This is just a fun thing I saw that I couldn’t pass up posting. A small reminder that both the built environment and the natural provide reciprocal inspiration. The images below are from Christoph Niemann’s most recent posting to the blog he writes for the NY Times, “Abstract City.”

Yesterday, we hosted a large event on the environmental transformation of the New York City region since 1609. Titled in the Wake of the Half Moon: Environmental Transformation of the New York Metropolitan Region: 1609-2109, the event traced the relationship between (new European) people and their environment since Hudson’s voyage to the region in 1609.  We ended the conference with a great talk by Cynthia Rosenzweig of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies at Columbia University, who serves as Co-Chair of the New York City Panel on Climate Change with our Director, Bill Solecki.

She opened her discussion by saying that as she made her way South to the conference,  from her home up the Hudson, she imagined herself as part of the crew of Hudson’s ship, The Half Moon. But this wasn’t in 1609, it is in 2109.  She then proceeded to talk about climate change effects in the region and what one might see on a ship in the year 2109. Besides being an imaginative and inspiring close to a wonderful–but long–day, she got me thinking about the decisions we make and the wake that follows them.

When we think about environmental issues, protection, conservation, ecological services, climate change, etc., we are actually dealing with the combined wakes of any type of decision that has been made until now. Essentially, we don’t have a blank canvas. I used this term last week to talk about Detroit. But even there, development and revitalization is only a transition from what something once was. We create new policies and interventions in the wake of other ones.

So, enter Copenhagen, the last chance to create something new and positive in the wake of many other intentional and default decisions on modes of production and how we organize our societies in general.  A few weeks ago, all hope was given up that anything substantial would happen. There would be no binding agreement. Copenhagen would fail, just like Bali, Poland, and most importantly, Kyoto.

As has been reported, the stalled legislation in the United States is not helpful, nor is the boycott of initial talks by developing nations, specifically African ones. The economy is still the bottom line. But today, there were signs of life from the Obama administration that even though Copenhagen may not create the binding agreement we all wished it would, there is still a desire to create a deal that will have an “immediate effect.” Obama has been speaking with Chinese president Hu Jintao about the huge role that the U.S. and China play in creating carbon emissions and the role they must play in reducing them.  Text or not text, the Copenhagen conference seeks to 1) get solid agreements from developed nations on emissions reductions, 2) secure cold hard cash for developing nations to follow suit.  For the full news feed from Reuters, click here.

Yes, there is still concern that Copenhagen will not provide the urgent action needed. But the recognition that Copenhagen can not be a full failure acknowledges that there are decisions to build on, that China and the U.S. are crucial components to the agreement and most importantly, there is a wake that follows in which we all must live.

The question of whether we retrofit or build up from the start is always present in sustainability endeavors. Generally speaking a retrofit is less disruptive, more efficient, and clearly more realistic than building from a blank slate. Sure there were eco-cities to (perhaps) be built in China and Dubai, but in places like New York, where we know 80% of the buildings will still be here in 2030, the retrofit option is stronger.

Detroit from Above

What about a combination of both though? In one of the most interesting profiles I have read on a city in a while, Newgeography has a discussion of what exactly is going on in Detroit. Aside from broken car industries, a fleeting population, and corruption, this place might be the urban laboratory we are looking for. I had no idea that Detroit was so sprawling and empty until I looked at the images posted on this blog piece. Imagine a block of row houses…with only 3 houses on it and then grass in between.. Someone apparently came up with the term “urban prairie,” to describe the phenomenon. It really looks like a photoshop experiment gone wrong.

What to do with that grass? Perhaps urban agriculture has a new home testing ground. The Newgeography piece talks about people buying houses for $100 and doing interesting stuff to revamp them.  But a lot of these folks are out of towners. (To see what interesting stuff has already been done to houses by in-towners, check out the Heidelberg Project.) To return to the urban agriculture question, people are thinking big in Detroit. They want to turn the urban prairie into an urban farm.

Why it could really work: Detroit could fit the entire cities of New York City, Boston, and San Francisco in its city limits. And it has under 1 million residents.  There is plenty of water and nice soil. There are creative transplants with open minds (and open wallets?) moving there.  There is a serious lack of fresh food and protein in the city.

This last point is critical. Disturbing but true, apparently 80%  of Detroit residents buy their food at one of the city’s one thousand convenience stores, party stores, liquor stores, and gas stations in the city. People hunt, sell, and eat raccoon to supplement their food intake. As the piece on Newgeography says, this is a testament to people’s resilience and adaptability, while it is a clear indication that something is wrong here. Bottom line: the grounds are fertile for a food revolution.

My biggest concern? Looking at cities as blank canvases might invite the erasing of the solid practices of those who have stayed there–because they wanted to or had no other options.  Agriculture projects could certainly be a good way to merge the new and the old worlds of Detroit. Everyday there are new ingenious initiatives in urban agriculture being announced, often from urban minded designers. Food security, cultivation and local supply were once the concern of Americans. (See victory gardens in the World War II era). But that wained and convenience (and convenience stores) took over.

We here at the Institute have been thinking a lot about urban agriculture’s place in society. It seems that what was once largely a fringe issue has made it onto the agenda of the masses and even politicians. And Detroit seems to be an opportunity of epic proportions to create an urban agriculture based economy.  What a symbolic movement that would be: to watch the rust belt transition to a green belt. Again though, equity needs a place at this feast, for someone has already coined the term “rust belt chic.”

If you’ve wandered around the Village anytime in the last year or two, you’ve probably noticed the sculpturesque steel-and-glass building going up across from Cooper Square.  You may have, like me, stopped outside the Cooper Union’s new academic building and remarked on the strange effect created by the folding and carved double-skin or noticed the transparency and lightness that finds it’s way into the core of the structure, despite it’s looming bulk.  If that’s all you’ve done (or if you’ve never checked it out), consider taking a closer look.

This Morphosis design recently won a Global Green Sustainable Design Award and has even made the local news (check out the below clip from WCBS).  In addition to the dynamic design–conceived of as a vertical piazza with “undulating lattice” which “envelopes a 20-foot wide grand stair”–the building boasts an array of sustainable features that make people like us at the Institute drool.

New York is on top of many things regarding climate change vulnerabilities and potential adaptation strategies. But Chicago has us beat on the Green Roof thing.  This is not to say that New York City’s efforts on the green roof front are intangible but  City Hall and our tallest buildings do not have any such green spaces yet.  In Chicago, they do.

Their City Hall got a 20,300 square foot green roof in 2001. It has 20,000 herbaceous plants installed as plugs of more than 150 varieties including 100 woody shrubs, 40 vines and 2 trees – a Cockspur Hawthorn and Prairie Crabapple. New to the green roof team in Chicago is the Sears Tower, which is now the Willis Tower, but Sears still gets the name rec.

For the full story, check out the Chicago Tribune. Costing about $200 million, the green roof is being designed on this landmark building–the tallest in the western hemisphere. But it happened to be designed at a time when energy efficiency was a non-existent term in the world of American architecture.  And the green roof appears to be only one part of a massive efficiency face lift for the building. Now, how about that freedom tower…?