscape projects and about contributing ideas to a common effort, with only a marginal cost increase.

And it doesn’t have to be all or nothing.  First, because we are in transition – we don’t have all the answers and solutions, we get better and better at sustainable solutions as we go.  Second, because not all “sustainable” solutions work in any given project, and even a small “sustainable” initiative in a project could potentially make the difference for the entire project.

Posted by geoffreykatz at 11:25 AM PST
Updated: Thursday, 29 January 2009 11:27 AM PST
Wednesday, 21 January 2009
Sustaining ecological areas 2

 

In San Francisco Golden Gate Park has a large resident population of “chronic homeless”.  The watershed of the Guarapiranga Reservoir outside of Rio de Janeiro has a population of 600,000 people (with only half connected to a sanitary sewer).  So what happens if an ecological area is in a densely-populated region? 

The specific areas significant for ecological functions could be identified as if they were ecological areas far away from human populations.  But because the land is in a densely populated area and the value of land is consequently at a premium the specific ecological areas can be assigned land use designations integrated within the context of an overall project or municipal Master Plan.  Typical land use designations for ecological function areas in master plans or municipal plans are “ecological reserve” or “park” but either the Master Plan or a conservation plan should specify much more particularly the role of the land, e.g., for maintenance of gene pools, education, outdoor recreation, or scientific research.

Posted by geoffreykatz at 3:14 AM PST
Updated: Wednesday, 21 January 2009 3:19 AM PST
Wednesday, 7 January 2009
Sustaining ecological areas 1
How is an area with high ecological value sustained?  Common practice, if the area is isolated enough from human population centers, is to set legal land boundaries which include the areas deemed significant for ecological functions plus a “buffer” between the ecological functions areas and the legal boundary.  Ideally a conservation plan is prepared for the protected area (i.e., for the whole legally-protected area).  The conservation plan sets out how to manage human activities in the ecological area to help ensure that the ecological functions are unaffected by human activity or presence.  Legal methods to protect the land might include conservation easement or purchase or donation of the land to an accredited land trust or public agency.

Posted by geoffreykatz at 11:23 AM PST
Updated: Wednesday, 7 January 2009 11:24 AM PST
Friday, 7 November 2008
The digital technologies - "green" connection

 

Isn't it a coincidence that things "green" seem to be high on everyone's agenda these days, from kids to corporations, at the same time as the new Web 2.0 technologies are taking hold.  There is a reality that is driving the green agendas of course, what with melting glaciers, ecological fragmentation, spiking energy demand, and trace elements of pesticides in food.  In addition, however, "nature" is a social construct and as we address all these issues (which we must do and do soon and effectively) what we are really doing is changing human perceptions, activities, and relationships, not "fixing" nature.  Actual natural processes are much bigger than us humans and our human actions to “restore” or “conserve” nature are really about different human ways to interact with natural processes.  Read The Fallacy of Wildlife Conservation, a compelling essay, by John Livingston http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Livingston originally recommended to me by David Suzuki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Suzuki .  But the widespread adoption of new communication technologies is doing nothing if not changing perceptions and relationships.


Posted by geoffreykatz at 4:32 PM PST
Updated: Friday, 7 November 2008 4:39 PM PST
Thursday, 4 September 2008
digital is just another "scape."

 

What I am thinking about these days is that architecture / landscape is the physical "platform" or "container" in which social interactions take place.  The interactions are face-to-face, but these days they are also digital.  Did you go to the Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival http://www.sfoutsidelands.com/ last weekend (Aug 22-24 2008) in San Fran?  Lots of great music, apparently, and even though I couldn't be there the most interesting thing for me was the Crowdfire app http://www.crowdfire.net/ that allowed participants to upload, tag, and remix images, text, video, and audio captured on cellphones, resulting in a shared, immersive experience.   

 

What's the connection of Outside Lands with Los Medanos http://www.losmedanos.edu/, or any college campus for that matter?  Answer: I think that the Outside Lands kind of experience will become normative, because the technology is all here.  And the first place that it will become normative is on college campuses, because young adults are so tuned to the new technology.  What does a campus look like when there is an endless, integrative ocean of streaming, tagged, diverse media and online relationships-building for both substantive ("courses") and non substantive ("extracurricular") content overlayed over an ancient tradition of academic discourse and contemporary profit-driven business education?

Sylvia Paull http://www.sylviapaull.com/, who graciously spooned me up just as I gave my left ankle an incredibly painful sprain (why I didn’t go to Outside Lands), commented: “digital is just another ‘scape’."


Posted by geoffreykatz at 12:58 PM PDT
Updated: Friday, 7 November 2008 4:31 PM PST
Monday, 23 June 2008
This is now an immersive, integrative environment

Last year (October 2007) I attended the ASLA’s national conference, which happened to be held here in San Francisco.  So it was easy to attend a lot of the sessions.  One morning there was a plenary session which featured four of the Landscape Architecture world’s leading designers.  They sat on a podium before an audience of what seemed like upwards from 1,000 landscape architects and others.  I was towards the middle of the room and could barely make out the four on the podium.  To overcome this there was real-time video feed presented on two enormous screens above them.  The screens were amplified by color and lighting surrounds to elicit a mood and help the audience focus on the activity on the podium.

It was pretty clear to me, though maybe not to many others, that while the content of the presentation was a comparative discussion of current landscape work among the four, the landscape that we were all participating in in real time was an interactive field.  The physical world consisting of the set was just the basis of the landscape.  The rest of the landscape was the aura of colors and lights, and the live screens – and the half-acre of audience in the darkened hall.

Similarly, the landscape “out there” – city streets, parks, natural areas, sports stadiums, office towers, highways and roads, etc., the kind of stuff typically designed by architects (the buildings), engineers (the roads), and landscape architects (the pedestrian environment and planting / natural areas) – is (just) the basis of our current landscape.  In North American cities, at least, half the population it seems is now walking around with their mobile phones glued to their ears or viewing email and internet content on their Blackberries.  This is now an immersive, integrative environment, in which the local landscape that we walk in is now a part of the virtual environment in which we have quite as deep, engaged, meaningful relationships – and vice versa.

Ten years ago this was not the case, perhaps.  And in ten years from now it seems likely to me that it will be even more integrative, as 3-d content (as in electronic games and virtual communities) becomes more common, accessible, and naturalized. 

Los Medanos College in Pittsburg, California, for which I was project manager at Smith & Smith, is an integrative, immersive environment.  Exterior spaces are shaped for formal ceremonies, daily student use, and local community use, and campus entrances for both function and appearance.  But integral to those exterior spaces are the irrigation, lighting, security, information kiosks, and other systems that are centrally, digitally controlled.  Even the shape of exterior spaces is strongly influenced by the network / utility configuration that is mostly underground, with surface expression in light poles, in-ground vaults, the fountain jets, etc. 

The clue for me for all of this is the very word “landscape”.  “Landscape” ≠ “landscaping”.  “Landscape” means “a composition of man-made spaces on the land” (page 7, JB Jackson 1996 “The Word Itself” in Reading the Vernacular Landscape).  It is only a late 20th Century understanding of the word which misses the evolved, contemporary culture and its arising landscape.


Posted by geoffreykatz at 5:30 PM PDT
Updated: Friday, 4 July 2008 3:41 PM PDT

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