The Fires This Time

Last Wednesday, I attended an all day symposium co-sponsored by the Los Angeles and San Gabriel River Watershed Council and the City of Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Department called

“The Fires This Time: Griffith Park and Catalina Island Post fire Recovery”.

The symposium provided an excellent insight into discussions and issues the recovery task force is facing as they develop a reaction plan in response to the recent burnings. It was very informative in terms of discussing common misconceptions of the chaparral ecosystem, general post fire recovery practices, and gave insight into what we can expect in the future in terms of wildlife comeback , degrees of erosion, and types of initial vegetation cover.

While all the speakers were very interesting (I felt like I was back in ecology class) the first speaker, Richard Harlsey of the Chaparral Field Institute gave a very informative and charismatic talk on the Chaparral ecosystem dispelling many myths of this ecosystem and it’s relation to fire and fire management. (many of which I believed to be true from my forestry classes back at CU, Boulder.)

Some main points he brought up.
MYTH 1: Controlled burns help control the degree of fuel loading, and could ultimately reduce the intensity and damage of the fire.

There are two basic classifications of forest fires:

A Surface Fire, which spreads primarily along the ground consuming surface litter and ground covers, and is usually considered less intense.

And A Crown Fire, which is often started by a surface fire. In this situation everything burns, the crown of trees, the shrubs, and the surface litter. It is considerably more intense and destructive.

PHOTO: Trail exposed on ridge- everything here burned!!

Due to the inherent composition of chaparral ecosystem, a fire will always be a crown fire.

The intensity of a fire is dependant not only on fuel loading but also climate conditions such as wind patterns and moisture levels.

In the case of the Griffith Park fire, the climate conditions, and geographical location of ignition (at the base of a valley) played a larger role in the burn severity and course of the fire than fuel loading did.
Click the following link to see a really cool animated map of how the fire spread and its cover extent. http://cartifact.com/interactive/griffithfire/

MYTH 2: The Chaparral Ecosystem is adapted to fire and needs fire to survive and rejuvenate.

The Chaparral environment is not fire adapted but actually very sensitive to fire, particularly the frequency of burnings.

Fire intervals greater than 1 every 25 years or so are very destructive to the chaparral ecology. Frequent burnings cause many chaparral species to be eliminated by competing invasive, non native species junk species like mustard.

Old growth chaparral is also a very healthy system and one of California's great treasures- despite it becoming increasingly scarce. The attitude that “old” chaparral is unhealthy or unproductive is false according to recent studies. It is however extraordinarily resilient to very long periods without fire and continues to maintain productive growth throughout pre-fire conditions. Many seeds from chaparral plants also require 30 years or more worth of accumulated leaf litter before they will successfully germinate- frequent fires eliminate that potential.

Other speakers included Dan Cooper who spoke about wildlife, John Keeley on management issues and John Knapp about Catalina's ongoing effort to eradicate all non native invasive species on the island. Fire plays a key role in this by identifying areas of new invasive species growth post fire. His work is pretty interesting. Here's a link. http://www.catalinaconservancy.org/ecology/research/knapp.cfm

I also learned a new term called DRY RAVEL: sediment transport and accumulation on a steep slope in a semi arid environment. Fires escalates the degree of sediment accumulation. At the first major storm event the ravel will travel down slope and into the water system.

All and all it was a very educational day and thanks ah'be for letting me attend.

Some finishing thoughts:

Just after the fires occurred I asked the studio what it meant to work within an area that is so prone and so fragile to fires? Can we help mitigate the impact of fires by making smart design decisions? Is this an opportunity or a constraint? What design insight is gained through an understanding of the ecological systems? and diasaster management?

Thoughts? Comments.....

An Owner's Right to Plant

I participate in on online gardening forum & website called You Grow Girl on a regular basis. Recently, one user posted the following comment:

"Last month, the city I live in passed a law that says you can not plant a vegetable or herb garden in your front yard. I could really go on and on about the local government here. They are trying to turn a working class suburb into a snotty neighborhood, much to the dismay of the working class people who live here. This is the latest in a long string of crazy directives that has come out of city council in the past year."

She said that while she does not currently have this type of garden in her front yard, she was thinking about starting to grow some kitchen herbs out front as that area has the best sun during the day.

Her post reminded me of something I drove past yesterday evening on my way home. On Crenshaw Blvd., just north of Pico Blvd., there is a residence that has planted corn in the front yard area and in the small rectangular space across the sidewalk. The corn fills the entire area of both small spaces, and is looked to be about six feet tall.

I believe that the user who posted her comment lives in a suburb outside of Cleveland, OH. Obviously, that area has some differences from a busy boulevard in Central Los Angeles. However, the desire to grow the same type of plants is there. Another user replied that "tedious homogeneity" was taking over her neighborhood as well.

As often happens in this forum, several solutions came up. One that caught my eye was the following (and I think you will appreciate as well): "You should plant a garden in your front yard, but make it really stylish! Use pretty purple cabbage to line your walkway, artichokes as a specimen piece, etc...it IS a garden, but when they give you crap about it...say 'who says these can't be used as decorative pieces?'....what could they do? Where does one draw the line between gardening and landscaping?"

What do you think about cities or neighborhoods that pass this kind of law or ordinance? And, where does one draw the line between gardening and landscaping?

Can we really be sustainable?

Sustainability is something most landscape designers must keep in consideration when designing any project. But can we really be sustainable in an urban landscape? Is “sustainability” the buzz word of our age? How can we actively practice the title we have been given (stewards of the land) when we are given projects with such small pre-determined planter areas. (Like most urban commercial projects are) It’s not like we can design permaculture landscapes in all of our projects or much less in an urban setting. One approach that we have come up with LEED certification. But does getting points for planting drought tolerant plants really enough to be called sustainable and make a difference? Ian Mcharg once said that “the place where man and nature are in closest harmony is in the city cemetery”. Part of me agrees with the sardonic humor of Ian but maybe we need to focus our practice into the larger vision and the challenge of adaptation rather than the preconceived ideas of sustainability. Anyone have any thoughts on this… please share
Dana Thomas

Stupid Things in Design

The California landscape changes very little through the “seasons” as it is, but as Landscape Architects we are often always seeking that plant “gem” that is ever blooming, ever green, drought tolerant, and requires absolutely no maintenance what so ever. It seems to me that the very thing that makes the landscape so special and unique are the inherent qualities that it possesses over its rival architecture; its ability to change, evolve, and recreate itself season by season among the often (if not always) static architecture. The landscape is the one thing that has the ability to bridge the gap between humanity and the living planet. One of the stupid things that we do as Landscape Architects in the name of design; is try to place the landscape in the same box as Architecture. As if the landscape was some kind of tribute to the same false immortality that exists among the static tall buildings. Instead we should be looking for that plant that is ever changing, evolving, and recreating itself like life really does. Give the spaces that we create a chance to change.

Thoughts from Dana and Jeff Thomas

representation

"The ability to intentionally construe and construct designed landscapes is enabled through various forms and activities of imaging."
(Corner, James. "Eidetic Operations and New Landscapes").

Imaging or methods of representing[1] the landscape is the medium used to understand, explore and express our creative ideas making it our most essential tool in understanding and envisioning the landscape. The emergence and development of landscape architecture as a profession has been directly correlated to the development of methods for representing and visualizing the landscape. For example, the "selectively framed landscape paintings of the 17th century which depicted scenic vistas gave way to the 'picturesque style' of landscape common to large English estates[2]." Aerial photography influenced the profession by allowing the designer to view their sight in its extended context and thus expanding the scope of landscape projects. Digital representation tools such as AutoCAD, GIS, 3D computer modeling, and immersive walk-through simulations, have also greatly influenced the profession by again, allowing the designer to see the landscape in a different light and imagine new realities. The symbiotic relationship between landscape representation and the visualization of new possibilities makes methods of representation vital to our design success.

As Alan Berger and Hope Hasbrouck describe in their 'Studies in Landscape Representation' class description, Landscape Architectural drawings should "pursue relationships between seeing, visualizing, the act of drawing, and considering what has been drawn," and through the act of drawing explore "issues that define landscape architecture site, phenomena, and change...form, light, shadow, volume, and space" [3]. However, most of our traditional methods of drawing exploration- the plan, the section, the elevation- have been adopted from ARCHITECTURE- our big brother which we all too often fall in the shadow of. Landscape and Architecture are fundamentally different. "In contrast to the relative stability of architecture, landscape is defined by unrelenting, often invisible processes" [4]. The flux and flow of processes that directly influence the landscape, such as ecological regimes, are often difficult to understand using the traditional methods adopted from architecture. These methods of representation keep the influential processes, which are so unique to landscape, invisible. This limits the designer from fully understanding the relationships within their design...as well as the relationship of their designed landscape to what lies beyond the project boundaries. We strive to achieve inspiring and holistically-driven design ideas based on a balanced understanding of the site, its surrounding context, and the systems that tie them together. Our landscape representations should reflect and assist in this process.

[1] Note that we are using the term "representation" as the medium of imaging used to conceive, develop, and articulate our designs. It is the image of our designed landscape as well as the image of our thinking.
[2] Corner, James. "Eidetic Operations and New Landscapes."
[3] http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/courses/details.cgi?section_id=5812&term=s2003
[4] Holly Getch Clarke- Land-scopic Regimes: Exploring Perspectival Representation Beyond the 'Pictorial' Project

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For August 10's Design Breakfast, we ask you to consider:

• How do you use drawing?
• Where does the strong conceptual idea driving your thinking and in turn your designs come from? Was it a feeling? A reaction? An idea that captivated you? From analysis? From a drawing? Could and should it come from a drawing?
• Are we selling ourselves, our understanding, and our possible interpretations and reinterpretations of the landscape short by using traditional methods of representation?
• What methods of representation could be more effective in our explorations of landscape?
• Could different methods of representation be more appropriate for different stages of the design process?
• What is the design process of ah'bé? What methods do we use? And what should we use?

Let us reflect on how we can use drawings to push our thinking out of the typical box (or plan, or section) in order to develop or enlighten our design thinking.

~ megan and vanessa

vertical topography

Up until about a month ago, my forays into "art" included a portfolio of craft projects created during my childhood and a few token paintings I completed during my "Watercolors for Beginners" class during the second-to-last-semester of college. Needless to say, upon realizing my experience with "art" one might say that I was extremely disqualfied to produce it.

But produce it I did. Working with three co-workers, I helped brainstorm, finalize, install, and yes critique, a real, honest to goodness, work of art. I'm patting myself on the back as I type.

The piece is sort of hard for me (personally) to describe. In vague terms, it is comprised of lengths of silver wire, placed vertically against a white wall. Each piece of wire is anchored at the end by a small pin, and the wire is sufficiently long enough so that we were able to manipulate it into wavy lines that billow outward from the wall. There are maybe...oh, 100 or so of these pieces, lined up next to each other. The effect up close is (as many people have agreed) very elegant and stunning.

It does have its short-comings of course (not particularly visible from a distance) but otherwise it accomplishes what it set out to do: express topography in a vertical manner.

I think for me the process of creating the piece was more important than seeing the final result. The discussions between the four of us in determining what we actually wanted to do or what materials we actually wanted to use were, upon reflection, more memorable and exciting than the installation. Now, don't get me wrong...installing it was fun, and I was quite happy at seeing the piece finally in existence. But in the end I enjoyed the collabortive process and arguing my points more than getting it up on the wall.

I'm not sure just yet what that means to me; that I enjoyed the process more than the resulting creation. I want to say that for me, "art" IS process, and the resulting piece is merely a random output. I can't tell you how many times our idea changed, or was adjusted...how each concpet morphed into another one and then another and another. I feel that instead of only creating one (tangible) piece we instead created, say, twenty pieces...I mean, who cares that they don't really exist?

I really enjoyed and will always remember the creation of this piece, and am proud that it was done for an actual organization and not something that only I got to enjoy. I guess for now, my art will be "process". I have to say though, that I am looking forward to expanding my personal definition in the years to come.

no more bottles

A message in a plant? more thoughts later.