Contextualizing Green Infrastructure Practices to Realize the Connections between Community, Environment, Health, Work and

Food

Tobiah Horton Assistant Professor and Extension Specialist in Landscape Architecture

Partners: RULA Newark Design/Build Studio, Spring 2015

Community Partner: It Takes a Village, Inc. Rutgers Water Resources Program

USEPA/NJDEP 319(h) Grant: “Green Infrastructure for Environmental Justice in Newark”

Newark Community Solutions – Judge Pratt’s Alternative Incarceration Program

Springfield Administration, DPW and Board of Education

Summit Administration, Environmental Commission and Free Library NWFW: National Fish and Wildlife Foundation

Hillsborough Administration and Parks Department

Goals Move beyond the adaptation phase (Green Infrastructure as biological treatment insertion into Grey Infrastructure) Into more ambitious scaled and linked projects that, for example: 1. Visually engage the public and the real estate market as

the aesthetic/economic sign of innovation. (image) 2. Integrate stormwater management with general

circulation (access and structuring change) 3. Link spatial uses and experience (site uses and

connections to neighborhoods, destinations – e.g. an environmental resource)

Goals 1. Visually engage both the public and the real estate market as the aesthetic/economic sign of innovation. (image)

– Integrate and push beyond ‘foundation planting’ towards new

building landscapes that speak of sustainability – Reformulate the buildings’ landscape to emphasize “the building

in a landscape context” rather than “decorative planting adorning an independent building”

– Adapt garden aesthetics to appeal to residential clients Springfield Municipal Buildings and Schools Case Studies Rahway Residential Rain Gardens Case Study

Landscape Architecture and Extension

Landscape Architecture and Extension

Springfield, NJ

Landscape Architecture and Extension

Coastal Plain Piedmont Ridge and Valley Highlands

Landscape Architecture and Extension

"The rain garden area built at Rutgers Nursery was most appreciated by small children. They love the rocks, the boulders, and all the beautiful plantings, and of course they had lots of fun too! For more information please contact us info@RutgersLN.com . I do know that our Rutgers Landscape Design team have used these design concepts when the site conditions warranted it, and I recall one in particular last summer used by Chris Lentini, Rutgers Landscape Designer. Chris's design was a rain garden between a patio and swimming pool area that had a unique drainage issue. I believe the design Chris created took advantage of the existing site conditions and made great use of an otherwise unusable space, while creating a very attractive visual for the client's garden.“ – Jim Brophy, Owner of Rutgers Landscape Nursery

Goals 2. Integrate stormwater management with general circulation (access)

– Connect garden to adjacent spaces including plaza and interior of building,

through window/views – Invite people into the garden with path and seating – Initiate open space trail system with pilot walking path through garden – Extend garden into plaza through tree planting – Hillsborough Municipal Complex Case Study

Hillsborough Municipal Complex, NJ

Concept Rendering (by author)

Goals 3. Link spatial uses and experience (connection and program)

– Strategy: Use the materiality of the garden to reveal and strengthen

connections with the adjacent neighborhood – Ujimaa Garden, Central Ward, Newark Case Study

Partly funded by a US-EPA/NJDEP Green Infrastructure for Environmental Justice Grant

Collage Panorama “Before”

Collage Panorama “After”

The Ujimaa Garden, Newark, NJ

Ujimaa Garden - Urban Metabolism Partner: It Takes a Village, Inc. “In biological ecosystems, metabolic efficiency and particularly recycling are made possible by the physical proximity of producers and decomposers, thus minimizing energy losses in material transport.” - MacDonald, Patterson (2007) Bridging the divide in urban sustainability: from human

exceptionalism to the new ecological paradigm, 183

Systems connecting the garden to the neighborhood: - water watershed - food, biomass and soils food shed - building materials material shed - social life and space … - knowledge …

Water

- Capture at the downspout, redirect for harvest/use/infiltration - Use water (and stormwater funding) as catalyst for linking

together environmental, social and economic benefits - Analyze micro water- and sewersheds to understand potential

impact of a site relative to a catchment area (general strategy for all materials)

*Watershed/Sewer-shed

*Soil-shed *Food-shed *Material-shed *Culture-shed

Map Analysis Strategy

All images by Rutgers and It Takes a Village, Inc.

Demonstrating the bioswale and rain garden functioning, the local fire station provided water at the May community build and barbecue. Integrating green infrastructure in the forms of water capture, reuse and infiltration provides needed water to the gardeners while reducing flows to the overburdened sewer system.

Knowledge Cycles – Consider the flow and preservation of community knowledge to redefine a possibly linear flow of loss, into a cycle of sharing that comes from place and its cultures

Recap Move beyond the adaptation phase (Green Infrastructure as biological treatment insertion into Grey Infrastructure)

Create an identity for Green Infrastructure that is (relatively) independent of Grey Infrastructure – such that it may: – be catalytic for integrating mitigation/productive/wild landscapes

with urban experience – challenge our notions of interacting with public/school landscapes – redefine the building – landscape relationship – become part of our ecological accounting of landscape – helping

people to understanding the ‘services of nature’

Future Steps Move beyond the adaptation phase

Move beyond the instrumentalist idea Move beyond the limited problem-solving focus

Strategies for “Structural Green Infrastructure”

– Link discrete GI projects into networks/corridors/scaled systems – Use green infrastructure as the urban planning backbone or spine

for substantial near future changes (rather than, or in addition to streets and developments)

Future Steps Move beyond the adaptation phase

Move beyond the instrumentalist idea Move beyond the limited problem-solving focus

Strategies for “Structural Green Infrastructure”

Opportunity areas:

• Aging infrastructure replacement • Shrinking Cities • Growing Cities – redevelopment zones • Reintegrating abandoned parts of neighborhoods • Riparian/coastal areas affected by climate change

Tobiah Horton Assistant Professor and Extension Specialist in

Landscape Architecture tobiah.horton@rutgers.edu