In our last Green Team post, we discussed the challenges brought on by the frequently slow pace of construction and the benefits of installing temporary landscapes during the waiting period. Here, we continue our commentary about time and the landscape, focusing on the challenges of matching contemporary materials and furnishings to historic sites.

Landscapes do not exist in isolation. They occupy a very specific spatial context. The materials of a landscape—furniture, paving, lighting, plants, etc.—are in constant conversation with their environs. So, the process of material selection typically requires that a landscape architect look beyond the project’s boundaries to understand how the materials will be integrated into the larger context. Sometimes, we want a material to fit in. At other times, we want it to stand out or contrast with the surroundings. A sensitive approach to material selection that allows for the preservation of a site’s character while modernizing other design features is often required when working on historic locales.

Contrary to what you might believe, contemporary furnishings can sometimes blend seamlessly with historic elements. This was true for our project at St. John the Divine, a massive and unfinished 1892 gothic cathedral in New York City. Our modern day challenge was to design a playground adjacent to this cathedral.

Children’s play equipment is typically bright, showy, and clunky, made to appeal to kids. So it may seem that playground equipment has little in common aesthetically with a gothic cathedral, but we argue that they actually share structural similarities—the steel frame of the play equipment and the buttresses and arches of the church.

The play equipment in the foreground reflects the gothic architecture of the adjacent cathedral while providing multi-faceted climbing surfaces.  Photo: Mathews Nielsen

Our design team worked with a playground equipment manufacturer to create clean, minimalist play pieces, their forms echoing the gothic arches, while providing plenty of child-friendly interactive forms and surfaces. The use of a single dark color created harmony between the equipment and the cathedral. This design element was extended to the fence at the perimeter of the play yard, enhancing the impression that both elements look like they belong. Read more…

Walking down a busy street, we rarely think about the interconnected series of stormwater pipes, train tunnels, electrical conduit, water lines, and tree roots that lie just inches beneath our feet—a “web of spaghetti,” as we call it. Typically, these common infrastructure components are out of sight and out of mind, yet they play a significant role in landscape design, particularly in urban settings.

A tangled web of utilities is exposed during a recent streetscape project in Lower Manhattan.  Photo courtesy  Mathews Nielsen

In our previous post, POPS for the People…and the Developer, we described the benefits of privately owned public spaces (POPS) and the requirements associated with incorporating their designs into the city’s fabric. The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) has published similar guidelines for streetscape plantings, including plant spacing as it relates to other built elements, infrastructure, and utilities. For example, a typical street tree pit would optimally be five feet by ten feet in size. The minimum horizontal distance from the edge of the tree pit as noted in the guidelines is four to six feet from any built obstruction (building, railing, stoop, etc.), three feet from a hydrant, five feet from a parking meter, and two feet from a gas or water valve. What happens when they prohibit any kind of planting or subsurface improvements? This was our challenge when planning future improvements for a small gathering space within Fox Square, a major crossroads in Brooklyn.

Existing conditions of Fox Square. Photo courtesy Mathews Nielsen

Fox Square proves the point we like to make: Some of the smallest sites can be the most challenging. At a mere 10,000 square feet, the site was selected for redevelopment as a part of the New York City Department of Transportation’s (NYCDOT) public plaza program in conjunction with the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership. Through community outreach and conversations with the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) and city agencies, it was determined that the primary goals of the redesign were to create a safe pedestrian environment by buffering them from existing traffic on Flatbush Avenue, discouraging jaywalking, and providing places to sit and gather. Read more…

The public’s role in the long-term success of any landscape project cannot be overstated. After all, it’s people who use these spaces; they are the true arbiters of a well-designed space over time. To create a successful open public space requires a strategic framework that is mutually beneficial for both developers and the public. To help this effort along, the New York City Department of City Planning (DCP) has established a zoning incentive program: Privately Owned Public Spaces, or POPS.

The primary goal of POPS is to unite function with aesthetics—to create public spaces that provide respite in the city’s dense urban fabric. In exchange for additional floor area or relief from setback restrictions the program requires a developer to provide user-friendly amenities to increase the experiential qualities of the open spaces adjacent to their properties. These spaces must meet stringent design standards to create public plazas that are open, inviting, accessible and safe.

Setting the standard for POPS, though not one itself, Manhattan’s 1967 Paley Park is a timeless landscape rich with public amenities like moveable seating, canopy trees for shade, green walls/planted areas, and water features (as permitted obstructions). Today’s zoning regulations encourage developers to build on these successes and provide public spaces that offer a variety of seating, vegetation, lighting, artwork, cafes, and other amenities. While typically located outdoors like the iconic Paley Park, POPS can sometimes be found in unique settings like lobbies, subway entrances, atriums, and building arcades.

I recently worked with fellow Green Team member Terrie Brightman on a POPS recertification permit for 2 Gold Street (Mathews Nielsen was the original designer in 2008). This time, the new process asked us to meet POPS requirements while pursuing strong and unique designs for these spaces.

The pavement extends to the street, uniting the the plaza with what would become a sidewalk.  Photo: Mathews Nielsen Landscape Architctects

Circulation is a key aspect of POPS design. The stipulations for clear paths are stringent, with limited walkway obstructions that are meant to ease the pedestrian right of way. At 2 Gold Street, several circulation patterns are integral to the plaza’s design. The pavement extends to the street curbs and facilitates pedestrian movement into it, without hindering circulation at the site’s edges.

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Our introductory Green Team blog addressed a common misconception: There is no space left for new landscapes in New York City, the dense urban expanse that is our home turf. In fact, there are available spaces, but they’re likely to come with some complex problems. Finding ourselves wrestling with small, challenging, and limited spaces, we sometimes take an unexpected approach. We look up!

Our initial site analysis for New York projects—and others—entails, in part, identifying ALL available space than can be improved. Crisp, white walls may be de rigueur for the interior artist, but they are far too banal for a vibrant, metropolitan landscape. By using a site’s vertical surfaces, we can expand the benefits of a project to include increased planting areas, aesthetically appealing live or inanimate screens, thoughtfully designed edge conditions, improved views, reduced cooling requirements for adjacent buildings, and the mitigation of urban heat island effect (UHI), thus furthering the definition of “the space.”

The design of exterior vertical surfaces can take on many forms and configurations including green screens, green walls, cable trellis systems, wall-mounted planters, trellises, and planters housing fastigiate (columnar) species, to name a few. The selection of the proper treatment for these surfaces is based on sun/shade conditions, design intent, the structural capacity of the surface to receive the enhancement, available soil volume for plants, and so on. If we propose a woven wire or cable trellis system, we must consider the method of its attachment to the building’s surface as well as whether the receiving wall or support structure can sustain its weight load in addition to the living, twining plants that will grow over the plane. Some factors that influence plant selection, as well as the ultimate success of the installation, are planters, soil volume, irrigation, and solar orientation.

We work with a wide variety of systems and approaches on vertical landscapes throughout the city. At Spring Street Plaza, a 200-foot-long wall abutting the adjacent building was designed and installed to allow us to use a vertical screen system for vines. This wall provided the structural support for the vegetated system while ensuring that no portion of the work was attached to or interfered with the structure of the neighboring property (our post on property lines talks about the consequences of this). Once installed, the green screen, with its dense vine cover comprising six vine species, provided a sense of enclosure for the plaza, acting as a vegetated backdrop to the small “rooms” of the plaza design. The wire grid also provided structure for the installation of custom light tubes into the screen, creating a playful effect of illuminated planting at night. The 10-foot height of the new wall—a pedestrian scale intervention— also helps deemphasize the presence of the adjacent building.

A view south across one of the seating “rooms” of the plaza showing the vine-covered green screen along the western edge of the site. Photo courtesy Elizabeth Felicella

Light tubes inserted into pockets in the wire grid screen accent the vines and illuminate the site. Photo courtesy Elizabeth Felicella

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If they are to thrive, all living things—plants included—require space to grow and reproduce. Unlike other forms of life that can move to optimum conditions, plants are unable to relocate themselves to ensure their survival. When it comes to urban landscape design, plants are initially dependent on the designer who chooses their location. Over time, they rely on a caretaker to maintain their health.

As a recent graduate new to the practice of landscape architecture, I am learning that there are circumstances that can breed conflict between landscape architects and real estate developers. Developers usually prefer an “instant” landscape ripe with lush, mature plantings rather than one that grows into its space and strives for sustainability. And so I’m consistently reminded that the key to long-term project success and a healthy designer-client relationship lies in finding a balance between the client’s satisfaction and the expertise of the landscape architect.

The perils of “instant” landscapes: Trees planted too close together experience stymied growth.
Credit: Mathews Nielsen

At Mathews Nielsen, we have recently worked on a number of projects that required either a landscape renovation (complete or partial) or a newly designed landscape. In most cases, the developers—our clients—prefer instant landscapes. Visually appealing, they offer immediate gratification and, at least initially, more bang for the buck. Dynamic plant masses can provide enticing counterpoints to static buildings, instantly attracting potential residents to a development. But these advantages are quickly undermined by the disadvantages to the landscape’s longevity.

The benefits of sustainable landscapes: Proper spacing allows plants to thrive over time.
Credit: Mathews Nielsen

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In our first blog, The Green Team: Part 1, we introduced you to our green research team and how we approach landscape design in the urban environment—for humans. This post reflects on design for another city resident: man’s and woman’s best friend.

Designing for the Dogs

Parks are not just for people—they are for pets, too! With the number of pet owners reaching record numbers in the U.S.—79 dogs for every 100 households according to Gallup, and with more people moving to cities than ever before, urban dwellers need public outdoor spaces for their pets. The growing urban population is embracing dog runs as an important component to the recreational quality of a park. In addition to giving their pets a place to romp, city parks also bring dog owners together.

Dog Runs, including the West Thames Park completed by MNLA in 2010 are being integrated into a number of park redevelopments.  Image credit: Elizabeth Felicella

Most dog parks evolve around a simple idea: find an open space, fence it in, let dogs run. Unfortunately, finding that patch of grass is not so simple in densely built urban areas. This has resulted in the evolution of dog runs, beyond simple mulch and fence to solid surfaces.

When we were approached to design a dog run for the Tribeca section of Hudson River Park, our green team went into action. We built on the research from previously designed dog runs at West Thames Park and Battery Park City to develop applicable design criteria for a durable, practical solution to enhance the canine experience, benefitting both pet and pet owner.

Pups at play at Kowsky Park’s dog run in Battery Park City. Credit: Mathews Nielsen.

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When we tell people that Mathews Nielsen Landscape Architects is based in New York City, the standard response goes like this: “What is left to landscape in such a densely settled city? Where do you find nature?” Our answer: “A LOT. Nature is all around you!”

Newport Green, Newport, NJ
Photo credit: Mathews Nielsen

The most challenging aspects of our work here are the variations in growing conditions, soils, aspect, drainage patterns, and the many different program types we find in urban landscapes. Site specific is a requirement; it is the landscape architect’s modus operandi.

Hunt’s Point Landing Revetment Pools, Bronx, NY
Photo credit: Mathews Nielsen/NYC Economic Development Corporation

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