Alameda Corridor East is a $1b infrastructure project that sliped beneath the radar till the archeologists start uncovering spanish silver coins. The original Alameda Corridor from Long Beach to Downtown also created a new cargo terminal at the Port of Los Angeles – so where is the fill being disposed of from this project?
I revisited the LA Aqueduct for a grant proposal related to the upcoming centennial of it’s opening (stay tuned), and started updating my earlier bibliography. My methodology was searching via google scholar, amazon.com and cal poly’s library. Items in bold are seminal books and essential reading about the LA Aqueduct. The links take you to the most recent edition of the book.
(all images by HAER/Library of Congress.)
OWENS RIVER DIVERSION GATES
Alabama Gates
How long our infrastructure will last. Via Mammoth (from the poster design for the GSD’s “Landscape Infrastructure” symposium by OPSYS/Alexandra Gauzza)
click image for larger version
“This chart visualizes the lifespans of equipment associated with waste, water, energy, and transportation systems across North America. As we approach — and pass — the breakdown point for many post-WWII urban infrastructures, important questions emerge. What and how should we rebuild? How do we build in the face of dynamic climates and coastal hazards? Should we design for permanence or for failure? Should we build stronger or weaker structures? Can natural systems be coupled with technological facilities? Cross-disciplinary action by ecologists, urbanists, historians, geographers, and engineers is necessary as we construct the next generation of public works projects for an era of unprecedented change and uncertain risk.”
See also http://m.ammoth.us/blog/2012/03/landscape-infrastructure-at-harvard-gsd/
TACTICAL URBANISM (v):
• A deliberate, phased approach to instigating change;
• Implementation of local solutions to local planning challenges;
• Short-term commitment and realistic expectations;
• Low-risk actions which hold the potential for high reward; and
• The development of social capital between citizens and the growth of collective organizational capacity among public, private, and non-profit institutions and their constituents
Project 2: Tactical Infrastructure
As a process for city-making, tactical urbanism effectively addresses the convergence of three well-documented trends: shrinking municipal budgets, a generational shift to urban living, and the rapid exchange of ideas enabled by advances in information and communications technology.
The public is welcome at our final review and the screening of the student-generated videos for the project on Friday, March 9th, 3-6pm at Cal Poly Pomona, Building 7, Room 203.
LA402L’s Video 1: Eco-Technical Mapping of the Northeastern San Fernando Valley can be viewed here.
Spotted in the lobby of SoCal’s Hotel Casa 425, Daniel Lara’s art engages many contemporary subjects including infrastructure, ubiquitous computing/networks (invoking DS+R’s early work), skeuomorphs, and palimpsests of graffiti. His mixed-media paintings of utility poles and industrial landscapes have captured my interest in infrastructural art. Lara recently earned his MFA in media design from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena – it will be interesting to see how his oeuvre matures as he shakes of the grad-school induced eclecticism.
B.E. Mahall and F.H. Bormann have an eloquent op-ed in the LAtimes today that calls for resetting our view of nature. While I don’t have time to write much about their piece, it is certainly worth reading as it calls to question the anthropogenic bias in most climate models and calculations of ecosystem services as only serving people.
The other item worth sharing is Marcel Smets (thanks Nam) recent talk at the GSD (podcast) as he makes his round of the architecture school circuit, to promote his recent book: Infrastructure Design in the Contemporary Landscape. Smets writes/talks about that that there are 5 strategies for integrating infrastructure into cities:
Hiding
The preferred approach of politicians, preserves or restores authenticity, or realizing authenticity a park or garden on/over parking garage
Camouflage
Making invisible by trees or foliage or by use of a trench or talus taking characteristics of the background
Assimilation
By way of typological imitation through the creation of a common layer
Detachment
Marking the existing by detaching the new this approach usually features strong geometry and autonomous form also by landscape design (almost it seems he says, by de-urbanizing or re-organic-izing and thus de-imposing the infrastructure/object)
Fusion
Which is he argues the most promising: oppositions melting into inclusive-distinction or by constructing a megastructure (an architectural intervention) or by constructing a hybrid landscape and thus a new category (thanks nam!)
Before I expand on this list, I want to point out that Marcel’s definition of Infrastructure is very narrow and only includes transportation facilities and corridors based on the examples given in the lecture. This misses a wide range of communication, energy, and water typologies that don’t fit so cleanly into the 5 categories above.
I would expand that list with the following (and there may be more tactics out there):
Ubiquity or Pervasiveness
Telephone pole, high tension lines, storm drain catch basins, manhole covers, and electric outlets are all examples of infrastructure that is so common we usually don’t notice.
Isolation or Obscure
Put the stuff far away from folks – not hiding as there is no attempt to conceal or camouflage. Examples are the Fort McHenry Oil Sands, many military bases (like Area 51), and many other large industrial complexes.
Sublime
Hoover Dam & the Golden Gate Bridge come to mind as examples of exceptional elegance and scale that transcend the realm of engineering and become works of art.
Okay, gotta go run and give a lecture on hydrology. More later.
On this New Year’s day, I visited the writings of my mentor in networked urbanism, Kazys Varnelis. Thanks to the interview in triplecanopy and his blog post 2009 in review, I’m feeling very dystopic and nihilistic about our future. But the academic pursuit of investigating our civilization’s pending collapse is a dead end. I’d rather pour my efforts into staving off this eventuality and originalgreen’s the Green Top 10 for 2010 lifted my spirits.
For the past few weeks, I’ve been immersed in developing my spring semester classes. So figuring out the emerging ideas/memes that are worth exploring in design studio has been very much on my mind. Okay, my perspective is as biased towards landscape architecture and sustainable urbanism, so feel free to disagree (in no particular order):
Overall, exploring/learning how to find pragmatic solutions to environmental/social challenges versus form-making is where I’ll place my money for the hot topics in design schools. If architecture and landscape architecture wish to stay relevant for the future, then this is where we all need to push the environmental design professions (and the AIA/ASLA/NCARB/CLARB/et al).
[related posts: 2009 in review, & fleeting memes of the fall]
The LATimes recently published a story about a possible new use of the Owens Lake Playa – a 616 acre solar power plant. The Owens Lake Playa is a place that I care about and have dedicated a significant amount of time researching and writing about.
Owens Lake seen from Horseshoe Meadow Road
Here is the Op-Ed I submitted to the LATimes to support the project:
It is important to remember that the Owens Lake Playa is an artificial landscape created by the growth of Los Angeles. While the entire Owens Valley is a sublime landscape, it is not a pristine wilderness. As such, the Owens Valley is an ideal location for locating a large concentrating solar energy facility, especially because the transmission capacity already exists and the potential benefit of further reducing the PM10 dust emissions off the Playa.
Infrascape Design 