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50 / LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE MAY 2024 consultant on the project. Damon Farber Landscape Architects was brought in to navigate the community engagement process and provide landscape architecture services. To date, the team has conducted four public open houses to garner community feedback to help design a streetscape that satisfies all the requirements of the RAISE grant. At each meeting, the community has weighed in on design ideas that include extensive tree canopies, pedestrian gathering points, colorful murals, signage, and landscaping. Out of these meetings four character districts have emerged, each speaking to the distinct flavor of the surrounding neighborhood and its uses, and featuring a differing percentage of green space, parking, and pedestrian amenities depending upon location and community feedback. For example, trees and green space were noted as highly desirable additions for the east and west districts, light industrial transition points with an abundance of concrete and asphalt. Districts 2 and 3, which comprise the neighborhood’s commercial core, prioritize pedestrian amenities over parking and green space. Throughout the corridor, the landscape architects specified materials that reflect the industrial history of the neighborhood. It’s a tall order, says Jordan Van Der Hagen, an associate with Damon Farber. “Our goal is to create a street that is indicative of the neighborhood, one that says, ‘You’re in Lincoln Park, in the Craft District.’ You’re not in anywhere, USA.” The city is obligated, per the terms of the grant, to create an inclusive, accessible, healthy, green, and wellfunctioning environment that addresses climate solutions; replaces aging infrastructure; improves safety, air quality, multimodal accessibility, and connectivity; and builds upon the success of the Lincoln Park neighborhood. In design and planning language, this translates to the following: full roadway construction, protected bikeways, varying numbers of onstreet parking spaces, electric vehicle charging stations, green infrastructure, and bioinfiltration stormwater management. It also includes two new bus rapid transit stops, street amenities (seating, planters, benches, trash bins), public art, wayfinding, neighborhood gateways, intersection and midblock bump outs, lighting, and landscape (including the provision for 350 street trees, planted 50 feet on center along both sides of the street). While official cost estimates for the project aren’t available yet, SEH Principal Matt Bolf estimates that there is approximately $10 million in aboveground improvements (green space, lighting, bus stops, sidewalks, bike trails, amenities). The remaining $15 million will be used for utilities and street work, much of which is included in the aboveground work. A caveat with receiving money from the federal government is that everything written into the grant must be accounted for. That’s a hard pill to swallow for a handful of business owners who aren’t convinced the plan will improve their circumstances. “We’re a highly functioning business community,” noted one business owner, whose company has a 40-year history on Superior Street. And while he agrees that the streetscape graphics FOREGROUND /PLANNING “SOME OF THE MOST INTERESTING PROJECTS HAVE TO DO WITH CHANGING A ROAD.” —JAMES GITTEMEIER Fore-Planning FIN.indd 50 4/3/24
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52 / LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE MAY 2024 DAMON FARBER LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS are seductive, he’s doubtful that the city can maintain a decidedly urban landscape in a northern climate. “Why do something that’s not right, even if you get free money for it?” Other business owners bemoan both the reduction of the roadway width and the loss of adjacent parking spaces. Still others remain skeptical on the number of trees in the plan, and the city’s ability to maintain such a significant new landscape. “We have to deliver what we said we would,” Gittemeier says. “If business owners say they don’t want as many trees, we’d have to make a really strong case about why we couldn’t plant all those trees. We can’t just say, ‘We changed our minds.’” When it comes to altering a road, it’s almost impossible for citizens to see the positive impacts until it’s built, Gittemeier says. “We have a sense that the road is immutable and has always been the way it is. Some of the most interesting projects have to do with changing a road.” Too, it’s hard for the community to understand how $25 million won’t cover the full scope of a project that is less than two miles in length. Van Der Hagen notes that, while Duluth’s population hit its maximum of 106,000 people in 1960, the current population of 85,000 is left to pay the bills of a city that is much larger than its tax base. “Simply providing a passable route for walkers, bikers, and drivers to reach their destination is a significant challenge,” he says. “Throw in storms that can drop feet of snow, inches of rain, and a wicked freeze–thaw cycle, and the act of providing 1.7 miles of highquality multimodal transportation infrastructure is a huge accomplishment unto itself.” Recently, the New York Times highlighted Duluth as a winter surfing destination, calling out its newer residents as climate refugees on the run from recent apocalyptic heat and smoke. These new residents represent a larger movement of people who are prioritizing communities with multimodal transportation opportunities that access functional mixed-use neighborhood centers and employment opportunities. In Lincoln Park, where more than one in five people live below the poverty line, any increase in value owing to public investments in infrastructure may represent a push above affordability for many, Van Der Hagen says. Choosing not to fix failing infrastructure is not an equitable strategy for maintaining affordability. Reeves agrees. “Every single city in America should be doing this,” she says. “If you’re going to create an interconnected, fantastical, walkable, mixed-use gridded area, you have to start somewhere. Duluth is where this can happen.” SARAH CHASE SHAW IS A WRITER LIVING IN BASALT, COLORADO. FOREGROUND /PLANNING ABOVE Narrowing the street will allow for the incorporation of green infrastructure and new streetscape amenities. Fore-Planning FIN.indd 52 4/2/24
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LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE MAY 2024 / 63 MADELINE GRAY FEATURES POLLOCKSVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA A bridge over the Trent River overlooks a new flood-adaptive Waterfront Park, page 82. Feature Divider FIN.indd 63 4/3/24
64 / LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE MAY 2024 DAN SCHWALM © 2023 HDR ARCHES PLAYGROUND, BY OJB AND STUDIO LUDO, LETS KIDS (AND THEIR GROWN-UPS) CHOOSE THEIR OWN ADVENTURE. BY DANIEL JOST, ASLA I T’S 9:30 ON A FRIDAY NIGHT. I’ve just climbed the 27-foot arch at Arches Playground in Omaha, Nebraska. Now I’m hanging on a rope, looking out on downtown Omaha and one of its newest parks. Teens lounge in another arch nearby. Children somersault and dig in the sand. But it’s the opportunities for climbing that really stand out here. People of many ages—including a few parents—are finding ways to climb that are immersive, exciting, and challenging for them. “They’re able to climb to new heights, and do it in a safe way,” says Katie Bassett, the vice president of parks for Omaha’s Metropolitan Entertainment and Convention Authority (MECA). Over two days in August, I speak with 20 parents and one grandparent visiting Arches Playground, and seven RIGHT The cave-like nature of a climbing area at Arches Playground offers shade and deters unskilled climbers from going too high.
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66 / LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE MAY 2024 STUDIO LUDO of their children. Some visitors, like Ronesha Henderson’s family, live nearby and visit regularly. Others come from farther away. Paul, who lives in Bennington, Nebraska, brings his children to Arches “about once a month.” And Brandon Factor of Charter Oak, Iowa, says his family has driven the 80 minutes to Arches “multiple times.” “It’s great for people who don’t have much and want to get their kids out of the house,” Henderson says. The diversity of opportunities for play it provides is mentioned by many people I interview. “We really like that kids can spend so many hours in here and don’t get bored,” says Oscar Cortez, while visiting with his 5- and 10-year-old sons. “There’s plenty of things to do.” Part of what makes the space appealing for so many different ages is the different levels of skill it accommodates. “It’s challenging enough for him,” Mike Headlee notes, looking toward his 7-year-old. “As he progresses, and wants to challenge himself more, it provides that opportunity.” Eight-year-old Peyton compliments the arch climbers. She says they are better than others she’s experienced because “you get to climb up tall.” ARCHES PLAYGROUND is part of Gene Leahy Mall, which is one of three parks that make up the RiverFront—72 acres of parkland that connects downtown Omaha to the Missouri River. The RiverFront is owned by the city and managed by MECA, a private nonprofit. Its recent redesign was funded through a public–private partnership. The Gene Leahy Mall was originally designed in the 1970s as a humanmade “river,” sunken from street level. For years, it was the foreground for photos of Omaha’s skyline. Over time, its isolation from city sidewalks and use by people experiencing homelessness led some to perceive it as unsafe. In 2016, local philanthropists Ken Stinson and Mogens Bay founded the Downtown Riverfront Trust and funded a master plan by OJB to rethink the waterfront parks in Omaha and Council Bluffs, Iowa. The plan called for filling the mall’s river and raising its western end about 25 feet to create an event lawn near street level. ABOVE A series of concept plans by Studio Ludo shows part of the playground design’s evolution. RIBBON SCHEME FACET SCHEME F1-Omaha Playscapes FIN.indd 66 4/2/24
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE MAY 2024 / 67 STUDIO LUDO “FROM ALL OF OUR STUDIES, HALF OF THE PEOPLE IN PLAYGROUNDS ARE NOT KIDS. THEY’RE TEENS, ADULTS, AND SENIORS.” —MEGHAN TALAROWSKI, ASLA COMBINED SCHEME EARLY ARCHES SCHEME The new mall opened in 2022. OJB’s design melds the intensive programming of Houston’s Discovery Green, designed by Hargreaves Associates (now Hargreaves Jones), with the aesthetics promoted in the landmark 1995 Landscape Journal article “Messy Ecosystems, Orderly Frames,” by Joan Nassauer, FASLA. Crisply edged beds filled with mostly prairie natives frame event lawns, food-truck-side picnic areas, sculptural dog parks, a reflecting pool, and fireside seating. The mall has pingpong tables, porch swings, a water play feature, and a sliding and rolling area that includes refurbished concrete slides from the original design. A key part of OJB’s plan for bringing more people to the mall was its new play area. “They’re this magical activation tool,” says Nathan Elliott, ASLA, a principal at OJB’s San Diego office. People like to see kids play and hear them laugh. OJB engaged Meghan Talarowski, ASLA, and her firm Studio Ludo to help develop the play strategy for the RiverFront and collaborate on its flagship playground. Talarowski is a landscape architect who specializes in designing for play, as well as a researcher and a certified playground safety inspector. Before schematic design began, Talarowski led meetings where people discussed their favorite ways to play. “A lot of it was not in park space,” Bassett remembers. This spawned interest in a playscape “that was not just off the shelf,” she says. THE PLAYSCAPE’S shape and size, around 14,000 square feet, was set by the adjacent event lawn. This initially presented challenges. “It’s so long and linear, it [was] hard to fit in use areas,” Talarowski says. So, the designers explored threedimensionally. They carved the ground plane and overlaid the “facet” —a deck with flat and sloped surfaces —and the arches. “Most playgrounds are planes…on which objects sit,” Talarowski says. “This is a volume.” To create this layered landscape, the designers worked mainly in 3D rather than plan, using Rhino, Grasshopper, and Lumion. Quick, fluid modes of sketching and physical modeling were also critical for thinking the design through. Initially, the upper layer was a tube in the sky, accessible F1-Omaha Playscapes FIN.indd 67 4/2/24
68 / LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE MAY 2024 JEFF DURKIN ABOVE Arches Playground is not just a surface with play structures; it has three interlocking layers. via two towers. But “everyone was like: ‘What happens if Timmy gets stuck up there?’” Elliott says. Studio Ludo used sketches and a conceptual model made of paper clips to rethink it. They pulled the tube to the ground at various points, so it leapt across the site, making it easier for adults to access and shortening the play loops children could take. At the urging of OJB partner Kyle Fiddelke, FASLA, they also refined the entrance so visitors could immediately slide down to the lower level. As the design progressed, the tubes became arches—and the arch became the visual signature of the playscape. It is even used for the infant swings. OJB used color to connect the arches to the larger mall—borrowing the bright orange from lampposts in the mall’s original design. The designers liked that the arch is abstract and doesn’t dictate a specific type of pretend play. “The pirate ship is prescriptive,” Elliott says. It only gives you the chance to be a pirate. Arches Playground “is a frame that kids can put their own play narratives on top of,” Talarowski says. “And what’s great about that is it will grow with them.” Talarowski says she learned how abstract environments may take on various roles in children’s pretend play by observing Richard Dattner’s adventure-style playgrounds. Making a playscape that serves adults—and not just children—was also a goal. “From all of our studies, half of the people in playgrounds are not kids,” Talarowski says. “They’re teens, adults, and seniors.” Arches Playground seeks to provide “invitations for everybody to move through play,” Talarowski says, “because it’s a lot more fun to get your exercise through play than at a gym.” The arches are scaled so an adult can get in. F1-Omaha Playscapes FIN.indd 68 4/2/2
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE MAY 2024 / 69 Arch Play Experience Structures Lower Play Experience Ground Plane STUDIO LUDO, TOP AND CENTER; COURTESY OJB, BOTTOM RIGHT A quick model made of paper clips and bits of paper was key in exploring how the upper layer could leap across the site. BELOW Studio Ludo’s handdrawn plan shows an early version of the arches concept. BOTTOM OJB’s digital modeling helped the designers refine the concept and fit the layers together more precisely. F1-Omaha Playscapes FIN.indd 69 4/2/24 5
70 / LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE MAY 2024 RIGHT Children run over the central facet in a zigzag pattern, using its sloped surfaces to propel themselves. For adults who don’t want to climb, the wire mesh that contains the arches is highly transparent. “You can see the kids doing everything inside,” Elliott says. “If someone’s scared, you can still talk them through it,” Talarowski says. The transparency also brings the energy of play to adjacent spaces. Seating for adults was provided throughout, on benches as well as bleachers made of Kansas limestone quarry blocks. “We really wanted it to feel midwestern,” Elliott says. The playscape is also fenced with a single entrance to aid supervision. “The last thing we want to do is have [a] story like ‘kids snatched at a playground,’” Elliott says. “So, every playground we do, there’s one way in and one way out.” “Simultaneous to that is being elegant in the way you design enclosure, so you don’t feel you’re in a cage,” Talarowski says. MILLICENT HARVEY, AFFILIATE ASLA F1-Omaha Playscapes FIN.indd 70 4/2/2
72 / LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE MAY 2024 COURTESY OJB Right-sizing risk—so there continue to be challenges as children grow— was also a major goal. Pointing to the low climber in the toddler area and the arches, Talarowski notes that they are at different scales and different levels of risk. “From [west to east] it gets harder…you’re getting higher, [it’s] scarier, and then you end up in the bouldering cave. So, it’s a very intentional risk-taking experience based on where you’re at.” The bouldering cave is also designed to provide different grades of challenge and risk, and to deter those not ready to take bigger risks from taking them. Its upper reaches tilt steeply so younger and less experienced climbers with less developed shoulder strength can’t climb very high—or fall very far, Talarowski says. In the past 15 years or so, we’ve seen a slow-moving renaissance in playground design—with many cities creating more artful and challenging playgrounds—especially in parks intended to be regional destinations. This was spurred, in part, by blogs, books, and museums that highlighted playgrounds of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. Meanwhile, the potential benefits of risk in children’s play environments has received attention from researchers including Ellen Sandseter and Mariana Brussoni. Talarowski entered that debate with two important research efforts, which have resulted in peer-reviewed articles. Her first study, conducted in London in 2015, led to an article coauthored with Deborah Cohen, Stephanie Williamson, and Bing Han of the Rand Corporation that appeared in Public Health. It showed 8 6 2 3 7 7 8 11 10 F1-Omaha Playscapes FIN.indd 72 4/2
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE MAY 2024 / 73 higher levels of physical activity in “innovative” playgrounds in London when compared to typical post-andplatform playgrounds in the United States. A follow-up study, published in 2023, looked at 60 playgrounds in the United States and was more carefully controlled. It also found higher levels of physical activity in innovative playgrounds. The innovative playgrounds they studied included at least three of the following qualities: “(a) a variety of surfacing types; (b) naturalized and planted areas installed specifically for play; (c) open-ended structures that do not dictate play sequences; (d) loose, movable equipment; (e) not comprised solely of the traditional post and platform structures; and (f) designed for multiple age groups, including adults and seniors.” Arches meets each of these criteria for “innovative” playgrounds to some degree. But it best exemplifies the imperatives for integrating multiple age groups and opportunities provided by open-ended structures. Many playgrounds have a clear directionality —climb up, walk, and slide down. Arches is “like a choose your own adventure playground,” Talarowski says. You can climb the arches in both directions and in different ways, using nets or rock-climbing grips that are alongside each other. On a tilted section of the facet, kids pull N 1 WEST PLAY ARCH 2 CLIMBING FACET 3 CLIMBING ROPES 4 CLIMBING WALL 5 PLAY TUNNEL 6 RETAINING WALL 7 RETAINING/STEM WALL 8 STONE TERRACE 9 EAST PLAY ARCH 10 MONUMENTAL ARCH 11 SLIDES 12 ADA COMMUNITY TABLE PLAN 0 30 60 90 1 1 5 4 4 7 7 8 8 8 8 8 9 12 11 9 F1-Omaha Playscapes FIN.indd 73 4/2/24 5
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LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE MAY 2024 / 75 DAN SCHWALM © 2023 HDR themselves up using ropes and then slide down the same surface. In the bouldering cave, you can start anywhere and take many different paths. And the rope forest has a myriad of ways to move through it, or shelter in it if you want to escape the action. Breaking with the traditional postand-platform structure is a key reason why the climbing experiences here—and in many new parks—are so exciting and immersive. Like the climbing towers that have become increasingly popular, the arches are contained with a wire mesh deemed unclimbable. And like rope pyramids, they use internal rope arms to prevent a direct fall from their highest point. These strategies allow climbing higher than the protective surfacing is graded for. Additionally, the arches only have protective surfacing and use zones at their exits, since this is the only place it is possible to fall to. This allows the integration of equipment and surfaces that have greater play value beneath them. Meanwhile, the arch form allows for integration into continuous play loops better than rope pyramids, which dead-end at the top. And the arches have greater multidirectionality and opportunities for choice than most climbing towers. Creating custom playground equipment can be challenging and requires a deep understanding of ASTM International’s playground equipment standards in ASTM F1487, the guidelines in the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s Public Playground Safety Handbook, and sometimes other linked standards. It was once very difficult to create innovative playground equipment that met standards. However, the two latest revisions of ASTM F1487 have changed that. Section 1.6.1 explains that where new types of playground equipment are not covered by existing standards, “the designer or manufacturer, or both, shall use professional judgment to perform and document a hazard analysis and follow appropriate requirements to mitigate the hazards.” LEFT Two tunnels sized large enough for adults link the rope forest to the climbing cave. ↘ F1-Omaha Playscapes FIN.indd 75 4/2/24 5:2
76 / LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE MAY 2024 DANIEL JOST, ASLA, PHOTO; COURTESY OJB, DRAWINGS CENTRAL FACET AXON EAST FACET/CLIMBING WALL SECTION ABOVE Nathan Elliott, ASLA, and Meghan Talarowski, ASLA, hang in the rope forest under the central facet. F1-Omaha Playscapes FIN.indd 76 4/2/2
COURTESY OJB WEST FACET AXON LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE MAY 2024 / 77
78 / LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE MAY 2024 COURTESY OJB, TOP; XXXXXXX, INSET PHOTO N TOP The playscape is part of the newly redesigned Gene Leahy Mall in downtown Omaha, which won an ASLA Professional Honor Award in 2023. INSET The playground’s largest arch being lifted into place. → An appendix to the standards includes examples of what’s called a hazard identification and risk assessment, or HIRA. When conducting a HIRA for a piece of playground equipment, you write down the benefits and the potential injury profiles. “We would try to understand: Where are bodies out of control?” Talarowski says. “Where are bodies potentially in conflict?” The construction drawings for the arches that appeared in the public bid set were drawn by Studio Ludo. The rest of the playscape’s construction drawings were drawn by OJB. Landscape Structures did its own analysis, made the final shop drawings for the playground equipment, and manufactured it. And then the structures were assessed by Talarowski and Tony Malkusak, an outside certified playground safety inspector, in the field. Tweaks were made based on how they performed in real life. WHILE I was initially skeptical the facet would afford much play, I see children running on it in a zigzag pattern, using its slopes to propel themselves from side to side. The different mix of hammocks and rope forests that function as obstacles at the top of the arches also encourage many different and unusual ways of moving. Ten-year-old Michael tells me these obstacles are what he likes most. “It makes it a little challenging,” he says. Moving through the obstacles is “different every time so you don’t know what’s gonna happen.” A slight difference in where you enter can completely change the experience. You can go over the rope mesh or crawl under it, step on the ropes, or step through the holes. GENE LEAHY MALL PLAN F1-Omaha Playscapes FIN.indd 78 4/2
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE MAY 2024 / 79 The artificial turf slope near the bouldering cave also attracts diverse movement. Kids roll and somersault down the hill, some head over feet, some sideways. I see one mother playing on the hill as well. “I liked that I could roll down the hill and be a kid,” she tells me afterward. Many parents compliment the way the playground serves children of different ages and abilities— including tweens and teens, who are rarely entertained by today’s playgrounds. Henderson is visiting with her sister and their five children, aged 1 to 8. “He likes to go over there to the rock climbing [area],” she says, pointing to her 8-year-old. “But my little one likes the sand pit.” Meanwhile, teens are enjoying themselves in the arches nearby. “I have 13-year-olds up there now, and they’re having fun,” a mother named Cassy says. “They go to the park down the street, but they don’t play on the playground.” The way the playground is fenced and contained is also admired by many parents. And it helps create affordances for independent play. Deacon Pickett, who is here with four grandchildren, leans against the fence next to the playscape’s entrance. “There’s only one exit, so you can just stand here without having to chase the kids all over the park,” he says. Samantha Seaton, visiting with her 7-year-old, does not find the challenging nature of the space unusual per se, just unusual for a free public park. “Most of the things that are here, you’d have to pay for at an adventure place or one of those indoor activity places,” she says. She gives Urban Air Adventure Park in Omaha as an example. It costs $25.99 for a child to climb there. It is striking how the systems that led to the sanitization of playgrounds have not led to the prohibition of risky play. Instead, they’ve made risky and challenging play a luxury. Arches makes it available to everyone. DURING HOT summer days, the playscape is most alive at night. Paul is visiting with his 5- and 8-yearold kids at 9:30 p.m. on a Friday. “The best thing about [Arches Playground] F1-Omaha Playscapes FIN.indd 79 4/2/24 5:
80 / LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE MAY 2024 DAN SCHWALM © 2023 HDR is you can hang around even [at] this time,” he says. There are still dozens of people here at 10:45, when management turns off the lights in the arches. They leave on dimmer lights under the facet. People continue to enter and leave the park until a little after 11:00, when two police officers walk through the playscape with flashlights drawn. “Park’s closed,” one says. “Y’all gotta go.” “Wait, mommy, I haven’t gone down that slide!” a girl shouts. “We’ll be back,” her mother says. DANIEL JOST, ASLA, IS A WRITER, RESEARCHER, DESIGNER, AND TEACHER AND IS A PHD CANDIDATE AT NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY. Project Credits DESIGN LEAD, LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE OJB LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE, SAN DIEGO. CONCEPT LEAD, PLAY AND RISK/SAFETY CONSULTANT STUDIO LUDO, PHILADELPHIA. PLAY STRUCTURE FABRICATION LANDSCAPE STRUCTURES INC, DELANO, MINNESOTA. SAFETY CONSULTANT TONY MALKUSAK, ROCHESTER, NEW YORK. CIVIL, STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING HDR, OMAHA, NEBRASKA. CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT KIEWIT, OMAHA, NEBRASKA. LIGHTING DESIGN ATELIER TEN, NEW YORK CITY. OPPOSITE The way the arches are contained allows them to pass over features not covered in protective surfacing. F1-Omaha Playscapes FIN.indd 80 4/2/
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82 / LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE MAY 2024 MADELINE GRAY I N 1993, Pollocksville, North Carolina, Mayor Jay Bender, who’s run the small town for more than 40 years, worked “like crazy” to convince the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to allow him to build on the Trent River. The river runs through Pollocksville, and at the turn of the 19th century, ferries and barges plied its busy waters. Now the town’s waterfront was overgrown and in disrepair, and Bender wanted to reopen river access. The corps, however, refused him permission to build there because it was a wetland. Not easily deterred, Bender contracted a group of prison inmates to cut back the vegetation until the riverside looked “like a golf course.” It was summer, hot, and it hadn’t rained in weeks. Bender called the corps and told them to come, quickly, and reinspect. “See?” he told them. It was bone-dry. They gave him the goahead. The city placed a historic train depot to serve as town hall on the spot, paved a parking lot, built a boat ramp, and called it Pollocksville Waterfront Park. RIGHT The Coastal Dynamics Design Lab (CDDL) helps small, rural communities recover from natural disasters. For each one, they’ve put together a floodprint to guide rebuilding efforts. F2-CoastalDynamics FIN.indd 82 4/3
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE MAY 2024 / 83 FOR FLOOD-RAVAGED NORTH CAROLINA TOWNS, THE COASTAL DYNAMICS DESIGN LAB OFFERS A WAY BACK FROM THE BRINK. BY IRINA ZHOROV
84 / LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE MAY 2024 MADELINE GRAY Then came Hurricane Floyd in 1999, Matthew in 2016, and Florence in 2018. Each brought floods and destruction. On a recent blustery afternoon, Bender visited the Waterfront Park, which was recently turned back into a constructed wetland, with a boardwalk and seating. Tufts of golden switchgrass and little bluestem glowed in the high noon sun and rustled in the sharp wind. He called it, cheekily, the “weed garden.” The wetland was built as part of a larger resilience plan put together by the Coastal Dynamics Design Lab (CDDL), a nonprofit staffed by landscape architects who work with small North Carolina towns on hazard reduction. The plan outlines both economic development and flood mitigation projects and has helped Pollocksville secure more than $4 million in grant funding to implement them. The ongoing work, and available dollars, are novel for a community with a population of around 300 people, and CDDL is ABOVE Pollocksville, North Carolina’s completed Waterfront Park will help protect the town from the now-frequent floods. F2-CoastalDynamics FIN.indd 84 4/3/24
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE MAY 2024 / 85 MADELINE GRAY re-creating Pollocksville’s success in other parts of rural North Carolina. “I think the typical way of thinking is let’s work out resiliency in big cities, or big regions. That does not trickle down to small places because it doesn’t deal with the capacity gap,” CDDL Director Andrew Fox, FASLA, says. “But if you can figure it out in a place that has very little, it scales up really easily.” The mayor still struggles with the “weed garden,” on which he signed off. But it’s growing on him. “We’re kind of the envy of other towns,” he says with a grin. THE COASTAL DYNAMICS DESIGN LAB was founded in 2013 by David Hill and Fox at North Carolina State University. They wanted to bring students in the architecture and landscape architecture programs into communities experiencing flooding and climate change–driven hazards, to get them thinking about how design, with its “elastic and agile” approach to problems, could contribute to recovery, adaptation, and mitigation work. They ran studios for their classes focusing, initially, on the coast, which in North Carolina has seen increased flooding over the past several decades. But when Hurricane Matthew hit in 2016, the most affected communities were those in the coastal plain, on shallow rivers prone to significant flash flooding. Hill and Fox started taking students more inland. CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT A high-water mark from Hurricane Floyd that was surpassed in 2018; the Trent River is Pollocksville’s greatest asset and liability; a view toward the town’s vulnerable businesses. F2-CoastalDynamics FIN.indd 85 4/3/24
86 / LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE MAY 2024 COASTAL DYNAMICS DESIGN LAB N Then another, even more destructive storm, Florence, hit in 2018. Together, Matthew and Florence caused $22 billion in damage in North Carolina, from which communities have yet to fully recuperate. Many of the affected municipalities are small, with volunteer governments and no funds to drive recovery. CDDL pivoted again. Rather than use the lab as a teaching tool for students, Fox turned it into an organization providing technical assistance to towns that may otherwise struggle to move forward. CDDL staff members still run a studio each spring and teach, but the six landscape architects now spend their days fully immersed in resilience planning for places like Pollocksville. They work at the neighborhood scale, filling the gap between major infrastructure projects and individual effort, and prioritize nature-based solutions. Aside from Fox’s salary, CDDL’s budget comes from philanthropy and grants, and they offer their services at no cost to the towns. At the center of their process is something they call a floodprint, a planning document meant to guide recovery. CDDL spends a year to a year and a half writing it; many of the places they work have experienced repeat traumas, so getting to know the community and building trust are key. “In an environment that can be either nonresponsive or technical, folks come in and dictate what things are; we are slower, we kind of let it marinate a little bit,” Fox says. Eventually, they distill what they learn and their own deep analysis into six to eight implementable proposals and invite citizens to vote on their favorites. They refine the top two to four into the final floodprint and start applying for grants. FLOOD VULNERABILITY: JONES COUNTY, NORTH CAROLINA ABOVE The planning process for Pollocksville’s floodprint included analysis of regional flood patterns. F2-CoastalDynamics FIN.indd 86 4/3/24
SMITH HARDY, TOP; COASTAL DYNAMICS DESIGN LAB, BOTTOM HURRICANE FLORENCE IMPACTS LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE MAY 2024 / 87 N LEFT Hurricane Florence flooded about half of all buildings in Pollocksville. BELOW CDDL identified 19 businesses and 69 homes that were below Florence’s high-water mark. F2-CoastalDynamics FIN.indd 87 4/3/24
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LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE MAY 2024 / 89 NATE POLO, RIGHT; COASTAL DYNAMICS DESIGN LAB, OPPOSITE Their promise to the places where they work is not just a plan, but assistance securing the money to realize it, too. To that end, the floodprint is written specifically to facilitate grant applications. Theoretically, even untrained administrators can copy and paste data and appropriate language into applications. Practically, grants can take years of active and technical correspondence before a dollar arrives, so CDDL usually shepherds grant applications through the complicated processes in-house. When the money starts coming in, CDDL takes on the role of an owner’s representative, helping to write RFQs and to choose design firms and contractors to take over from the lab’s renderings. They provide active management and continuity from vision to project completion, making sure the intent of the floodprint is upheld. VACANCY + OPEN SPACE ASSESSMENT LEFT AND OPPOSITE The floodprint team mapped flood vulnerability and looked at how building vacancy intersected with blocks susceptible to damage. BELOW CDDL prioritized community engagement in its research and sought input through surveys, presentations, and community meetings. N F2-CoastalDynamics FIN.indd 89 4/3/24 9:1
90 / LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE MAY 2024 COASTAL DYNAMICS DESIGN LAB CDDL has produced or is currently producing floodprints for 10 communities and has successfully guided them to nearly $13 million. (Another $20 million is in pending applications.) They continue studying potential new grants and finetuning their process into an increasingly turnkey, replicable one. Pollocksville has served as a proving ground. POLLOCKSVILLE is a tiny agricultural town that used to produce tobacco but now grows mostly corn and soybeans. Town Commissioner Nancy Barbee remembers it as a bustling place when she was growing up, with a Main Street full of businesses. “You didn’t have to go anywhere; we could get everything right there,” she says. Many people living there were generationally entrenched, with strong connections to the place. “Some of the same families lived here forever,” Bender says. But by the 1990s, when Bender was eyeing the dilapidated waterfront, Barbee says young people were taking jobs elsewhere and businesses were shuttering. A bypass on nearby Highway 17 was proposed—and eventually built—further isolating the community. Town leaders started thinking about how to reinvent the sleepy enclave, with a focus on the river. VOLUNTARY BUYOUT OPPORTUNITIES F2-CoastalDynamics FIN.indd 90 4/3/2
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE MAY 2024 / 91 COASTAL DYNAMICS DESIGN LAB ABOVE Owners of property in the new flood zone can choose to sell it through a government buyout program. RIGHT When a property becomes part of the buyout program, several options are provided and prohibited. OUTDOOR RECREATION + Adjacent to the Trent River or Protected Lands, or + Adjacent to Main Street Commercial District, or + Near Points of Access (e.g., boat, vehicular, biking, walking) BUFFER ZONE + Adjacent to the Trent River or Protected Lands, or + Between Potential Conflicts (e.g., busy roads and Residential) MANAGED WETLANDS + Adjacent to the Trent River or Protected Lands, or + Adjacent to Main Street Commercial District, or + Within a High-Frequency Flood Area (e.g., 1-Year Floodplain) UNPAVED PARKING + Adjacent to Main Street Commercial District, or + Near Points of Access (e.g., boat, vehicular, biking, walking) MOST SUITABLE LEAST SUITABLE ALLOWABLE USES OF BUYOUT PROPERTIES NATURE RESERVE + Adjacent to the Trent River or Protected Lands, and + Minimum Size of 1 Acre, and + Not Adjacent to Potential Conflicts (e.g., busy roads) CAMPGROUND + Adjacent to the Trent River or Protected Lands, and + Minimum Size of 1/2 Acre, and + Not Adjacent to Residential Land Use GRAZING + Not Adjacent to the Trent River or Protected Lands, and + Minimum Size of 2 Acres, and + Not Adjacent to Residential Land Use CULTIVATION + Minimum 50% Land Cover without Tree Canopy, and + Low Probability of Soil Contamination, and + Disconnected Parcels (e.g., small-scale operations) F2-CoastalDynamics FIN.indd 91 4/3/24 9:1
92 / LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE MAY 2024 COASTAL DYNAMICS DESIGN LAB OPTION A: FRONT PORCH/BACK DECK OPTION B: RIVER & REVITALIZATION
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE MAY 2024 / 93 “The Trent River is our greatest asset,” Bender says. “It’s beautiful.” The Trent meanders north until it meets the Neuse River, which flows out into the Pamlico Sound on the coast. Around Pollocksville, it’s wide, inky dark, and usually calm. Locals have long fished it, and the nearby forests attracted hunters. The mayor and commissioners imagined remarketing Pollocksville as “the gateway to nature.” “We had the vision of creating an area where people would come for walking, riding their bikes, hunting, fishing, all kinds of sports, baseball,” Barbee says. Floyd, in 1999, and Matthew, in 2016, showed the river’s other, tumultuous side. But when Florence hit in 2018, Pollocksville had a real reckoning. The storm surge rose nearly 21 feet, submerging all of the town hall but its roof. The mayor’s first glimpse of the building post-storm was from a boat, on the street. Florence flooded some 75 structures, about half the total buildings, including every single town commissioner’s residence. The town wasn’t in a flood zone, according to official maps, so no one had flood insurance. In addition to Pollocksville’s greatest asset, Bender started thinking of the river as its greatest liability, too. He and the commissioners realized that the plan they’d started devising to remake Pollocksville would have to be reconsidered in scope. “Because all of a sudden, the plan wasn’t to reimagine, but it was to rebuild and reimagine,” Bender says. “And reimagine in a resilient manner.” Consultants offered to write a new plan but quoted them a fee of $20,000. Bender says for a town with an annual budget of less than $600,000, including water and sewer operation, that was impossible. And that wouldn’t cover actually fulfilling any of the projects. Then a woman who grew up in Pollocksville and had a connection to the university approached CDDL and told them her hometown needed help. Could they take a look? OPPOSITE Residents voted on which options they liked best, and the winners were incorporated into the final floodprint. “I REMEMBER DRIVING HOME AFTER THAT FEELING SO ELATED, LIKE WE’VE ARRIVED AT CONSENSUS.” —TRAVIS KLONDIKE, ASLA F2-CoastalDynamics FIN.indd 93 4/3/24
94 / LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE MAY 2024 TRAVIS KLONDIKE, ASLA, TOP LEFT; LESLIE BARTLEBAUGH, ASLA, BOTTOM CDDL ARRIVED in Pollocksville in 2019. Today, Pollocksville’s population is poorer and older than the North Carolina average. There’s just one operational business on Main Street, a restaurant with limited hours. But most of the families that had flooded had chosen to stay, and the town’s leadership was eager to rebuild better. “The attitude was almost, ‘We’ll try anything,’” Bender says. CDDL studied the previous plans, to understand what the residents wanted, and assembled geospatial data to see if their desires conflicted with vulnerabilities in town. They sought input through mail surveys and public meetings, putting in the time to hear people’s concerns. “That was the main thing,” Barbee says. “They listened. And they took what we wanted and made it feasible and made it make sense.” CDDL mocked up two plans with eight different land-use proposals. They incorporated ideas from the town’s previous plan but introduced resilience. If a project could be tweaked to better meet a specific grant’s requirements, they suggested that, too. “Knowing that the end game is typically to attract external resources to fund the projects, we baked that in early in the process,” says Travis Klondike, ASLA, the associate director of CDDL. “Everything from the beginning is with that in mind.” LEFT AND BELOW The town hall was moved from Waterfront Park after Hurricane Florence. In its place was installed a wetland that the mayor cheekily calls the “weed garden.” F2-CoastalDynamics FIN.indd 94 4/3/2
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE MAY 2024 / 95 On the day residents were to vote on their favorite proposals, in February 2021, Waterfront Park, where they had planned to meet, flooded. “I remember that being ironic, because we had just finished modeling work that said that this park will flood on an annual basis,” Klondike says. They postponed for a week. When they finally gathered, more than 60 people showed, about a fifth of the total population. Each person received a bag with four pushpins, and they placed them on the projects they most wanted to see materialize. “I remember driving home after that feeling so elated, just feeling like we’ve arrived at a point that was at consensus and having that be an important moment,” Klondike says. “THE ATTITUDE WAS ALMOST, ‘WE’LL TRY ANYTHING.’” —JAY BENDER F2-CoastalDynamics FIN.indd 95 4/3/24 9
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LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE MAY 2024 / 97 TRAVIS KLONDIKE, ASLA, TOP AND OPPOSITE The final floodprint sketched out green space, including an event lawn, on lots eligible for a voluntary buyout program; the remaking of Main Street with bike lanes, sidewalks, and bioretention ponds, to absorb nuisance flooding; elevation and floodproofing of commercial properties; and the conversion of the riverside lot where the town hall had stood into wetland. (After Florence, Pollocksville had used Federal Emergency Management Agency [FEMA] and state dollars to move the historic building farther away from the river and remodeled it, leaving an empty scar on the land.) Before the plan had been officially adopted, CDDL applied for a state grant to build the wetland. Klondike happened to be in town the day the mayor got the call that Pollocksville had been selected to receive the money. “He came up so proud,” Klondike says. “He was peacocking at the park, and he had the biggest grin on his face.” The “weed garden,” as Bender now calls it, won’t stop flooding from another 1,000-year storm like Florence, but it will help with smaller storm events that the waterfront is predicted to see annually. Since the plan’s adoption in the summer of 2021, Pollocksville has also redone Main Street, has been selected for a federal FEMA Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) grant to elevate business district properties, and is waiting to see which property owners choose buyouts before initiating planning on the event lawn and green space. Aside from unrelated grants to build and fix sewer and water infrastructure, the OPPOSITE Naturalized solutions, such as wetlands and meadows, introduce resilience against expected annual flooding. RIGHT Signage at the Waterfront Park shows which plants went in to make up the native landscape. F2-CoastalDynamics FIN.indd 97 4/3/24
98 / LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE MAY 2024 IRINA ZHOROV $4.4 million for these projects has been the biggest influx of money the city has ever seen, and the most updating it has done, too. In parallel, private individuals are also elevating and fixing up properties, both efforts bolstering one another. CDDL continues to actively manage Pollocksville’s progress. On the day I visited, Klondike conducted a walk-through with the construction crew before they wrapped the Main Street work. The BRIC federal money is still en route, so he’s also communicating with FEMA. The buyouts could take some time, too. Pollocksville is depending on CDDL to see everything through. “We would just die if CDDL left,” Barbee says. CDDL is still involved in some capacity in every community where they’ve produced a floodprint, and they’ve started planning in four new communities, too. Their presence provides reliable technical expertise and continuity through what is often a fractured process. But there are limits to what it can take on. “At some point, for really building capacity, we need to be able to step away from the communities,” Fox says. “Truly building capacity is not building projects but building human capital.” Stepping away has been harder to figure out. They’re training students, who may go on to replicate at least some version of the CDDL’s work. (All the employees at the lab, except Fox, are graduates of the North Carolina State University landscape architecture program.) Fox says they’re also constantly fielding inquiries from practitioners interested in their approach: How can we ABOVE Andrew Fox, FASLA, and Travis Klondike, ASLA, from CDDL at the new wetland installation in Pollocksville. “LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS CAN DEAL WITH THE COMPLEXITY THAT CLIMATE-BASED WORK REQUIRES.” —ANDREW FOX, FASLA F2-CoastalDynamics FIN.indd 98 4/3/2