Fantastic spotlight phenomenon.

Kansas City’s moment in the spotlight has come and gone, so to speak. Starting at dusk last Friday, Sans Facon unveiled their “spectacle meets surveillance” piece at the intersection of 20th Street and Main. Two theatrical spotlights created an oval of brilliant light on the sidewalk, in stark contrast to the surrounding darkness. For five hours Kansas Citians were able to experience “Limelight”, and as hoped, the project showed how innocuous urban elements like streetlights can become much more than utilitarian in the right hands.

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//MOVES//MINES//EXTRACTS//SHOVELS//BURNS//WASTES//PUMPS//DISPOSES//
MANAGES//COVERS//REIMAGINES//REMEDIATES//PROMOTES//ENJOYS//EXCITES
//INSPIRES//SCATTERS//

Inspired by Natural Capitalism (by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins and Hunter Lovins) and New York City’s Department of Parks and Recreation Community Tour of Fresh Kills Park (formerly Fresh Kills Landfill and toxic neighbor of Staten Islanders).

On a recent tour to Fresh Kills Park, formerly Fresh Kills Landfill, I began to wonder more about the deposit of such day-to-day waste items and the form they take in the environment. The language developing around this project is powerful as it converts the landscape from a landfill to a park. I want to understand what it means when a landfill becomes a park; when a wasteland becomes a wilderness.

The history of this site won’t surprise you. Fresh Kills is situated on about 2200 acres on Staten Island and has in its archives a collection of stories of colonial settlement, city planning and public distrust. When it first opened, the landfill complex was a model for disposing of refuse in an “efficient, sanitary and unobjectionable manner”. (“Landfill to Landscape” 19)  The marshy wetlands of Fresh Kills were considered unusable land, unusable for agricultural purposes and serving as mosquito breeding grounds. These characteristics made it perfect candidate for an engineering project such as a landfill. And in 1948, Robert Moses, a powerful and legendary city planner, parks commissioner, and waste disposal visionary laid down plans for Fresh Kills.

Fresh Kills was not unlike many of its landfill peers in that it existed within a world of meticulously engineered waste flows. Landfill operations are a highly engineered process of managing the different complex components of the site, from the compression–caused by the weight of the garbage heaps–to the breakdown of the materials. Even the most well-managed and tightly controlled landfill sites can pose a significant threat of future contamination. Fresh Kills suffered from an array of environmental and other public health concerns even before its last garbage barge in 2001.

Liquids, such as leachates, seep hazardous waste and contaminate ground water. Moreover, toxic air pollutants are released, dispersing chemical dust and emanating terrible poisonous odors. After Fresh Kill’s closing, it is anticipated that it will be a minimum of thirty years before decomposition of the garbage is complete, associated gas production and settlement cease, and leachate is drained from the site. “While these processes are occurring, there will be a continuing need for regular maintenance, monitoring and evaluation of the site and systems that have been put into place. It is essential that access to these systems be preserved during this time to inspect, maintain and repair them.” (“Landfill to Landscape” 25)

Standing on the North Mound at the Fresh Kills Park, I can see a picturesque view of the Manhattan skyline, the New Jersey border, nearby Staten Island neighbors and the capping of another garbage mound in-progress. Any properly retired landfill needs to be covered, or capped, in a manner that manages its long-term integrity or durability. Capping is a very costly process consisting of adding layers of dirt, synthetic material, off-gassing systems and a final topsoil hospitable to native vegetation. Proper caps “prevent erosion, promote surface water drainage, and separating the refuse layer from the environment to protect public health, as well as, capturing and preventing the emission of air polluting gases.” (“Landfill to Landscape” 22)

From the North Mound, I can also see methane wells dotting the landscape, one per acre. Another part of the capping process, is the installation of a system of pipes that allows for the active collection of methane from the anaerobic composting deep inside the mound. The gas can be processed into pipline quality and can be used to provide fuel to homes. (“Landfill to Landscape” 23) These gas wells supply the local residents with energy. Fresh Kills Park harvests methane and sells it to National Grid; which then sells the energy made from the methane back to residents of Staten Island in the form of fuel for cooking and heating homes.

Enter the New York Department of Parks and Recreation and landscape architecture firm, Field Operations. Together they have developed and begun to implement a plan for the retired landfill site. The design solution simply overlays a park onto the site. Reclamation plans for the space surpass to Central Park in size, estimating it to be 2.7 times larger. It is certainly not the first landfill-to-park project in the world, but perhaps it is the scope of the project that has garnered so much attention. New York Department of Parks and Recreation and Field Operations plan will build out segments of the park over the next thirty years. It seems that this will allow for both maintenance and ongoing management of the garbage, while providing much needed green space for New York City residents. Aside from finalizing the construction of the landfil cover of the waste, development will focus on promotion and public access to some of the more unusual combinations of natural and engineered beauty. Plans estimate that even as soon as two years, there will be parts of the park open for visitors.

If the wilderness returns, the people will return. The area around Fresh Kills will now host various studies of natural systems, such as geology, soils, hydrology and plant and wildlife habitats including natural areas combined with a complex network of residential, commercial and industrial zones. Development for Fresh Kills Park also plans for the establishment of native habitats, creation of biodiversity and areas of visual interest. Some examples of the proposed environmental remediation of the site include techniques that enhancing wildlife habitat such as utilizing native, noninvasive plant species, and employing experimental management practices that minimize the effects of ongoing site use on the surrounding natural environment. (“Landfill to Landscape” 17)

Residents of New York can now re-imagine Fresh Kill Park as a wilderness refuge, at least on the surface.  Fresh Kills will be a wonderous combination of modified landscapes and habitats for urbanites enjoyment, a wilderness playground. It will be a network of greenspaces. Some areas unable to be developed with buildings or roads and have limited human and domesticated animal occupancy, can merely “provide corridors for wildlife and plant species to cross, linking (to the) richer habitats.” (“Landfill to Landscape” 18) As visitors we may not know the difference between the modified and the richer areas. What we will see will only be what can survive on the surface, the imported topsoil and replanted native vegetation. What we wont see, and probably will forget, is that the ground underneath will not be able to support wildlife for years, if ever. The site will always have to be constantly maintained to support the illusion of rehabilitation.

The Wilderness Act of 1964 describes wilderness as a contrast to manufactured nature. Wilderness is a place “recognized as an area where the earth and community of life are untrammeled by man”, a place “where man himself is a visitor who does not remain”. Many landscapes that we may encounter in a postindustrial era  such as landfill remediation programs may often take their inspiration from the idea of wilderness. “Designers may more and more often explore new relationships between artifice and nature by sculpting new topographies that are inspired by natural environments.” (“Groundswell” 16) The designers themselves may be offering through their “creativity changing aesthetic sensibilities and attitudes toward these natural and man-made environments.” (“Groundswell” 16)

In addition to visionaries, the future of landfill landscapes like Fresh Kills Park will need stewards. They will need teams of people excited about the experimental possibilities of reclaiming an urban space. They will need savvy graduate students excited about creating new types of plants to grow on the surface. They will need security to protect the resources that lie contained underneath. They will need ethically minded administrative individuals to help mediate relationships between communities and the commercial involvement of energy suppliers. They will need a community of neighbors.

I do hope that there can be a positive relationship between the Fresh Kills Park and the neighboring community.  Paul Hawkin, Amory Lovins, and L. Hunter Lovins expressed the bottom line in Natural Capitalism in these terms “a society that wastes its resources wastes its people and vice versa. Both kinds of waste are expensive. We cannot by any means (monetarily, governmentally, or charitably) create a sense of value and dignity in people’s lives when we are simultaneously creating a society that clearly has no need for them.” (“Natural” 55) I am left questioning the long-term goals of this project. Is the thirty years mentioned by both parties interested in containments and development the end of the vision? How are the responsibilities of maintenance handed off to future generations to manage?  Where will this leave the residents around Fresh Kills Park?

Is the intention to protect the land’s pureness from human degradation the same as to protect the land because it is so damaged and fragile from human degradation that it is now dangerous? Is communicating that this is a “park”, disguising what it really is? To me, it is not a park but something slightly different and that along with its not-so-park-like-characteristics if it may need a different approach. In a way, Fresh Kills is again a model. It is also an interesting test, an ongoing experiment and a hint of the waves of transformations to come.

Bibliography

The City of New York’s Mayor Office. Fresh Kills: Landfill to Landscape. International Design Competition. New York. 2001. http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/pdf/fkl/about_fkl.pdf

Hawkin, Paul, Amory Lovins, and L. Hunter Lovins. Natural Capitalism. New York: Hatchet Book Group, 1999.

Galison, Peter L. The John McDonald Moore Lecture: Peter L. Galison. Parsons School of Design, New York. 20 Oct  2010.

The New York Department of State. Fresh Perspectives. Freshkill Park Newsletter. Spring/Summer 2010.  http://www.nyc.gov/parks/freshkillspark.

The New York Department of State. Site Tour Guide. Freshkill Park Newsletter. Spring/Summer 2010.  http://www.nyc.gov/parks/freshkillspark.

Reed, Peter. Groundswell: Constructing the Contemporary Landscape. New York: The Museum of Modern Art. 2005

“Wilderness Act”. Wikipedia. 20 Oct 2010. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilderness_Act

from The Second Self
Sherry Turkle

parkour motion reel from saggyarmpit on Vimeo.

A few years ago there was a popular interest in contemporary ruins, specifically dead malls. I saw numerous malls from my childhood leveled in the interest of urban planning. Rising in their ashes were the likes of new urbanism and mixed use suburban-urban city centers. I was interning at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver (MCA Denver) in 2003 when they opened the group show “Elegy: Contemporary Ruins.” Ron Pollard, an architectural photographer, exhibited a series of inkjet images of Cinderella City, an aging mall located in the suburbs south of Denver. The tragedy of this 30-year old mall was that it solicited “no protests demanding rehabilitation, no pleas for a face lift, no mourners.” Soon after, it too was demolished.

Recently, I attended a lecture at SVA in which an NYC urban planning and advocacy group named Interboro presented many projects and proposals including a piece from 2002 entitled “In the Meantime, Life with Land Banking.” This project was the winning entry to the LA Forum for Architecture’s Dead Malls Competition. They rejected the idea of a traditional master plan and instead recommended a collection of small, cheap, feasible moves. These would come over time and lead to many possible futures. Interboro’s documentation, analysis and recommendations are of interest to me as a designer. As I try to understand infrastructures and systems, I look to these same skill sets as guides.

The Duchess Mall, located in Fishkill New York, was the subject of Interboro’s observation and intervention. Over the years, Duchess Mall went from thriving to dying. The current landlord is land banking the property in anticipation of inevitable urban growth and profit if and when the market turns around. What was surprising to me through the accounts told by Interboro was what was happening in the meantime. Through Interboro’s extensive research and documentation, the meantime came to be realized. With Interboro’s help, people and businesses were thriving not in spite of the dying mall, but because it was dying. An emergent culture had sown its seeds as this fallen creature. New kinds of public spaces were emerging from the absence of the density of a once popular and profitable shopping mall. The parking lot had become an informal rest stop and as a result, an entrepreneurial RV began selling hotdogs to truckers. In another case, a bus service teamed with a dry cleaner to become an impromptu bus station. Still many other cases were emerging: a flea market on the weekend filled the parking lot; the local birdwatching society gathered for events; and Appalachian Trail hikers use the spot as a trailhead.

Various stakeholders of the makeshift meantime mall culture, cobbled together a highly adaptable economy defined by local community needs rather than outside commercial interests. The mall was no longer a mall, but altogether something else. It was no longer a destination for the consumption of unneccesary objects or commodity, but an incubator for niche communities and ragtag groups. Interboro wanted to preserve, support and amplify these features. Their design aimed to be small, cheap and feasible — to build on the casual relationships already in place. They generated multiple solutions based on firsthand research. Here’s just a few:

- A night club or a summer stage that would take advantage of the supply of space and lack of neighbors.
- A fitness center and sculpture garden that would reinterpret the parking lot as a node of community life in a car focused region.
- “Plug-in units” (modular office spaces) complete with bathrooms and copy machines,  which could retrofit into loading docks and old retail spaces on the periphery of the mall.

In addition to these proposals of many viable and accesible solutions to support the emerging activities around the Duchess Mall, Interboro also took the process one step further and speculated about the stakeholders futures, from the owner of the dry cleaner to the proprietor of the night club. In regards to their process, I would like to site them as an example of a job well done. I see this as a successful study of an infrastructure, resulting in a novel intervention that supports emergent behavior and bottom-up organization.

As we design and create our own new nature, we must also understand how to reuse the decay of our own buildings and structures. In nature, trees fall and become “nurse logs” which foster and birth new trees and growth. We will hopefully become more aware of how to encourage new growth in our shifting populations, take cues from the emergent communities there and demand and advocate for new exchanges in urban and suburban architecture.