Showing posts with label Seattle Food Forest. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Seattle Food Forest. Show all posts

Friday, March 13, 2015

Forests in City Architecture

By Liliana Usvat
Blog 306-365













A forest planted by humans, then left to nature’s own devices, typically takes at least 100 years to mature.

Deforestation is actively destroying about 13 million hectares (32 million acres) of forest every year. The biggest, most valuable trees are logged for timber. Often the smaller, less valuable trees are left remaining… for a while. 

We need to do something about it.

Toronto Canada

For decades, legions of city planners and landscape architects have treated trees as mere decorations, or worse, removed trees altogether to make way for more glass and concrete, manicured lawns and decorative flowerbeds.

But those old attitudes are changing. Today,city planning bureaus around the world are making room for urban foresters, and experts are playing a key role in multidisciplinary teams of city planners, landscape architects, engineers, developers, geographers and sociologists.

Urban forests combat air and water pollution, they reduce water runoff, and they provide shade and protection. 

 What type of trees should be planted, and where? How large will they grow, and how long will they live?

Native city trees contained 25 times more bird and insect activity than their non- native counterparts.


On March 23rd and 24th, 2011 over 210 delegates from 16 countries gathered for the first Global Greenbelts Conference in Toronto, Canada. Delegates identified universal and well-established benefits to people who live and work in all greenbelts and surrounding communities. The result: a call to action to establish an International Greenbelt Network. The Network will maximize greenbelt benefits, and protect and expand their boundaries. 

Chile
















If there's any power in design, that's the power of synthesis. The more complex the problem, the more the need for simplicity.


Chile, in 2010, was hit by an 8.8 Richter scale earthquake and tsunami, and architects were called to work in the reconstruction of the Constitución, in the southern part of the country. They were given 100 days, three months, to design almost everything, from public buildings to public space, street grid, transportation, housing, and mainly how to protect the city against future tsunamis. 










Here are some ideas that they came up with:
  • What if, in between the city and the sea we have a forest, a forest that doesn't try to resist the energy of nature, but dissipates it by introducing friction? 
  • A forest that may be able to laminate the water and prevent the flooding? 
  • That may pay the historical debt of public space,and that may provide, finally, democratic access to the river. 
  • So as a conclusion of the participatory design, the alternative was validated politically and socially, but there was still the problem of the cost: 48 million dollars. 
  • So survey in the public investment system,  found out that there were three ministries with three projects in the exact same place, not knowing of the existence of the other projects. The sum of them: 52 million dollars. So design's power of synthesis is trying to make a more efficient use of the scarcest resource in cities, which is not money but coordination. By doing so,  the forest is today under construction.

Seattle USA

Forest in the midst of a turbulent, roaring city; it sounds like something from an amazing dream, but in Seattle it soon will be quite real. With the self-sustaining Food Forest, Seattle is bringing urban agriculture to a higher level, by creating a place where anyone and everyone can go to harvest fruits and vegetables for free.

The city decided to turn a seven-acre plot of land in the city’s Beacon Hill neighbourhood into an enormous food forest. The forest will contain all sorts of edibles; from apples to herbs and walnut trees. Even more exotic fruits won’t be excluded: pineapples or guaves, they will be there. All of this wll be available for free plucking to everyone that takes a stroll through the forest.
UK

The garden city movement is a method of urban planning that was initiated in 1898 by Sir Ebenezer Howard in the United Kingdom. Garden cities were intended to be planned, self-contained communities surrounded by "greenbelts", containing proportionate areas, of residences, industry and agriculture.


Vietnam

300 Year Old Food Forest in Vietnam, A Families 28 Generation Old Food Forest That Provides Everything They Need All-Year-Round

Ideas for Reforestation

Halt deforestation, save the remaining trees and use them to shade and protect new food producing trees. Gradually introduce fruit and nuts trees and other beneficial plants such as bamboo and medicinal trees. Land like this is abundant worldwide. In some area it’s cheap enough every one can afford it.


Ideas under consideration for 1 hectare (108,000 sq. ft. = area 328’x328’): 
  • drill a well and build a pump house; 
  • plant a living fence around the perimeter to keep out neighbor’s cattle (build at least one gate for access); 
  • grind up some of the least desirable trees for wood chip mulch; 
  • save nitrogen fixing trees and any other useful trees; 
  • run pigs through the area to fertilize the soil; 
  • start a giant compost pile using local organic matter; 
  • make ‘hugelkulture swales’ to slow runoff; 
  • start planting some new fruit trees right before the rainy season and after the pigs are removed; 
  • cover the area with nitrogen fixing groundcovers and straw and wood chips to suppress the weeds; 
  • run drip irrigation to each new tree after the rainy season; 
  • add compost around new trees and make a new compost pile each year;
  •  gradually replace lesser value trees with more beneficial trees and plants over the next 2-3 years as time and finances allow.


Links

https://www.ted.com/talks/alejandro_aravena_my_architectural_philosophy_bring_the_community_into_the_process/transcript?language=en

http://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/greenbelt/pages/261/attachments/original/1395758222/Toronto_Declaration_for_Global_Greenbelts_FINAL.pdf?1395758222
http://www.naturalbuildingblog.com/transition-forest-gardens/
http://tv.naturalnews.com/v.asp?v=778FCADEFE5591AE1DA3F1177108B978