Landscape Lecture

Wednesday, February 15, 2017 | 4:00 – 5:00 p.m.
Cook/Douglass Lecture Hall, Room 110, Cook Campus
DR. ULI PAETZE
Emschergenossenschaft and Lippeverband
“The Silent Revolution – Transforming Germany‘s Industrial Heart via Water Management”

Maker Park at Bushwick Inlet

It seems that each potential post-industrial park has to be debated again as if it were the first. Hence, the NYTimes coverage of the proposed Maker Park at Bushwick Inlet.

(Naturally, I don't mean that all of these parks should be slam dunks either. Each new park is its own park. It just seems like the coverage never recognizes that these are advancing a collective idea over time.)

Panel on Post-industrial Public Landscapes

Rutgers University - Landscape Architecture Common Lecture
Wednesday, April 27, 2016
4:00 – 5:30 p.m.
Loree Building - Auditorium 022, Cook Campus (click for Rutgers Map)

As part of common lecture series, the folks from the Forest Service, NYC Parks and CUNY who have been part of the Freshkills Park and the folks from Rutgers and Montclair State University, who have worked on Liberty State Park will be available to talk from 2-4 before the presentation in Room 148, Blake Hall.

Parking for visitors will be in Lot 87 at Blake Hall. It’s just a short walk to the Loree Building – right along Red Oak Lane.

Friday Fotos: Postindustrial

With a long weekend ahead, I thought I should post an extra long photoset. On Wednesday, Dr. Wolfram Hoefer talked with  our students about the post industrial landscapes of Germany's Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord (mapped). This is an old industrial site that has been converted into a pretty amazing park.  The design by Latz + Partner is both an icon of brownfields redevelopment and contemporary landscape architecture.Although my photos are from a cloudy day, they give a sense of the large post-industrial site.

Many more photos after the break...

Turning brownfilds into creative commons

Check out this great example from Providence, Rhode Island of how brownfields can become more than just a park.

Brownfields

In the final minutes of the final lecture, I mentioned brownfields as a trendy topic in environmental planning.  Here are a few extra resources on that:

• The NJ DEP FAQ on Brownfields
• The EPA Brownfields program 
• Dr. Wolfram Hoefer had his students redesign the old Hackensack Waterworks
• Rutgers' National Center for Brownfields and Neighborhood Redevelopment
• Or look at my photos of the Duisburg Nord Landscape Park

Best post-industrial proposal of the year?

Not really a year-end wrap-up, but Charles Jenks' artistic use of a slag heap is one of the more unique post-industrial projects that has been proposed in recent memory.

Blogging the dark side of the Garden State

Wolfram Hoefer, this afternoon's speaker, has co-authored part of a recent blog post on the Dodge Foundation's Blog. 

Duisburg: Details and Fun

Part of the amazing thing thing about Emscher Park, or Duisburg-Nord Landscape Park, is that while the park is so large, it is filled with little details. Latz and Latz seemed especially able to turn even a small lip of a wall or a hidden space into something special.

They even turned some spare bricks into a moss garden.

The indoor spaces are just as lively and memorable, and certainly quite usable.

And the park turns bleak industrial walls and spaces into play areas and climbing walls.

Duisburg: The Big Picture

Although I had seen lots of photos of Landschaftspark Duisburg Nord, I had never quite cognized its grand scale. So I doubt my photos will change it for our dear readers. But, today's part 2 on the park offers photos that mostly show large areas, especially from the viewing areas atop the blast furnace.

Duisburg: Tour

One of the highlights of attending CELA 2010 was a visit to Germany's Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord (mapped).This is an old industrial site that has been converted into a pretty amazing park.  The design by Latz + Partner is both an icon of brownfields redevelopment and contemporary landscape architecture. 

Our tour was led by Peter and Anneliese Latz. Here is a picture of Anneliese talking to our group.

The facilities here were huge.  I have sen plenty of photos before, but never realized just how large the structures themselves were.  Below you can see the group walking through a cut in one of the walls. 

The design capitalizes on the spaces and forms of the existing structures and uses them as inspiration for creating exceptional new spaces for visitors to experience.

The park is large enough that you have to explore for quite a while. And the buildings are large enough that at any moment, you usually don't have a good view of the site.

Even the settling pits that were cleaned up (above) have been turned into spaces for humans. The others (below) are planted up for viewing and bioremediation.

This is the first of 3 photosets.