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Designing For Ecology: The Ecological Park: The Ator M TW Reprodwe and
Andres M. Power
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De ent of Urban Studies and Planning
June 1,2006
Certified by
Professor Eran Ben-Joseph
Associate Professor
Department of Urban Studies and Planning
Thesis Supervisor
Accepted by
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ARCHIVE
Designing for Ecology:
The Ecological Park
Andres M. Power
This thesis aims to define a) what an ecological park is,and b) whether it is a new model
in park design. Reference to the literature on landscape ecology is used to analyze the
natural ecological merit of these parks, while reference to the literature on communicative
elements of the landscape is used to analyze the pedagogic, or socio-cultural merit of these
parks. Two case studies of recently built ecological parks - Xochimilco in Mexico City
and Crissy Field in San Francisco, are analyzed and compared to two older picturesque
parks - Golden Gate Park in San Francisco and the Back Bay Fens in Boston.The analysis
shows that the ecological park is indeed a new phenomenon and model of park design.This
new model redefines the relationship between park and city by connecting the cultural
and natural ecological aspects of the park's site with a larger context.The ecological park
model moves beyond the experientially isolated urban parks of years past, providing society
instead with a sustainable, ecologically viable, self-replicating vehicle to improve the links
between the built environment and the landscape.
Thesis Supervisor:
Eran Ben-Joseph
Associate Professor
Department of Urban Studies and Planning
I would like to thank Eran Ben-Joseph for his didicated support during the research and writing of
this thesis, and David Laws, for his insightful commentary and support.
I would also like to thank all those interviewed in the process of this work - without them, this
project would not have been possible.
And lastly, Michael Boland, of the Presidio Trust. It was his eloquently written article
published in 2001 that spurred my initial interest in the topic.
Designing for Ecology:The Ecological Park
Chapter 2. Past and Present Trends in Urban Park Development.... ........ ............... p. 12
A. Introduction
B. Measurement of Ecology
C. Selection of Case Studies r
A. Introduction
B. Context
C. The Ecological Problem
D. Call to Action
E. Xochimilco Ecological Park
F. Setting
G. Ecological Analysis
H. Discussion
I. Alternate Frameworks
J. Summary Matrix
K. Lessons to Extract
Chapter 5. Crissy Field: New Habitat and Pedagogical Explorations..... ................ p.54
A. Context
B. Today
C. Ecology in its 'Natural State'
D. Creation of a Cultural Landscape
E. Reflection on Ecological History
E Culture, History, Preservation and an Ecological Park
G. Ecological Analysis
H. Discussion
I. Summary Matrix
J. Lessons to Extract
A. Introduction
B. Preexisting Site Ecology
C. Contemporary Dialogue on 'Park'
D. Site Selection
E. Site Design
F. Site Hydrology
G. Comments on Golden Gate Park: 1880s
H. Golden Gate ParkToday
I. Ecological Analysis
J. Discussion
K. Summary Matrices
The affinity of park to city is so innate that most of us cannot imagine (nor would want to imagine)
a city without one. Even cities of the most modest proportions have parks of their own. But it
was not too long ago that this was not the case, as the park beyond the downtown square existed
only in memories and tales of great European cities. In fact, it was not until the middle part of the
19th century with the emergence of the municipal park movement that this most basic element of
cities began to spread across the United States, leaving in its wake such an indelible impression on
our notion of civic space that images of NewYork City without Central Park or Boston without
the Emerald Necklace seem beyond conception. The adapting role of park has emerged as one
of the most important public spaces in cities around the world, and after a downswing in the
early 1980s - at least in the United States - municipal parks are again at the forefront of planning
thought and practice. Cities have returned to building new open spaces, doing so increasingly on
a reconsidered element of the urban fabric - reclaimed land.'
Much has been written on the municipal and national park movements in the United States and
a rehashing of a known story is unnecessary. Instead, this study concerns itself with a most
recent stage in park development, referred to by some in the field as the ecological park. This 8
type of urban open space, proponents argue, embodies the current societal predication towards
ecological consciousness, much like previous park models embodied the societal predication of
0
their time. But is this really the case? Is the ecological park explicitly ecological? If so, what does
ecological mean? And then finally, is the ecological park something new? .
o
In order to address these questions and to begin the story of the ecological park, Chapter 2 will
begin by presenting a brief synopsis of past trends in urban park development in the United States.
While drawing from the general literature on municipal parks, this synopsis will focus on the
evolution of theAmerican municipal park through asimilar conceptual framework as that published
by Galen Cranz in her 1982 seminal work entitled The Politics of Park Design:A History of Urban
Parks inAmerica, considered generally as the source of reference for contemporary park historians.
These historical trends in park development will be presented from a perspective focusing on the
natural and cultural ecologies at play in their design conception and implementation. The intent
of this exploration is to establish the evolving relationship between park, city, the landscape, and
ecology and to root this evolution temporally. Exploring these past park types will allow for a
basis against which to compare the ecological park.
In order to bring the analysis of past park models into the framework of contemporary dialogue,
Chapter 2 will continue by presenting an analysis of this dialogue as it is found in the literature
and will focus on exploring the evolving relationship between urban landscape and ecology as
expressed professionally and considered academically. The relationship between natural systems
of a site and the greater urban environment, and the role of design and designer, will be considered
as they come together to provide a phenomenological and pedagogical experience to the city
I. Examples include Millennium Park in Chicago, Fresh Kills in NewYork, Southeast Coastal Park in Barcelona, and
Downsview in Toronto, among many others.
denizen and the urban parkgoer. This exploration will also consider elements of contemporary
park planning and how the profession considers the evolving notion of the role of park vis-a-vis
the city.
Perhaps the most elementary, and important, aspect of this dialogue relates to the interrelationship
between a cultural ecology - people, places, design - and the natural ecology of a site and its
region.This interrelationship as it is expressed through design defines the different park models
generally, and the ecological park specifically in its attempts to reform, or re-weight the significance
of natural systems within the cultural landscape of cities. From this, the ecological landscape
- and the ecological park by extension - becomes a venue through which natural ecology is
communicated pedagogically, explicitly and implicitly, to the parkgoer. This communication is
considered in the "natures" of landscapes. Urban parks are defined by what John Dixon Hunt has
called a"third nature," or the synergy of the primeval landscape predating human experience as
the "first nature" and the landscape utilized by humans for their benefit as the "second nature."
This "third nature" isa fundamental characteristic of urban parks, and the argument that has been
proposed by some in the literature is that the ecological park has redefined the structure of this
"third nature" first expressed in the picturesque parks, establishing an entirely new construct: a
"fourth nature."
Chapter 3 will provide an explanation of the methodologies used in the course of the study to 9
figure out what an ecological park might be. The review of the literature has suggested that two
elements are important considerations of the ecological park - cultural ecology and natural ecology =
- and therefore both components will be considered in deconstructing the otherwise umbrella
term of ecology as it is used in this context. This deconstruction will be facilitated by reference
to a diverse literature on these two ecologies, using a matrix to disaggregate and to categorize 0
the different elements of four studied parks. Applying this matrix to two heralded ecological parks,
in chapters 4 and 5 respectively, and to two prototypical parks, chapters 5 and 6 respectively,
will help to identify the dissimilarities of the ecological park and will hopefully allow for a greater
fundamental understanding of what defines this purported landscape or park "movement"
Considered very simply, does the ecological park reflect greater natural ecological merit? And how
does its cultural ecological merit differ, if so at all?
In this light, the deconstruction of Xochimilco Ecological Park and the exploration of the history
of its landscape in Chapter 4 will show the significance of this intervention to be its use of park
program to successfully link, and ultimately preserve, not only an endangered cultural landscape,
but an endangered ecological landscape as well. Deconstructing Crissy Field, the second ecological
park examined in this study and discussed in Chapter 5, will demonstrate a stronger emphasis
on the restoration of an endemic environmental condition, but as with Xochimilco, will show a
fundamental design and programmatic intent to communicate pedagogically the newly revealed
natural systems to the parkgoer.
Having analyzed the two most widely cited examples of the ecological park, and in doing so emerging
with a greater understanding of what in fact an ecological park might be, this analysis will then be
compared to two prototypical parks. Based on the literature of municipal park history in the
United States, the picturesque park, or the pleasure ground as others sometimes call it, is the
logical comparator in that it was the first, and arguably only, park model in a historical sense to
explicitly consider cultural ecology and natural systems in the formulation of design. Therefore, the
two picturesque parks used in this analysis will be considered controls against which postulations
of a new park model, the ecological park, might be made.
Chapter 6 will present the first deconstruction of the picturesque park - Golden Gate Park in
San Francisco. It was selected because of its ability to reflect the issues, ideas, and philosophies
of the larger picturesque movement in its adolescent years. Chapter 7 will present the second
analysis of the picturesque park - the Back Bay Fens portion of the Emerald Necklace in Boston
and Brookline, Massachusetts. The Back Bay Fens reflects the issues, ideas, and philosophies of the
same picturesque movement, yet in its more developed and matured later years.
In exploring the four case studies, a guiding consideration will be a focus on ecology - both
natural and cultural - in that it is the reconsidered synergies between the two that the literature
suggests might be of significance in the ecological park.The intent of the ecological deconstruction
is to then identify differences between the picturesque and ecological park. As a side note,
an important qualifier to make is that this study does not conduct a true, scientifically based,
ecological assessment in considering the natural ecology of the studied parks. Such an approach
would be highly time consuming and impractical (and perhaps impossible) in the context of an 10
urbanized area and would not necessarily promote the investigation at hand. Instead, this study
uses generalizable, but subjective, indicators of natural ecology in considering and exploring the
significance of ecological parks, as defined in part by ecological merit. o
Chapter 8 will summarize the findings of the ecological deconstruction of each park while
Chapter 9 will present discussion on, and the possible implications of, these findings. What does
it mean to the city and the environment when landscapes incorporate natural ecological function
into their design? Could this fundamentally alter the functioning relationship, as we know it today,
between a park and its city? Is the new park not only a place for leisure and relaxation but also a
place to learn and understand the dynamics of a living and evolving landscape?
These questions, among many others, will be considered as this study attempts to answer the
fundamental quandary guiding this work:
Does the ecological park reflect a sea-change in the design and function of an urban park or is it merely
a contemporary aesthetic expression of the picturesque?
Chapter 2. Past & Present Trends
in Park Development
"Park planning cannot possibly stop at the edges of parks. The park system is thus the spearhead of
comprehensive urban planning."
-Louis Mumford, 1938
City parks of the Western world owe their existence to the desire to counter the externalities
of 19 th century industrialization.There is,however, a much older heritage of civic space that dates
back to Classic Athens in theWestern world, and perhaps much further in the great civilizations of
Eurasia and the Americas. While this storied history of design and purpose is of itself a fascinating
study, this thesis will begin its exploration with a period only 150 years ago, as the full realization
of the municipal park in the United States began to emerge. The intent is not to minimize the
importance of older manifestations of civic space, but to instead present the context of a new
design ideology where public space, as a place for recreation and relaxation, functions as an entity
distinct from, yet intricately connected to, the city in which it is housed.
A. The Pleasure Ground and the Emergence of the Municipal Park Movement
The park developed out ofa worldview that set nature and culture in opposition to each other. Cities
were seen as "too big, too built up, too crowded, diseased, polluted, artificial, overly commercial,
corrupting, and stressful" (Cranz, 1982, p.3), while the antidote to this moral corruption was
believed to come from allowing one's soul to reconnect with nature outside of the city. The
popularization of this view is easily accredited to Andrew Jackson Downing, who, in the middle r-
part of the 19t" century, spoke on the deeply held belief that interaction with nature had a healing I
effect on mankind, and that all people, regardless of class, must have the ability to experience
nature. Unable to see his philosophy put into action before his tragic death, his ideas were quickly
catapulted to the forefront of both architecture and landscape design, with the commission for
Central Park being taken over by his contemporaries Frederick Law Olmsted and CalvertVaux.
As American cities matured and began to look eastward at their more 'civilized' European
counterparts, many began to see the relative lack of green space as a defining distinction between
the two counterparts. Landscape architecture beyond the public square was virtually non-existent
in the U.S. at this time, while Europe had over a century of experience in designing the pastoral
landscapes of Lancelot 'Capability' Brown and others by the second-half of the 18th century.
With the commissioning of Central Park in NewYork, the municipal park movement exploded in
the United States. But the parks that America would build developed not from "European urban
models but from an anti-urban ideal that dwelt on the traditional prescription for relief from the
city - to escape to the country" (Cranz, 1982, p.4). These parks would move far beyond the Beaux
Arts town square, instead aiming to capture a snapshot of rural 'nature' and placing that snapshot
within the boundaries of the city. These new American parks were conceived as "great pleasure
grounds meant to be pieces of the country, with fresh air, meadows, lakes, and sunshine right in
the city" (Cranz, 1982, p.5).
In bringing nature into the city,these municipal parks,first represented by Central Park, referenced
a middle ground between nature and culture. This middle ground was a pastoral or picturesque
ideal of the natural landscape that was intended to provide the 'antidote' to the urban condition.
The desire was to define an experience in opposition to the'miasma-infused' urban environments
of the time while acknowledging the significance of a humanistic or cultural interaction with
the landscape (French, p. 20). Yet in doing so, the picturesque park turned inward, defining an
experience predicated entirely on the landscape within the boundaries of the park, failing to create
physical and experiential linkages to the city. The picturesque park as a pleasure ground worked
by "heighten[ing] the idea of naturalness with forms suggested by nature...[without relying] on
what nature actually provided" (Cranz, 1982, p.26).
The picturesque park reacted to the formality of the Renaissance garden or plaza, where the
use of nature's materials - water, gravel, trees, shrubs, and stone - in an "unnatural, geometric
way...clearly demonstrated man's assault of, and eventual dominion over, nature" (French, p. 13).
In the picturesque park, it was difficult to find any rectilinearity, replaced instead by a dominance
of curvilinearity - in roads and paths, land formations and water bodies - designs, it was suggested,
that could imply natural form. Although this 'nature' was a completely engineered nature, the
picturesque park presented a pivotal change in the relationship between city-dweller and the
naturalized environment.
The picturesque park was the embodiment of a new conception of landscape, defined by what
John Dixon Hunt has called a "third nature." The picturesque park, in promoting a completely
designable conception of nature, synergized the "first nature" of the primeval landscape with 14
the "second nature" of the pastoral landscape utilized by humans for their benefit. This was in r-
departure from the concurrent Conservation Movement, 1850s- 1920, in that it created a middle-
ground between what was 'nature' and what was 'culture' which was seen otherwise as being an
oppositional relationship (Hunt, p. 126).
Olmsted's work was predicated on designing this third nature and wrote extensively on the
subject:"That scenery which would afford the most marked contrast with the streets of a town,
would be of a kind characterized in nature by the absence, or,at last, the marked subordination of
human influences. Yet, in a park, the largest provision is required for the human experience."'
While'ecology' as a studied field would not emerge for many decades, only being coined as a word
in 1866, some argue that Olmsted, and other picturesque park designers of his time, represented
the emergence of a respect for ecological function in their design of this 'third nature.'2 Although
Olmsted's parks reflected a preconceived notion of what nature should be and look like, he used
site conditions and existing natural systems as defining drivers of his designs:
"...[The creation of park] must be largely the work of nature; but that the result may be altogether
suitable, as well as pleasing and interesting, obstacles to the necessities of use must be removed, the
desired work of nature must be started and assisted, and the natural development of plantations be
studied, guided, and encouraged in various ways. Beyond this... nothing else is necessary but the provision
of ways by which the results of nature's work may be enjoyed by the public without injuring and wearing
them out."3
"there may be a momentary question of its dignity and appropriateness... but [it] is a direct development
of the original conditions of the locality in adaptation to the needs of a dense community.'"
The planning and citing of these parks, although rooted in Downing's egalitarian teachings, was
nothing but paternalistic, believing that there was a correct and proper definition of what a
picturesque park was and what its role with the city and its people should be (Cranz, 1982).The
basic ideology guiding the picturesque park was preconceived elsewhere while the actual citing
of a new park required only an adaptation, in some cases more so than in others, to existing site
conditions.s This of course is in contrast with allowing for site conditions, in an organic sense, to
drive the formation of design.
At the around the turn of the 2 0 th century, a new, more rationalistic ideology was sweeping across
American society. The importance of deliberate intervention by learned professionals to affect 15
improvement on the quality of life for the ordinary citizen quickly emerged as a guiding principal
in almost every policy decision. While the picturesque model relied upon the city dweller's
'innate desire' to seek nature, the reformers of the Progressive Era believed that nature, or more
specifically open space and recreation, needed to be brought to the city dweller. This marked the "
emergence of a much more controlling relationship between municipality and citizen. M
(D
FD
Where philosophers of the picturesque believed that mere exposure to nature would alleviate
the ills of urban society, reformers believed that structured activity through active recreational
pursuits would provide the most effective 'sanitary' results. It was this drive for sanitation, both of
the mind and of the environment, that guided the design of the landscape in the reform park. As
Boyer (I983) argues, "...the environmental chaos of the American city became linked in the minds of
the improvers to the social pathologies of urban life. Long before poverty, poor housing, and slums were
thought of as economic and political symptoms, improvers saw a link between environmental conditions
and the social order, between physical and moral contagion."
With a broader scientific understanding of bacteriology, contagion, and respiratory ill health and
the perceived association of these maladies to the urban environment, progressive reformers
completely reconceived the concept of park. Where space was once free and enjoyers were
encouraged to stroll, parkgoers were now expected to play softball and basketball. Supervised
recreational activity, it was believed, was the best ameliorator of the deleterious health effects of
the slums and tenements that characterized urban form (Melosi, unk.).
4. Zaitzevsky, p.57
5. As will be discussed in the chapter on the development of the Back Bay Fens, Olmsted held more enlightened
views, especially in his later career, on the role of pre-existing or endemic site conditions as drivers of the
design process.
Progressives interested in reforming the urban neighborhood believed that recreational needs,
perhaps the most fundamental civic activity, should be met daily at nearby sties, rather than on
occasional outings to the city's outskirts. The typical neighborhood reform park that emerged
from this philosophy (most prolifically demonstrated in Chicago) was a square block or two
surrounded by housing. Within the park, pathways were straight and at right angle to one another,
and the siting was straightforward and utilitarian. The design of the park was intended, above all
else, to organize activity, since the increasingly patronizing urban park planner now "considered
the masses incapable of undertaking their own recreation" (Cranz, 1982, p.86).
To promote this rationalization of use through design, surfaces for active recreation, such as
playgrounds and playing fields, were organized rectilinearly and in sequential and rational order,
while grass and landscaped features where more passive recreation could occur were limited.
Nevertheless the underlying motivation of restorative release in the reform park parallels the
soul-repairing fresh air and exposure to nature that pleasure grounds were designed to provide
(Cranz, 1982, p.6).
Within the rapidly urbanizing context of turn-of-the-century urban America, nature and
environmentalism were promulgated primarily by professionals and quasi-professionals who
were concerned with public health and sanitation. Yet their attempt to ameliorate deleterious
environmental conditions was not secured through the restoration of ecological systems or 16
decontamination of polluted landscapes. Instead, the idea was that by rationalizing the otherwise
chaotic natural world with the use of widespread engineering intervention, the urban environment
could be made better for it. This marked the beginning of a highly altered, culturally-defined, urban
landscape. The natural-looking cultural landscapes of the picturesque no longer registered as C
being of primary concern (Melosi, 1982).
According to Cranz (2000), it was with the progressivism of the reform park that today's dichotomy
between active and passive recreation emerged. This dichotomy has powerful influences in the
design and use of today's parks, including both ecological parks included in this study.
A new type of park design, the recreational facility, emerging between the 1930s-I 960s, was
influenced heavily by the rapidly suburbanizing context of America's metropolitan regions. The
assumption at this time, Cranz argues, was that everybody had their backyard for intimate settings
and relatively easy access to larger pieces of un-developed tracts of open space. These un-
developed pieces in the puzzle would serve the need for access to 'nature' that the picturesque
philosopher argued was so important to provide. Instead, what was needed in public parks was a
place to site 'large-scale facilities,' including areas for "field sports [such] as baseball, football, and
basketball...and swimming pools," the later, Cranz describes, characterizing this movement more
so than any other single element (Cranz, 2000).
These parks were mass-produced, often from a single plan, and placed rather indiscriminately
in regards to local site conditions across the new suburban landscape (Cranz, 1984). These
monotonous places had little room for ecological function of any kind.
D. The Open-Space System
Cranz describes parks developed post 1965 as representing three distinct typologies - the tot
lot, the adventure playground, and the urban plaza - which she collectively refers to as the open
space movement. In the context of open space, Cranz argues that an increasing contextual
understanding, spurred perhaps by the concurrent environmental movement, between the smaller
landscape parcels and a larger regional network, first emerged (Cranz, 2000).
At the urban scale, these open space parks represented small plazas and 'pocket parks.' Although
not mentioned by Cranz, the linear riverway and other waterfronts would fall into this category
of park development as well.
The term 'open space' represents a variety of different ideas and visions being applied to parks
during the 1960s and after. First,"open spaces were wide open areas with the connotation that
this was where anything goes, and where the new permissiveness about the range of possible park
activities was appropriate." Secondly,open spaces were the odds-and-ends of urban development
- vestiges of one sort or another that stood apart from the urbanized landscape around them.
Thirdly, open spaces were "fluid... [in] their parameters, so that park flowed into city and city into
park" (Cranz, 1982, p. 138).
17
Open spaces allowed for the expression of increasingly liberalizing social norms, and were
themselves liberal in their physical characteristics. Yet the nascent environmental movement had
not yet defined a positive connection between ecology, natural systems, the designed landscape,
and the urban environment, and therefore these new open spaces continued to lack any expression
of ecological intention or merit. (
It has been argued that a new park model that considers natural ecology and ecological sustainability
as primary and distinguishable motivating drivers of design is in the process of emerging (Cranz
& Boland, 2004; Rothman, 2003; Boland, 2001). But there is considerable debate as to what
exactly integration of ecological systems means in landscape design generally and urban park
design specifically. How should a park designed on ecological principles function and what should
it look like? This is a question of early debate in the field and no one argument has gained
necessary favor over another. Yet the nexus between environmentalism, environmental ethics and
landscape architecture has been well discussed in the last many decades. In order to postulate on
the considerations of an ecological park, as is the intent of this thesis, it is necessary to possess
an understanding of this changing relationship between design, ecology, and the environment
in a temporal sense. This next section will present a synopsis of the literature as it relates to
landscape intervention and ecological principles.
F. Ecology and Design: 1960s
The 1960s marked a sea change in the popular perception of human action and environmental
consequence. In 1949, Aldo Leopold's essays on the natural environment in A Sand CountyAlmanac
set the stage for Rachel Carson's apocalyptic denouncement of pesticides in her 1962 work, Silent
Spring, which in turn kicked off the modern environmental movement in the 1960s (Nadenicek,
2000).
As environmentalism became increasingly popularized in mainstream culture, the profession
of landscape architecture "seized the opportunity to promote their work" as the link between
environmental health and landscape design. During this time, the profession positioned itself as
part of an "environmental solution" given its perennial engagement with nature" (Nadenicek,
2000).
Ian McHarg's Design with Nature (1969) codified this professional adoption of an increasingly popular
environmental ethic. Nadenicek (2000) argues that this work functioned as the "guidebook for
a new generation of landscape architects dedicated to cleaning up the American landscape and
planning development that fell lightly on the land." In his book, McHarg wrote,"the purpose of
this exploration is to show that natural process, unitary in character, must be so considered in the
planning process" (McHarg, p.65). 18
Environmentalism's evolution from a special interest to a broad-base concern among the general .
population paralleled a re-centering within the practice of landscape architecture during this
period (Meyer, 2000). <
Meyer (2000) argues that with the increasingly pluralistic view towards the environment came
an increasingly pluralistic view on what environmentally responsive landscape architecture might
reflect. Meyer (2000) goes on to argue: "Some sought to emphasize nature's forms, others to make
nature's subtle and transitory processes palpable and visible, and still others to reveal a site's entire history
of cultural and ecological agents. These varied goals placed the landscape architect in a position of being
site perceiver, reader, and interpreter. Straddling the line between conception and reception, controlling
and initiating, the landscape architectural design process anticipated the audience's reactions, perceptions,
and experiences of place."
Thompson (2000, p. 152) argues that the ecological approach "was an undoubted success... In
many ways the precursor of today's interest in sustainability" The approach intended to design
landscapes that would, over time, become self-sufficient, working with "natural processes rather
than against them." Yet in contending this positivistic view, Goode and Smart (1983) explain
that the ecological approach was not guided by principles of nature conservation or creation of
functioning habitat. Instead, they argue, the ecological approach was nothing more than "a green
veneer,which gave people the impression that there was nature in their town."
In 1984, Alan Ruff challenged the landscape profession to move beyond a purely symbolic treatment
of the environment. "If we accept that the current level of ecological consciousness is part of
the beginning of a long-lasting, fundamental change in attitudes and environmental values... then
landscape architecture must bear a large measure of responsibility for making aesthetic sense
out of this attitudinal metamorphosis" (Ruff, 1984; in Conan, 2000). Ruff goes on to say that
the landscape architect's failure to respond to the growing environmental ethic in design terms
"abdicates [their] responsibility for aesthetic form of the urban environment.:
With the continuing maturation of the philosophies behind ecology and design, the perceived
relationship between humans and the natural world as seen within the context of created
places continued to change. Specifically, the argument that the designer's role was to facilitate 0
communication between the natural and cultural worlds through established cultural mechanisms F"
gained prominence during this time. Howett (1987) emphasized the role experience played in
connecting humans to their cultural and ecological environment, acknowledging"that those bonds
of concern were the prerequisite for transforming feelings into values, then into knowledge, and
finally into principles for action." As Meyer (2000) illuminates, fundamental to Howett's argument
"was her assertion that ecology should not be applied without mediation and that principles
of ecology must be combined with the two other powerful 'critical and theoretical currents'
already influencing the practice of landscape architecture (I 980s) - semiotics and environmental
psychology."
Yet some professionals were disinterested in,even antagonistic towards, the ecological approach.
According to Thompson (2000, pp. 173-4), criticisms were of three main types:
In the 1990s, the idea of revelation through design gained prominence. Subscribers to this line
of thought believed that it was inherent in the role of the designer to bring into the realm of
the obvious the natural systems at play in the landscape. Proponents of eco-revelatory design
believed that both a strong aesthetic and ecological repair could be achieved by bringing to the
surface natural systems that would otherwise have gone unnoticed. This includes the daylighting
of culverted streams and an allowance for successional change in the planted landscape, for
example. Eisenstein (2001) adds that the ecological processes revealed may be natural,"in the
sense that they could continue to exist without the management of humans, or they may be highly
artificial...systems that need constant supervision if they are to persist in an urbanized context."
Thayer (1994) captures this general philosophy most positively:"The first step towards building
a sustainable world...is to open up our landscapes to view, such that we may learn from them
where we are, how we are doing, and what we need to do to make the world better."
The dialogue first begun by Howett on the necessity of integrating cultural function, understandings, 20
desires, and norms into the design of an ecological landscape was continued by John Lyle (199 1)
in Can Floating Seeds Make Deep Forms? In that article, Lyle (1991) argues that: "Ecological order
is as much [in a designed landscape] as in a natural landscape, but it meets and merges with
human activity and with aesthetic order as perceived by the human mind. We can know nature -
only through perception and intellect. Where the merging is harmonious, where ecological and
aesthetic order are congruent, we have a human ecosystem...This is Deep Form":' He goes on to
critique contemporary efforts in designing natural landscapes:"Too often...they have responded
to nature by shaping pale limitations of her forms in the picturesque tradition and in so doing have
produced Shallow Form:"
In her aptly titled 'Messy Ecosystems, Orderly Frames,' Nassauer (1995b) observes that many
endemic ecosystems violate cultural norms of order and organization when established or re-
established in an urban context. In addition, research suggests a significant negative public reaction
to ecologically valuable landscapes (Gobster 1994, p. 66; Nassauer 1995, p. 162; Littlewood 1996,
p. 3). Therefore, ecological spaces, especially in close proximity to urbanized areas where most
people live, should be appealing aesthetic experiences (Mozingo, 1997).
Nassauer offers that the role of a designer is to provide the 'cues to care' which tell the public
that an apparently unordered landscape is part of an intended intervention. "Orderly Frames,"
she says,"can be used to construct a widely recognized cultural framework for ecological quality."
These 'orderly frames' provide a "recognizable aesthetic" to cue the public that the ecological
intervention is one worth caring for. In completing her argument, Nassauer (I 995a, p. 69) offers:
"Landscapes that are ecologically sound, and that also evoke enjoyment and approval, are more
likely to be sustained by appropriate human care over the long term. In short, the health of the
landscape requires that humans enjoy and take care of it."
John Lyle in Regenerative Design for Sustainable Development (1994), foresees that"if we can manifest
the inherent elegance of ecological processes in visible forms, those forms will become symbols
for the times" and will be "meaningful, even beautiful, in terms of process and context." (Lyle,
1994, p.45) Yet Mozingo (1997) adds that current practice of ecological design falls short of both
meaning and beauty. For ecologically based design to move past its "rather bland condition" and 21
"coalesce as an environmental vision,""ecological landscapes must become iconic." But how this
I-
iconography is defined is a question of open debate. Eisenstein (2001) begins a consideration on X
this need for memorable icons to define a unique and identifiable sense of place. "As ecological "
processes are made visible through design..., designers should think about how the unique building c
and landscape forms that arise from each local ecological context can form the basis for place
values to flourish." "As these values emerge," Eisenstein (2001) continues,"people will develop <
more intimate cultural associations with the features of the landscape that make their place
special - in other words, the same features that manifest and make meaningful their particular
tangible relationship to the larger natural world."
Ecologically designed landscapes, in their ability to teach or impart knowledge of local ecological
processes, generate a new literacy that is relevant and specific to the urban condition. Eisenstein
(2001) argues that urban landscapes have "extraordinary potential to reveal the tangible
relationships between urban residents and the natural environment." In referencing Nassauer's
'cues-to-care, Eisenstein (2001) adds that "...ecologically designed urban landscapes should
communicate cultural 'cues' for sustainable behavior; these landscapes should be implemented
in partnership with ecological education efforts; and the cultural meanings and ecological place
values created over time will be fundamentally local." With this newly imparted, locally specific
literacy, the sustainable future of the city becomes more readily attainable, he argues.
Combining natural ecology with cultural ecology is an important turn in the philosophy of
ecological design. Dolores Hayden in Power of Place:
Recent consideration has been paid on the ability of urban parks to provide culturally and socially
engaging program, which the ecological park purports to do by framing it within a construct of
designed ecological value (Boland, 2000). Walker (2004), in describing what he calls the "New
Park:'," argues that these landscapes are vital to both the ecological and social health of the urban
environment and should be reconsidered in that light. Their program should help youth "choose
rewarding paths to adulthood," assist in helping "new entrants to the workforce find productive
jobs," help community residents "improve their health" through exercise and mental challenge,
and encourage civic participation and neighborhood improvement by encouraging participation in
park planning and management.
Paul Bray (2004) believes that "new" parks form the basis for defining the character of the city.
He argues that in a world where urban places look increasingly alike, where 'sameness' muddles
the vibrancy of city,an "enlarged notion of park that highlights overall cultural and natural themes, 22
fosters linkages and manages...integration of conservation, education, recreation and sustainable
development" stands to redefine and create quality of place.
Louis Mumford perhaps most eloquently presages this idea in a 1938 report:"Park planning cannot
possibly stop at the edges of the parks.The park system is thus the spearhead of comprehensive
urban planning."9
Nadenicek (2000, pp. 150-I) disaggregates the contemporary philosophy of ecologically designed
landscapes into two categories:
I) Separation through restoration. The emphasis of this work is on restoration guided by the
separation of humans and nature.This work tends to "spark a sense of guilt and confession
for the destruction wrought on the landscape by human interaction."
2) Integration. This work tends to focus on the interconnectivity between human and natural
communities.
The language used to describe a design charrette for a site in Surrey, British Columbia, illustrates
these two philosophies:"There are two ways to approach the question of landscape sustainability.
You can use the design language of'mitigation' and create some sort of benevolent buffer between
nature and the city; or you can use the design language of 'integration' and try to fuse nature and
the city. We chose to use the latter" (Condon, 1996).
Three parks - one in the United States, one in Canada, and one in Europe - represent the spectrum
of this philosophical divide.
Schoneberg Siidgeliande Park, Berlin. An abandoned rail yard in Berlin, Sudgelinde Park
represents a post-modern programmatic insertion - namely, none at all. Here, no design was
deemed acceptable or necessary, instead the programming of the landscape relied upon the
interplay between abandoned remnants of cultural practices and reintroduced natural ecologies
to define a truly unique park aesthetic. Trains that had for decades used the rail yard deposited
seeds from their travels all over Europe, creating an ecological museum, of the natural fauna of
the continent. The park itself was divided into two sections. A nature reserve that disallows any
human presence, while a landscape reserve that is open to a limited public.
Roxhill Bog Park, Seattle. In September of 2000, accumulations of fill and nonnative turf were
removed from a portion of the park to reveal an endemic peat bog buried since the late 1960's.
With the help of a significant volunteer effort, 20,000 native plants were replanted in the bog and
surrounding uplands.The community-initiated planting of this area was designed to help restore
natural habitat and create a new educational resource. Recreational amenities tied to the unique
character of the park are also programmed, including trails and open areas.The restoration of the
wetland was designed to improve water quality and steady water flow to a creek that flows well
beyond the site boundaries.
Parc Downsview,Toronto. A new park recently designed for the city of Toronto, the 235 hectare
Downsview park is guided by five principles: sustainability, stewardship recreation, legacy, and 23
beauty. Downsview embraces the idea of landscape as process, where no necessary preconceived
idea of a final solution - a final ecology in this context - is promoted. Instead, by creating a self-
sustaining environmental, social, and economic ecosystem where the natural ecology is allowed
to mature and community input and stewardship is fundamental, the park is designed to evolve
as social and biological needs change. While this design concept has been chosen by the city of p
Toronto, funding for its construction is in the process of being secured. <.
FD
A recent buzzword has emerged in the field of park planning that some say reflects a changing
cultural ethos towards the relationship between cities and the land. Others dismiss this call saying
it is nothing more than fancy word to describe the status quo. Here, we concern ourselves with
Ecological Parks. Are they truly ecological? Or, are they more ecological than their picturesque
counterparts? To answer these questions, it is necessary to understand what ecological means in
a designed landscape set within a highly urbanized context. Is it natural ecology that is implied,
or is it a cultural ecology - perhaps even a combination of the two. Or is it the implication that
a sustainable use of resources makes an Ecological Park ecological? In answering these questions,
yet another emerges. Is the Ecological Park a new model in park design, as some would argue,
or is the commonality between Ecological Parks nothing more than the use of this increasingly
ubiquitous word?
Using the methods described in the next chapter, Xochimilco Ecological Park and Crissy Field,
examples of ecological parks, will be examined in an attempt to answer the preceding questions.
Two non-ecological parks, Golden Gate Park in San Francisco and the Back Bay Fens in Boston,
will also be considered in order to draw comparative insights.
Chapter 3. Case Study Methodology
A. Introduction
This study assembles a matrix of ecological indicators from the literature, both of natural and
cultural ecologies, relevant to urban landscapes. Using a case-study approach, this matrix is then
applied to two ecological parks, Xochimilco Ecological Park in Mexico City and Crissy Field in San
Francisco, California as well as to two picturesque parks, Golden Gate Park in San Francisco and
the Boston Fens / Muddy River portion of the Emerald Necklace in Boston, Massachusetts.
What isan ecological park? To answer this, the "ecologies" of the landscape will be deconstructed
and analyzed. In order to deconstruct the parks studies in this thesis research, two levels of
analysis will be conducted. The first will use the literature on landscape ecology to formulate a
running list of indicators of natural ecologic viability against which each park will be measured.
Would 'nature' consider the ecological park ecological? This analysis will be referred to as the
positive analysis. The second level of analysis, or what will be called the contextual analysis, will look
at the role of the park in terms of the broader landscape of the city, drawing from a more socially- 26
oriented body of literature. Is the relationship of the ecological park to the city any different?
In reviewing the vast literature on ecological measures of the landscape, a series of indicators
have been identified that in a general sense suggest the capacity of a landscape to support a
sustaining ecological system. In order to identify these indicators, it was first necessary to define
the meaning of an ecological system. Given the urban nature of these parks, grater emphasis was
placed on systems, repair of degradation, flora, and habitat for smaller fauna. It is important to
note that these indicators are in themselves only indicators, demonstrating likelihood, but not
necessarily fact, of ecological merit.
While there is a wide body of literature supporting the use of indicators, (Botequilha, 2002;
Forman, 1999, 1995; Jongman, 1999; Ludwig, 1999; Collinge 1996; Schumaker, 1996; O'Neil, et al,
1988; Forman & Godron, 1984), there is a limited, yet increasing, body of literature that questions
the ability of landscape measures to predict ecologic viability in a consistent manner (Corry and
Nassauer, 2005; Tischendorf, 2001). This dialogue arises specifically in the context of alternate
land use scenario modeling and the impact on ecological prediction. Because this study is not
intended to predict the ecology of ecological parks but to instead identify whether these parks
are designed in such a way as to promote certain ecological principles, the importance of this
emerging debate to this thesis.
An underlying principle in the compilation of these indicators was that they not be ecosystem or
landscape specific. Clearly, the ecological condition of a coastal Mediterranean climate, as that
found in the second case study, differs greatly from that found in the Mexican altiplano, as both the
literature and empirical data would suggest. Yet the same literature supports generalizable, non
place-specific indicators that can be applied to most landscapes.While it is agreed that much more
detailed and analytical measurement could be conducted to measure the ecological viability of
each park, such detailing is not necessary when the purpose of this study is only to detect relative
ecological merit vis-a-vis the picturesque.
Explorations on the relationship of cultural values to ecological processes are well documented
(Gross, 2003; Nadenicek and Hastings, 2000; Meyer, 2000; Nassauer, 1997). According to Gross
(2003),"the traditional picture of a rigid distinction between the sphere of anatural science of'hard
facts' and a citizen science of so called soft knowledge does not fit into the concept of ecological
restoration." Ecological restoration, in a comprehensive sense, Gross (2003) would argue, is
premised on the active involvement of human actors who bring with them cultural histories and
constructions. Further, ecological restoration is a process through which cultural aspirations,
academic knowledge, and'natural' powers interact and synergize to produce an outcome. Through
this paradigm, the level of participation in an immediate sense, and social integration in larger
sense, in the ecological restoration and subsequent park program are indicators of a strong and
sustainable cultural dynamic. Measures were selected to represent this powerful concept.
27
iii. Presentation of Measurement
(D
The design and programming of each park was measured against a subjective 4-tiered scale for =
0
each indicator. Although subjective, this measurement was guided by personal visits and interviews
with individuals actively engaged in the planning and operation of each park. In order to ease
comparison of these measurements across parks, indicators that were graded as'high' were given
four points, those that were graded as 'medium' were given two points, those that were graded
as 'low' were given one point, and those that were graded 'none' were given zero points. A sum
total was then calculated for each park. Although a weighting of each indicator might have been
an improved methodology, providing a more useful comparative value, it was not feasible, given the
limitations of this research, to design and defend such a methodology. Instead, an absolute value
was used and is useful as a first order analysis. Further discussion on a second order analysis will
be presented in Chapter 9.
With this said, the following consideration was given in measuring each park's attention to each
indicator:
P.A.R.:The level at which the perimiter-to-area ratio matched endemic site conditions.
Segregated Use:The level at which active recreation and habitat were separated.
Regional Connections:The level at which regional habitat connections were created or preserved.
Native Vegetation:The level at which native vegetation was used in the landscaping program.
Hydrology (surface):The level at which surface water was integrated into the design so as to
be replicating of endemic conditions and/or self-regulating.
Fitness:The level at which the park program fits to the site - culturally and ecologically.
An important qualifier to make is that this study does not conduct a true, scientifically based, 1
ecological assessment of the natural landscape nor does it conduct an exhaustive analysis of human
or cultural ecology. Instead, in drawing from the literature, personal site visits and observations,
and interviews with informed professionals, this study applies generalizable indicators of both the
natural and cultural ecologies in considering and exploring the significance of ecological parks.
The selection of so-called ecological parks was guided by a simple methodology. Xochimilco
Ecological Park is considered within the circuit of landscape and urban design awards as a truly
revolutionary and emblematic notion of park. Secondly, both Galen Cranz and Michael Boland,
early proponents of the ecological park model, cite Crissy Field as an excellent example in practice
of this new park ideology.
In considering the case studies against which this study might compare the ecological park, Cranz's
(1984) illumination is useful. Of the four major municipal park typologies that have existed since
the municipal park movement began in the latter half of the 19 th century, Cranz argues, only one,
the picturesque, referenced nature and natural systems in any significant way. How this referencing
was done and what the implications of that referencing are on ecological merit are the subject of
this study. For this reason, it was necessary to select case study sites that captured the array of
ideologies vis-a-vis natural systems within the picturesque movement.
Two parks were selected to capture this reflection. Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, designed
byWilliam Hammond Hall, isa physical representation of early picturesque philosophy. The ideas,
methods, and outcomes of this park are similar to those of Central Park in New York, Prospect
Park in Brooklyn, Franklin Park in Boston, and Jackson Park in Chicago. All referenced nature
in a visual way and used natural site conditions to varying degrees to influence and guide the
superimposition of a pre-established visual and philosophical ideal.
The original condition of Boston Fens and associated Muddy River Improvement, as elements of
Frederick Law Olmsted's Emerald Necklace, represented a latter stage of picturesque philosophy.
As one of Olmsted's last municipal commissions, it reflected a greater understanding of regional
connection and the function of natural systems.'
I. It is important to note that today's Fens is drastically different than that designed by Olmsted. To account for
this, analysis will be conducted on both historical and contemporary conditions.
Chapter 4. Xochimilco: Ecological Repair
and Cultural Preservation
"...this park of 2 70 hectares isonly a small part of what issurely one of the largest and most ambitious
efforts to restore a physical and cultural setting undertaken by humankind."
-Alex Krieger,Veronica Green Prize Jury Report
The following chapter on Xochimilco provides this study's first detailed exploration of an ecological
park. In analyzing the contemporary literature in a previous chapter,we are left with an emerging
understanding of the importance of a designed conjunction between the natural and cultural x
landscapes. Xochimilco presents a rather dramatic example of this type of design intervention,
where the end result was the preservation of a historical landscape artifact and the restoration B
of a hydrological system - both through the provision of a park program. This chapter will begin F
with a tracing of the ecological history of the landscape upon which the park was later sited,
and will end with a discussion of the motivations behind the design of the park and its planning
ramifications. This exploration is intended to begin the construction in the mind of the reader as
to what an ecological park might be and what possible implications on cities it might have. This
story will be continued in the subsequent chapter, where a second ecological park is considered.
For now, let us begin with Xochimilco.
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Xochimilco Ecological Park is in many ways considered the 'poster-child' of the ecological park
'movement' It is cited by ecological park proponents (Cranz & Boland, 2004, Boland, 2001) as
a demonstrable example from which to learn, wining numerous urban design and park planning
awards, including the 1994 ASLA Merit Award, the Veronica Green Prize in Urban Design, and the
Waterfront Center Design Award, among others. That is not to say that all are in agreement on
the natural ecological value of the park (Wirth, 1997) while others would suggest that the actual
state of the natural ecology is less important than the designed intent (Eisenstein, 2002). In the
course of this next section, the presentation of this case study will focus on both the natural and
cultural ecologies of the site, considering how these elements influenced both the design intent
and outcome of the park.
Use of words: Natural ecology encompasses the biotic and abiotic systems, including flora and fauna and
energy and water flows. Cultural ecology encompasses the human-based systems with respect to the
landscape, including perception, interaction, education, and history. The cultural landscape, tied to cultural
ecology, reflects the human-induced interactions with the land. 34
B. Context ox
When the Spanish conquistadors arrived in 1519, they encountered what must at first seemed 2
like a fabulous mirage: the Aztec capital floating in a vast lake-actually a collection of five lakes- o
supporting a regional population approaching 200,000, more than twice that of Rome.
Accounts relayed back to Europe described this capital city as being more splendid than Venice
with its interlaced system of canals and lakes and floating gardens many hundreds of kilometers
long. Within these canals and lakes, the Aztecs had engineered a maze of 'floating' islands, or
chinampas, upon which fertile soil dredged from the water's bottom allowed for up to three
crop rotations each year. Over the centuries, as the ecology of the landscape matured, these
floating islands grew to be fixed in place by the roots of trees and shrubs, producing, over time,
an ecosystem intricately tied to water, and inexorably tied to culture, in this, the altiplano of the
Mexican desert.
As one might imagine, this complex and intricately woven relationship between land and water
systems isnot endemic to theValley of Mexico, at least not in its agricultural manifestation created
by the Aztecs. Lake Xochimilco was one of a series of ancient endorheic lakes located in the valley,
where no outflow of water occurred either superficially or subterraneously. These lakes included
the brackish Lake Texcoco, Lake Zumpango, and Lake Xaltocan and the fresh water Lake Chalco.
Early Mesoamerican cultures, including the Teotihuacanos, the Toltecs, and the Aztecs, engineered
a series of canals that interlaced these lakes, providing potable water for both irrigation and
drinking. Yet on the meso scale, the hydrological system was not significantly altered from its pre-
human condition (Cassio, 2006).
This mature, stable, and self-sustaining engineered landscape grew to support an incredible richness
in biota, becoming arguably, a complete ecological landscape in its own right. It is in fact this inter-
relationship between cultural and ecological landscapes that formed the basis for a collective and
definable identity for the city. While the relationship between nature and culture will be explored
in greater detail in a section to follow, the inexorability of the human condition from the physical
landscape of the city is important to keep in mind. As Mario Schjetnan, the chief designer of the
ecological restoration in Xochimilco philosophizes,"the mystery and fascination of Xochimilco"
is that it is at once "a place created by man in the I th century" and "a living archaeology" for
us today of"a perfect manmade ecological system:' that has become "deeply embedded in our
collective consciousness."
The environment described by those rather romantic depictions first relayed to Europe comparing
the Aztec capital to Venice in the 16 th century would come under threat in subsequent years
during colonization. As the realities of an urbanizing community increasingly found themselves in
conflict with historic cultural mores, the ecologies of the landscapes suffered.The vast lacustrine2
environment, which by the 1950s had been reduced to a small vestige around Xochimilco, was
for the first time seriously threatened with extinction. The damning, siphoning, and filling of lakes
I. RC.,January 2006.
2. Lacustrine. Habitat within, or somehow associated with, a lake environment.
created new lands for urban development while the associated demands for increased water
supply lowered the valley's water table precipitously. In a dramatic series of events, the rapidly
urbanizing areas around the periphery of Xochimilco produced such great amounts of untreated
sewage,storm runoff,salts and heavy metals,that the productive capacity and ecological value of the
remaining lake system failed. By the early 1980s, what had for two millennia been a self-sustaining
social, agricultural, and ecological landscape, seemed destined for complete destruction.
Xochimilco lies in the southeastern rim of theValley of Mexico. It is here that the most abundant
water resource, both historically and presently, in a highly arid land is located, producing almost
10% of the city's drinking water (Menendez, 1995). Present day Xochimilco is some 127 square
kilometers; 79 square kilometers of which are agricultural and forest land; 12 square kilometers
are occupied by canals and lagoons; and 36 square kilometers are urbanized.
The most serious environmental problems for Xochimilco were related to the simultaneous
exploitation of the aquiferous water resources that have nourished the canal system for millennia
and the contamination of surface water. This exploitation began in 1913, when the historically
abundant springs were first capped to provide the downtown area (D.F.), some 18 kilometers to
the north, with inexpensive potable water (Moreno Mejia, 1987). In the 1950s, the D.F. accelerated
the extraction of water to meet the needs of an ever-densifying city by drilling wells deep into
the groundwater table. This drilling and subsequent pull of water dried the springs, depriving the
canals of their primary source of perennial replenishment.
In addition to the extraction of water for municipal water supply, two related factors further
enhanced the degradation of the aquifer feeding the chinampas. With the increasing urbanization
within the Valley of Mexico and the associated deforestation this urbanization had created,
the Xochimilco region now receives 30 percent less precipitation and slightly higher average
temperatures than it did at the beginning of the 20th century (Wirth, 1997).Just by looking at the
population explosion in Mexico City - from 345,000 in 1900, 3.2 million in 1930, 16 million in 1970
and a projected 24 million by 20103 - the impacts on the natural landscape are clearly imaginable.
In addition to this microclimatic shift and drop in rainfall, the increase in impervious surface has
exacerbated the inability of the aquifer to replenish itself. 37
X
In a well-intentioned but ultimately catastrophic effort to replace the water lost from the springs, o
the D.F.government began channeling raw sewage (aguas negras) into the canals. The residents of -
as many as 20,000 informal dwellings added to this sewage input with their use of the canals as _
drainage for all household discharges (Wirth, 1997). 0
What had prior to 1950 been a somewhat invisible, though progressive, trend towards declination,
became strikingly apparent by the 1970s with the widespread collapses of canal walls, evaporation
of entire sections of lakes, algal blooms and the drifting of noxious smells for many kilometers
downwind of the chinampas. In addition, on a geomorphologic scale, land subsidence became a
serious problem as the hills surrounding Xochimilco began sinking at a rate of 40 centimeters per
year (L6pez Escalente, 1995).
These factors - pollution, deceasing water supply, rapid urbanization, and the collapse of the
topographical features of the ecosystem - along with the economic hardship incurred by families
whose only source of income was farming in the chinampas- (and catalyzed by an impending
presidential election) provided the final impetus for both municipal and national authorities to get
involved.4
'W- NN
D. Call to Action
Because of mounting internal and external political pressure to halt the deterioration of Xochimilco,
the D.F. government began the undertaking in the late 1980s of a project aimed at rehabilitating
the region in a "holistic" manner.
In 1990, the Movimiento Ecologista Mexicano (MEM) held a press conference with other
environmental organizations, groups of ecologists based in Xochimilco, owners of the chinampas
(los chinamperos), and faculty from the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (Wirth, 1997)
announcing a campaign to save the hydroagriculture and ecology of Xochimilco from the "greed of
the developers and those selling land illegally" as they called on the public to support their effort
(UnoMasUno, 2/22/90:1 I).5
5. While this study will not delve into the political dynamics at play during this period, it is important to note that
there were growing calls for land reform by residents and traditional farmers threatened by encroaching
development.
This coalition of environmental groups and local residents had been spurred to action by a
series of announcements by the D.F. government in 1989 that called for the "ecological rescue of
Xochimilco."
The first of these public announcements, the Xochimilco Holistic Recovery Agreement in early
1989, largely a conceptual exploration, identified the following four strategic areas that any effort
should address:
From this, the master plan outlining the following project goals was released on November 21,
1989. It called for:
The municipal plan, designated as the Plan to Rescue the Ecology of Xochimilco, was formally
announced by President Carlos Salinas de Gortari on November 21, 1989 and called for major
hydraulic works for water treatment,expansion in the agricultural sector,historical and archeological
studies of the chinampa system, improvement in the sanitary conditions of residences, and the
introduction of separated sewers to conserve storm water for diversion to aquifers.
A year later on December 4, 1990 the government signed the"Accord of Democratic Cooperation
for the Ecological Rescue of Xochimilco" which included specific plans for protection of the
agricultural land by expropriating three ejidos (communal farms) to restrict urban development,
the construction of two lagoons to reduce flooding and limit the sinking of land, and provide for
advanced treatment of sewage water pumped into the canals.
The Xochimilco rescue project in totality encompasses 3,000 hectares, 300 of which are the
Ecological Park.
Mario Schjetnan, the landscape architect commissioned for the design of the park, describes the
created landscape in philosophical terms:
"...the Xochimilco park isnot asentimental evocation of the past. It isa space geared to the present and
future, because it deals with the present problems and aspirations of the community of Xochimilco, of its
surroundings, and of the city at large. It also looks into the future as a created natural space that will grow,
evolve, mature, and be a permanent open space that aspires to both form and conform with the city."6
The ecological park was an attempt to provide for a place through which access to the larger
Xochimilco district was possible in both a physical sense but also in a more experiential or
metaphysical sense as well. It was about providing the visitor with a recreational experience
defined by a pedagogical interaction with the space around them. It was about creating a living,
breathing, ecologically functioning outdoor museum that provides for leisure but in a way that
connects the visitor to the land beyond the traditional sense of recreation.
"When we started to design the park, we began at the largest scale. We started to see the cosmography o
of the major mountains, which were, we found out, important religious places in the pre-Hispanic culture. _
We began by relating the main axes to the major mountain Cerro de la Estrella, to the north. Another 3.
important axis connects the park with the historical district of chinampas. With the establishment of 8
the lake system, our objective was to recover the main perspectives that must have existed until the 181
century, with views of lakes, mountains, and trees related to this enormous landscape.'"
The ecological park consists of what are called its natural area, a didactic area, a botanical garden, a
recreational area, the Paseo de las Flores (Flower Walk)8 , and the lagoons and embarcaderos, which
establish a connection to the extended lake system.
As mentioned earlier, the introduced chinampa landscape has very little 'natural' about it, yet
historically, it was able to support quite a richness of different biotic elements. The repaired
version of this system within the Ecological Park reflects certain elements of this richness, both
designed and organic.
F. Study Setting
The purpose of this study, beyond exploring the specifics of the park in terms of design intent and
demonstrated outcome, isto postulate whether this park, in a larger aspect, demonstrates a new
ecological ethic in the creation of public space. Is there some element in the qualities of the park
6. Schjetnan (1996a).
7. Mario Schjetnan in Veronica Green Prize.
8. Flower Walk is culturally significant because it has become the primary agricultural crop in the chinampa system.
Schematic plan for Xochimilco
ecological park. Zone I highlights
ecology, Zone 2 allows for active
recreation, Zone 3 is the flower
mart. (Schjetnan)
that identifies, or reflects a notion of an ecological landscape? But what is an ecological landscape
and how can one identify it?
In looking at the dialogue used in talking about Xochimilco, there seems to be specific, repeated
reference to both a natural ecology - water, plants, birds-and a cultural ecology - people, history,
custom. While the use of the word ecology to encapsulate these elements of the landscape is
not contended, the relevance of this study is to determine whether the representation of these
ecologies, or perhaps the concerted intent in using these elements as the principles defining the
landscape, is any different from accepted practice in the world of park design. If in fact we suppose
that the traditional, or picturesque urban park is not necessarily designed to promote ecology, can
we say that ecological parks, as demonstrated by Xochimilco, are then a departure because they
do attempt to promote certain ecological functions?
Ecological park (upper left quadrant)
and connecting portion of chinampa
zone (Schjetnan).
In order to address these questions, two levels of analysis will be conducted. The first will use the
landscape ecology literature to formulate a running list of indicators of natural ecologic viability
against which Xochimilco will be measured. This analysis will be referred to as the positive analysis.
The second, or what will be called the contextual analysis, will look at the role of the park in terms
of the broader landscape of the city. 42
While this study so far has presented the Xochimilco Ecological Park within the context of a 0
grander landscape project, the indicators will be measured against the conditions within the park
boundaries, unless noted otherwise. =
Indicators
i. HABITAT DIVERSITY
Water:The primary creation of habitat was for migratory water foul. Specific plantings in and
around the lagoons known to attract birds were used, including a variety of grasses and reeds.
Migrating birds have appeared and have been returning each year in greater numbers for more
than a decade.
No attempt was made to support below-surface habitat other than specific mitigations to ensure
water quality.
Land: Because of the arid quality of the landscape, larger assemblages of bushes and medium-
grade groundcover, which are both associated with birds, smaller mammals, and reptiles, are not
likely to survive without irrigation and were therefore not included in the design.
Because of the lack of connection to larger patches, the park and the overall chinampa system
have little capacity to support larger mammals. As a result, no design intent for medium to larger
mammals was identified within the boundaries of the park.
Complexity. Heterogeneity in patch dynamics isbetter than homogeneity (Selman, 1993; Forman,
1995). Xochimilco has made attempts to provide distinct yet connected patches of moderate
internal complexity and irregular edge condition.
Disaggregation of human and natural use. Attempt was made to disaggregate and physically 43
separate parts of the landscape used for active recreation from passive uses. On the north side
of the peripherical highway, which is closer to more densely settled areas and isolated from the 0
larger chinampa system, active recreational uses were concentrated. Here, elements of the reform _
park - playing fields, field houses - as well as the more characteristically urban elements of the
park - the flower market and running trails-are also located. Across the highway, and contiguous o
to the greater lake system, is the botanic garden, the ecological center, the nature reserve, and
the portion of the restored chinampas and canals within the site. This area, the literature would
A portion of the site was planted with native vegetation, including a variety of succulents and
bushes. Most trees, with the exception of the Ahuejote (Salix bonplandiana) tree, endemic only
to the Xochimilco area, were planted as specimens and therefore offer only limited habitat value.
Continued maintenance and successional plantings, to a majority extent, will be required as the
planting program is not self-replicating. Overall, the planting characterization is poor.
have acted to collect and percolate seasonal rainfall into the underlying aquifer while providing for 3_
recreational amenity, habitat, and visual pleasure. The only input of water into these lakes is rainfall, o
but surface outputs channel this water throughout the park and ultimately into the chinampas.
Water Loop: In order to address the depleting aquifer,attention was paid to repairing the water-
cycle loop between pulls for drinking water and groundwater recharge. The intent was a no-net-
loss policy for the aquifer. Both the collection of rainwater that would have otherwise flooded
surrounding communities and the return of tertiary treated wastewater from two new treatment
plants into the chinampas are important elements of the design. The return of this water flows
somewhat ceremoniously through three architectural fountains that discharge into the lagoons.
The effects on water quality, specifically bioaccumulation of substances not treated for by the
wastewater plants, is unknown.
Irrigation:While not specifically delineated in any of the park master plans, widespread irrigation
of the park landscape is minimal if not nonexistent.9 As a result, the landscape of the park changes
seasonally in concert with the landscape of the surrounding hills.
9. Attempts to secure a copy of the state-sanctioned program and maintenance plan have been unsuccessful.
Using trees to stabilize canal edges
(Power).
v. SITE FITNESS
Physical aspects of the site, such as size, topography, aspect, climate, soil, hydrology, vegetation
and wildlife, together with cultural and social influences, and current uses combine to give a site
its distinct character. An ecological approach takes prevailing site conditions at its lead. Careful
attention to integrate both the hydrological system and cultural elements of the landscape add to
the fitness of the program at Xochimilco. X
0
Maintenance. Increased maintenance of the landscape to suit aesthetic desires often correlates 0
with decreased biodiversity. While the institutionalized maintenance plan could not be secured,
anecdotal evidence from conversations with park managers suggests limited maintenance in
specific areas because of ecological issues and limited maintenance in other areas because of
lack of access to capital. In a general sense, while some patches, specifically surrounding the
water bodies, are left to develop according to natural processes, the majority of the landscape is
maintained so as to maximize human accessibility and use.
Fertilizers and pesticides. Clearly, the use of fertilizers and pesticides, aside from simplifying
the ecological network and contaminating the landscape, is in conflict with desire to promote
species diversity and general ecology. Xochimilco Ecological Park does not use pesticides or
fertilizers.
In a very generic sense, an ecologically designed landscape should promote greater ecological
health rather than detract from it. While this is a difficult concept to quantify, an ecological
program should, in a qualitative sense, provide a spatial element through which ecological repair
and/or creation of habitat is more possible than without it. Xochimilco clearly meets this goal, as
its programmatic functionality was intended to assist in the repair a hydrological system, remove
toxicity in the soil and water, and to move forward in a positive sense to recreate the previously
naturalized landscape ecosystem.
2. Contextual Analysis: Cultural Ecology
i. PEDAGOGY
With the learning center and informative signage along major pathways,the park in avery immediate
sense provides active communication with the parkgoer around issues pertaining specifically to
the natural ecology. The provision of guided tours further promotes this objective. The revelation
of the function of the landscape provides a passive communication that in combination with the
signage, is intended to provide the parkgoer with a fundamental understanding of the relationship
between the land and the natural functions, biotic and abiotic, that are in constant play in the
landscape around them.
School children are invited to the park as part of their lesson plans. Volunteerism in upkeep of the
landscape and the plant nursery is encouraged to promote a sense of community ownership.
Funding for operating costs is secured through a nominal sliding-scale entrance fee. Additional 46
programmatic funding, such as for school outreach, is collected from corporate sponsors.
Xochimilco is the only park in Mexico City that is promoted as being financially self-sufficient. X
The land on which the park was sited was the area of greatest accessibility, further enhancing the _
park's possibility of success. The park was also used as an element of a plan for greater economic
sustainability of the entire Xochimilco region in that it was a critical, place-making feature that o
preserved the landscape's ability to remain undeveloped and to support the continued regional
economic engine of agricultural production.
H. Discussion
Isthere anything fundamentally different about Xochimilco that would make one say that it reflects
a new park model? Is the landscape more ecological, naturally or culturally, than a picturesque
landscape? This next section will provide discussion on these questions from the perspective of
two hypothetical constructions: the naturalist and the culturalist.
i. Naturalist: Ecological?
From the perspective of the naturalist, is Xochimilco ecological? The naturalist in this context, it
is assumed, would value the (re)creation of endemic habitat, the sustainable preservation of open
space, the connection of that open space to larger regional networks, the repair of distressed
natural systems, and the general reformation of a viable and ecologically productive mosaic.
The analysis at Xochimilco uncovered a clear focus (in both intent and realization) on flows -
energy and water - while evidence for a naturalist's desire for habitat, species diversity, and regional
connection is a bit more convoluted. In applying indicators for ecological value against the on-site
conditions at the park, there is not definitive evidence to suggest the creation/existence of an
ecologically rich landscape.
Yet before any conclusive remarks are made, two elements compound the analysis and must be
considered. First, the relatively limited size of the patch in relation to the regional landscape
mosaic such as that found at Xochimilco makes an ecological assessment difficult. In other words,
and perhaps generalizable to urban park landscapes around the world, the urbanistic context of
these parks makes ecological merit in a traditional sense difficult to identify. This study presents
the argument that the natural ecological conditions to be most concerned with are those that link
the functioning flows of the park landscape and the greater city. In other words, the value, from
a natural ecology perspective, of an ecological park should be to promote a greater health of the
city's natural systems.
the ecological park becomes clear. When we speak of the ecology of the landscape in the city,
the city and the people who live in it are a large part of that ecology. Therefore, an attempt to 3
highlight, or reintegrate ecological function, as the case may be, involves natural function as it o
relates to city. By applying this operative definition to Xochimilco, the ecology we speak of is the
ecology of the chinampa system.
The physical implications of this focus were readily apparent on a first hand visit to the site.
The physical design of the landscape was made in such a way as to invite the visitor to travel a
path through the different zones of the park, in each being provided interpretive language both
concretely in the form of signage but also experientially, with the understanding of integrated
and connected water supplies. The citing of the ecological museum and cultural center requiring
passage through it to enter the park, provides the context through which a visitor begins to
interpret the landscape.
While the attention paid to both practicing and communicating knowledge about energy and
natural system flows is a definable characteristic of the park, its ability to create sustainable
habitat and regional connections is not.The exception to this of course is the intent (and ultimate
success) of providing a critical wintering habitat for North American water foul. Subsequent study
has shown that more and more endemically migrating birds are choosing Xochimilco as a place
to winter.
48
There are also ecological problems, specifically in relation to water quality in the Chinampa system X
that, continue to persevere. The largest criticism lies with the quality of the treated wastewater n
that is placed back into the canals (Wirth, 1997). Periodic malfunctions of equipment translate ="
into replaced water that is low in water quality. This is a serious problem that needs to be
addressed if the hydrological system is to be considered repaired. Regardless, the turnaround 0
from pre-park days is remarkable, and regardless of the faults that continue to persevere, the
naturalist would agree that the park and its program contribute to the landscape's move towards
natural ecological stasis.
The flagship species around which the notions of ecological degradation and repair revolve is
the Mexican Axolotl (Ambystoma mexicanum), a waterborne salamander that maintains external
gills throughout its lifespan. The axolotl is the subject of intense scrutiny, as it is endemic to the
Xochimilco region and is highly sensitive to water contamination. The Darwin Institute, a UK
group, has been actively involved with the municipality to promote the conditions - physically,
educationally,and economically- to ensure the conservation of this species. While the current state
of the axolotl continues to be threatened, the Darwin Institute is optimistic of its perseverance as
a result of new public and private initiatives operated through the backdrop of the park (Darwin
Institute).
ii. Culturist:Ecological?
The culturist, it is assumed, would value efforts to sustain and promote both the historical
(archeological) and cultural contexts of the landscape. A cultural ecologist would look to see
how the park program works to integrate and promote the human condition in the expression
of the natural landscape.
As has been established, a guiding principle in the design of Xochimilco Ecological Park was the
historical natural/cultural nexus of the landscape. The chinampas are a truly endemic invention
that speaks to the very fundamentals of Mexican culture. Whereas Xochimilco could have taken
the form of a nature preserve that excluded human interaction from the landscape in favor of
protection of natural systems, the design of the park looked to use human interaction in a way
that maintained the historical context of that interaction.
Xochimilco was designed as a living, breathing, outdoor classroom. Its primary function is to
facilitate pedagogy and understanding of the landscape for inhabitants of the city. Xochimilco goes
beyond the teaching of the significance of the site itself, and moves to explore the relationship
between the site and the larger metropolitan context. It serves as a way to promote the notion
that history, culture, and nature can synergize and produce a sustainable vision for the future.
Inherent to the design of the park was a fundamental linkage between cultural history and natural
processes, expressed through design. If anything, this linkage, through cultural expression, is the
redeeming lesson to learn from this study.
"Until recently, the polluted and embattled district of Xochimilco... [was a] symbol of the low esteem
in which the citizens and political leaders of Mexico City held their own past, in an apparent disregard
both for the region's cultural heritage and for the environment of the Valley of Mexico. Today, [Xochimilco 49
has become] ... a symbol of renewal and environmental responsibility. A more positive and worthwhile
consequence of urban design is difficult to identify."Veronica Green Prize Jury report. X
The attempts to link recreational use of the landscape (humanism) with the repair and restoration
of a hydrological system are an ecological synthesis with a demonstrated intent to provide a more o
holistic interaction between park space and the city. The superimposition of park program on
a repaired landscape so as to become the anchor point through which a connection to natural
ecology becomes possible for parkgoers is an important aspect of Xochimilco.
As alluded to by Paul Bray (2004) in his philosophical exploration on the significance of the "new
park," there is a fundamental need for park to be connected to city beyond being a place merely
for recreation. It should be a place where cultural self-exploration and understanding of nature
and natural systems merge, creating not only a vibrant experience in the park but a vibrant and
more cohesive experience in the city.
The Xochimilco Ecological Park along with the greater restoration of the Xochimilco chinampa
system, received, among many others, Harvard University's 1996 Veronica Green Prize in Urban
Design. The use of the word 'ecological' is peppered throughout the jury report, yet little mention
is given as to what this term is intended to connote. The park is "ecological," the landscape is
"ecological," the water system is"ecological," and while this study does not intend to argue that the
word is used irresponsibly, the possibility is offered that the ecology in this context is being used in
a more conceptual manner, and that it is not intended to imply the true complexities of a mature
natural ecological system. If this isthe case,what other ideas or a philosophical theory could ecology
be intended to engender?
White (2002, p.195) argues that the ecological city is one that "provides an acceptable standard
of living for its human occupants without depleting the ecosystem and biogeochemical cycles
on which it depends." Perhaps if we were to take this definition in an abstract sense and apply
it to the question at hand, the ecological park (as a fractal of the city) provides an amenity of
'acceptable' standard that does not reduce the landscape's ability to re-cycle itself. The ecological
park, under this line of reasoning, is a piece of the city intricately tied to that city's biologic and
bio-geochemical cycles. Further, the ecological park acts to promote the health of these spaces,
rather than detract from them.
The design of Xochimilco Ecological Park does reflect, to a certain extent, the 'ecological-city'
model. Understanding the intricate connection between the chinampa system, groundwater,
wastewater, agriculture, and the entire metabolic engine of Mexico City was perhaps one of the
defining elements of the plan and suggests that perhaps 'cycling, more so than biotic ecology, is
emblematic of the intent behind the use of the word 'ecological' in this case.
A second possibility is that the use of the term 'ecology' within the context of an ecological park
is intended to reference the sustainability of the program and maintenance more so than habitat
or natural resource protection. Bunce and Jongman (1993) offer that sustainability is the most
general or holistic of the concepts of landscape ecology.
Beer (1993) confines the definition of landscape sustainability as reflecting the ability to maintain
safe minimum levels of biological assets while Bunce and Jongman (1993) add that sustainable
landscapes maintain ecosystems which are self-reproducing and not losing of nutrients or
species.
The idea of sustainability is an important element of the ecological park, yet 'sustainable' should
not be used interchangeably with 'ecological' in the context of the urban park. Sustainability speaks
to the ability of the park to provide what it may in the present without sacrificing the needs of
the future. In the context of Xochimilco, sustainability is a fundamental concept of its design. The
chinampas are an element of cultural heritage and it was a requisite of the park design to not only
highlight this cultural heritage to the present generation but to also preserve that cultural heritage
for future generations. Yet the concept of 'sustainability' is less powerful in capturing another
fundamental element of the park, which is its attempt to integrate education with ecological repair.
Or in other words - the linkage between the natural and cultural landscapes through teaching and
experience to create a working dynamism between people and park and park and city. 51
0
J. Summary Matrix
K. Lessons to Extract
* Provision of park program that enhanced both the natural and cultural ecologies of the
landscape.
* Attempts to repair the broken hydrological cycle between park, chinampa region, and
Mexico City.
* Expansion of the notion of park to include a more functional and dynamic relationship X
with the city. 0
* Provision of important habitat for migrating water foul. 3
* Connection of historical preservation with natural resource conservation.
* Important catalyst in the promoting of a greater ecological consciousness relating to the
chinampa region.
Chapter 5. Crissy Field: New Habitat and
Pedagogical Explorations
"Crissy Field engages definitions of'restoration,"nature,' and 'culture' to create a multi-layered design that
will expand visitors' perceptions of what a park can be... By encompassing paradox, Crissy Field becomes
a rich palimpsest, revealing a powerful approach to the redesign of sites that have been altered, disturbed,
remediated, and need to be remade once again."
Crissy Field, as presented in this next chapter, is the second study of an ecological park. Its
design and program demonstrates strong commitment to the interconnecting of the natural and
cultural ecologies of the landscape, doing so through a strong pedagogical and design program. a"
This chapter will begin with an introduction to the landscape intervention that created the park,
and will then turn to a historical analysis of the changing ecology of the landscape. This analysis
will end with an exploration of the planning and design process that defined contemporary Crissy
Field as an ecological park. The conclusions gained from this study, in combination with those
from the analysis of Xochimilco Ecological Park, will help to complete the 'picture' or 'story' of
what an ecological park is,or might be.
A. Crissy Field: Context
While there is a definitive body of literature on the history of Crissy Field documenting the
programmatic shift from military to civilian use, literature that speaks to its ecological history is
sparse. With its storied cultural history, starting with the first Native American inhabitants more
than two millennia ago, continuing through the administration of first the Spanish and then the
Mexican authorities, the Civil War and the Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915, the
history of Crissy Field, in many ways, is the history of California. In order to better understand
the restoration of both the natural and cultural ecologies of the landscape, it is important to begin
with an understanding of the evolving relationship between these two ecologies as the have lead
to the state of the landscape as it is found today.
The opening of the newly designed urban park in 1999 has increased public access and has
reclaimed Crissy Field as one of the single largest public open spaces in San Francisco. From
a naturalist's perspective, the back dune tidal marsh that once inhabited the site and which has
now been partially recreated is indicative of a desire for a much grander regional initiative to
restore some of the 90% of the wetlands lost to development in the San Francisco Bay Area. For
naturalists, Crissy Field is seen as a model that should be applied elsewhere.
In addition to being a restored urban cultural landscape, the literature suggests that Crissy Field 56
is perhaps the best representation of a constructed ecological park in the United States today
(Cranz & Boland, 2004; Boland, 2001). Therefore, its use as a case study to better understand the 5
In considering Crissy Field, what defines its 'ecology' in ecological park? Is it a reflection of a
cultural or natural ecology? Or perhaps both, as the literature would suggest (Cranz & Boland,
2004; Boland, 2001)? Yet this literature fails to make explicit the meaning of ecology, hinting
instead at some amalgamation between natural and cultural functions. In attempting to address
these questions, this section will trace the cultural history of the field as it relates to the changing
natural ecology of the landscape over time. From this, a benchmark against which to compare
the programmatic insertion of park on the landscape will help determine what this insertion is
intended to embody. The methods described in an earlier section will be applied to Crissy Field
in an attempt to disaggregate the cultural and natural ecologies and to better understand the
significance of Crissy Field as an ecological park.
B. Crissy Field:Today
Crissy Field is situated on the western portion of what was originally an extensive back dune
tidal marsh stretching from near the Golden Gate throughout what is today the Marina District.
The shallow water immediately north of what is now known as Crissy Field provided the first
protected ship anchorage just inside the Golden Gate, but was separated from the costal terrace
of the main post of the Presidio by 500-600 feet of marsh (Haller 1994). By the early 1800s, the
Army began to transform the vibrant marsh into a flat, logistical staging ground, which by the first
decades of the 2 0th century, no longer retained any element of that natural ecological system.
Fast-forwarding to the end of the 20 th century, following an extensive remediation of site
contamination and an active planning process involving the community, recreationists, ecologists,
educators, and local, state, and federal officials, the 'new' Crissy Field has become one of the most
actively visited urban parks in not only San Francisco, but the country.A defining element of its
design is a recreated back dune marsh and associated pedagogical program, the specifics of which
will be discussed to follow. As part of the Presidio, it is the first National Park in the U.S. that is
entirely financially self-sufficient, an important consideration in postulating on the meaning of an
ecological or sustainable park.
The natural state of Crissy Field was once that of a back dune ecosystem that existed at the
confluence of a creek and the bay. Because this purely natural state has not been in existence since
at least the 1850s, there is a lacking of documentation that speaks specifically to the ecological
condition and diversity of species at Crissy Field. Yet one can postulate as to what this natural
ecology might have been by considering the ecology of the typical beach/dune/marsh system.
The first part of the coastal dune ecology, the beach, sits directly in front of the dune system and
is most directly influenced by wave and tidal action. A self-sustaining beach, i.e., one in a state of
depositional equilibrium, is divided between a wet and dry section. The wet section, influenced 57
directly by the ebb and flow of the tide, is in a constant state of flux and supports borrowing
crustaceans and their predatory birds. As sand accumulates within the dry section, defined by an
absence of daily tidal influence, wind starts the dune construction process by pushing this sand
further inland (Michaels, 2003). -n
As that blowing sand encounters either a natural or man-made barrier, it is deposited. Over time,
a mound of sand begins to grow and the first portion of the coastal dune system, the fore dunes,
begins forming.As a result of the characteristic regime of repetitive disturbance, a distinguishing
element of the fore dune area is a lack of plant density and diversity. During storms, wave action
often reaches this first line of coastal defense, washing away some or most of any pioneering flora
(Michaels, 2003).
Paralleling the fore dunes, the back dunes are commonly composed of larger dunes that support
a higher density of vegetative cover.In a well-developed coastal dune system subject to moderate
to high wind velocities from the ocean, as is the case at Crissy Field, a last line of back dunes
called the ridge can be distinguished.This ridge sets a quasi-boundary between the primarily sandy
coastal dune ecosystem and another, which at Crissy Field was composed of a brackish marsh
(Michaels, 2003).
All coastal dune ecosystems support a set of living species that increase in diversity and complexity
as a function of the distance from the wave edge (Micheals, 2003).
At Crissy Field, tidal wetlands buffered from the sea by a ridge of dunes known by locals at the
time as Strawberry Island or Sand Point, "names evocative of the original nature of the area,"
extended some two miles along the shore between where Fort Mason is today and to the point
where the bluffs move in to hug the shore at the harbor entrance (now the site of the former U.S.
Coast Guard Station). Streams from the Presidio uplands added their freshwater flow to the tidal
waters of the bay through this marsh system.
Archeological evidence (much of it uncovered during the development of the park in the late
1990s) suggests that as many as 9 species of shellfish, 3 I1species of fish, 25 species of migratory
and perennial birds, and 20 species of mammals - including sea otters, harbor seals, grizzly bears,
and tule elk - could be found living and feeding within this back dune ecosystem (Olmsted et al,
1977).
Historical artifacts found along the northern shore of the San Francisco peninsula date back to
around 740A.D., left by the Ohlone (also known as the Costanoan) people who inhabited much of
the land around the San Francisco bay as far back as 8,000 B.C. It is believed that the Ohlone used
the area around present day Crissy Field as a seasonal camp, evidenced by a series of large shell
mounds and unearthed hunting elements (NPS).The Ohlone are also known to have conducted 58
periodic burning of the landscape around Crissy Field to promote the growth of native grasses
for seed gathering and to create forage for deer and elk (Bean, 1994). The Ohlone cultivated _
the native plants of the marsh area for food and medicinal uses, including yerba buena (Satureja
douglasii), bracken fern (Teridium aquilinum), soap root (Chlorogolum pomeridianum), arroyo willow -n
(Salix lasiolepis), and California poppy (Eschscholzia californica) (NPS).
The arrival of the Spanish in 1776 and the establishment of agarrison on the bluffs overlooking the
entrance to San Francisco Bay marked a shift in what had up until that point been an equilibrious
relationship between man and the ecological function of the landscape. While the establishment
of the Presidio at once marked the beginning of a storied military history for the site, it also
marked the beginning of a methodical denigration of the ecological system. On first viewing of
the peninsula, scouts described what they saw:
"This place and its vicinity has abundant pasturage, plenty of firewood,and fine water, all good advantages
for establishing here the presidio or fort which is planned. It lacks only timber, for there is not a tree on
all those hills, though the oaks and other trees along the road are not very far away.... Here and near the
lake there are yerba buena and so many lilies that I almost had them inside my tent." (Spanish scout,
1776)'
After the establishment of the settlement, the Spanish soon realized that the dune scrub and
grasslands that canvassed the Presidio had little productive value. The harsh and incessant coastal
I. Historic Resource Study El Presidio de San Francisco: A History under Spain and Mexico, 1776-1846
John Phillip Langelier, Daniel Bernard Rosen, 1992.
United States Department of the Interior - National Park Service - Denver Service Center
winds and thin, dry, sandy soils made the land unsuitable for agriculture and provided little forage
for livestock during the dry summers. While the Spanish did not significantly alter the landscape,
at least at first, their grazing of livestock did have a damaging impact on the landscape. With
the arrival of cattle and sheep came the first appearance of many different exotic plant species.
Over time, grazing eventually decimated the Presidio's sensitive native perennial bunchgrasses
and caused widespread soil compaction and erosion. Spanish settlers also cut the few oaks and
other trees near the Presidio for building materials and for fuel. This transformation of the flora
impacted the native people as well, as the removal of the oak trees prevented the production of
acorns and grazing by introduced livestock prevented the production of grass seeds, both staples
of the Ohlone diet (NPS). In 1791, an unidentified Ohlone man commented on this emerging
transformation of the landscape:
"The cattle ate the seeds, and new plants could not sprout. In the old times, we didn't see a bad year."
Yet for all the later damage on the uplands portion of the Presidio brought about by the Spanish,
the coastal marsh in the lowlands remained much as it had prior to their arrival. This is because
the supply vessels for the isolated garrison anchored in the shallow waters offshore and small
boats brought soldiers and supplies ashore.The Spanish had little need for a developed shoreline,
and hence left it "much as they found it" (Haller, 2001, p.6).While the ecological network of the
lowlands remained largely unchanged, the newfound absence of larger fauna, including elk and 59
bear, remained the exception.
n
In 182 I,with the Mexican Republic newly independent from Spain,the Presidio transferred allegiance
to Mexico. Little changed at the Presidio during this time, aside from a gradual densification of -n
the uplands area, with the built form expanding beyond the original plaza walls built by the Spanish. 0
A series of farmsteads and homes were constructed along the eastern portion of the Presidio on
sites considered most suitable for agriculture because of protection from the cold wind and fog
from the ocean. These sites were located along a spring-fed creek which emptied into the lowland
marshes. While accounts tell of declination of the water quality in the stream resulting in large
part from contamination from livestock, evidence suggests that the marshes remained resilient
and the hydrological system largely intact.
iii. 1846A.D.-1906
With the deeding of California to the U.S. in 1846 and the discovery of gold not too long
afterwards, President Fillmore ordered the repair and fortification of the Presidio to protect the
opening to San Francisco Bay. At the very western edge of the lower Presidio, Fillmore ordered
the construction of Fort Point - a massive four-tiered brick and granite garrison designed to hold
126 large cannons (NPS).This was the first fortification and stabilization effort along the banks of
the bay along the lower Presidio, and issignificant from an ecological perspective as it served, most
likely,as the engineering and philosophical impetus that would lead ultimately to the destruction
of the marshes directly to the east.
2. As quoted in http://www.nps.gov/prsf/history/spanish_period.htm
-: · ~~iy·
Sometime between 1863 and 1865, a macadamized road was completed along the shoreline,
connecting Mason Street in San Francisco to the newly constructed Fort Point, along the entire
length of the lower Presidio. This was an exceedingly important intervention from an ecological
perspective because it served as astabilizing element along the length of the marsh that subsequent
efforts at compartmentalization and fill would all be linked to. One can imagine a spine that
facilitated the protrusion of earthen ribs into the marsh to describe this advancement. Over the
next few decades, the Presidio's trash and debris from construction and demolition were dumped
into the marsh, slowly shrinking its extent and contaminating its waters (Haller, 200 1, p.6).
In the 1880s, a well-planned large-scale tree planting and 'beautification' program was instituted
within the Presidio, as hundreds-of-thousands of Monterey Cyprus, Eucalyptus, and other non-
native trees were planted on an otherwise barren landscape. The desire, at that point, in addition 61
to beautification, was to make the Presidio not only appear larger and with more relief from
ocean-going vessels, but to provide protection from the incessant wind and to "limit visibility into
and out of the post.'4 This desire for an aesthetic ideal was in line with the picturesque notion %<
that was sweeping the country at the time, including San Francisco with the newly demarcated -n
Golden Gate Park a decade earlier. A landscape devoid of any canopy, such as that found at the
Presidio, was not in line with the pastoral conception of the idealized landscape, and therefore
human intervention was necessary to provide the bucolic superlative, or so planners thought.
This planting program extended to the southern periphery of the lower Presidio.
The Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906 displaced as many as a quarter-million
city dwellers. While many moved and started new lives across the bay, others took temporary
refuge in the Presidio and Golden Gate Park. In the presidio specifically, four temporary housing
camps were established, housing over 16,000 people. One of the largest of these camps was
sited adjacent to and directly to the east of the lower Presidio, where an organized street grid
and street numbers marked each individual tent. As residents found permanent housing, the tent
camps slowly dismantled, closing outright by 1911 (Bronson, 1959).Yet even with the increasing
intensity of use in and around the lower presidio, the actual shoreline, or the interface between
dune and sea, had changed little from its natural state (Haller, 2001, p.5).5
4. Although now considered a'cultural forest' worthy of preservation, questions have emerged in recent years, with the trees
reaching the terminus of their lifespan as to whether the forest should be artificially maintained.
5. This is in opposition to the fortification along the southern edge of the marsh where a road linking the city and Fort Point
had been built.
Planting of Monterrey Cyprus in the
Presidio, 1880s. (SFPL)
A year after the Great Earthquake and Fire, MajorWilliam W. Harts, an engineering officer on the
staff of the Army's Department of California, presented "what may be regarded as the reservation's
first comprehensive plan." Describing the Presidio as "a site of great beauty," he described the
lower Presidio and its shoreline in line with the contemporary image of wetlands: 62
"A large area of the Presidio lying along the bay front, amounting to about I10 acres, is so low that it
permits the ingress and egress of the tides, which flood the greater portions at certain stages. This forms -n_
a swamp of considerable area. It is so badly drained in many places due to its low level making good
drainage impossible, that during the rainy season, the drainage water from the higher country to the south
collects in large, shallow lakes, much of it remaining until evaporated. This swamp not only renders the
largest portion of the level area of the Presidio absolutely useless but is an obstruction to the use of the
bay front and is probably a source of ill health. It isin any case a waste of valuable land besides being a
disagreeable and unsanitary feature in the post."6
As Haller (2001) illuminates,"the major intended the wetlands to be turned into an 'artificial plain
of ample size' for drill grounds, ceremonies, and future construction as the post expanded. It was
five years before his plans were implemented" (Haller, 2001, p.8).
As San Francisco continued its rebuilding after the earthquake and fire, local boosters promoted
the city in a competition to host a world's fair that would celebrate the completion of the Panama
Canal. The new San Francisco, the largest and wealthiest city on the west coast, was the perfect
choice, these boosters touted, and Congress agreed (NPS b.).
The award of the fair spurred a rash of planning relating to the citing of the exposition grounds.
In a city defined by its extreme topographical relief, the extended flatlands of the lower Presidio
appeared a logical choice. The only impediment, of course, was that it was a marsh. This was an
6. Thompson and Woodbridge,"Special History Study: Presidio of San Francisco -An Outline of Its Evolution as a U.S.Army
Post, 1847-1990:' p. 149. As quoted in (Haller, 200 1,p. 7).
Refugee camp on Crissy Field Site,
1906. (SFPL)
easy obstacle to overcome, these planners decided, as mounds of fill composed of destroyed and
demolished buildings were readily available.
63
In the end, it was the world's fair, not the Army, that was responsible for the watershed change to
the landscape - transformation of what had been up until that point a largely intact natural tidal -
marshland into a flat, dry, open field suitable for construction.
-n
v. 191 1-1915: Filling the Wetlands a.
The scale and design of the Panama-Pacific International Exhibition was truly exceptional. Spreading
across more than 635 acres of newly reclaimed waterfront property, the Horticulture Palace had
a glass dome larger than Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome, and the Palace of the Machinery, the largest
structure in the world at the time, was the first building to have a plane fly through it.The Tower
of Jewels soared 40 stories skyward, one of the highest constructed buildings in the city at the
time, and held 102,000 pieces of multicolored cut glass that sparkled by day and were illuminated
by intense electric lights at night. The evening fog triggered 48 torchlights of seven different colors
to illuminate, making the sky look like the "northern lights" (NPS b.).
Yet in order to build this grand fair, over 630 acres of bay-front tidal marsh, extending three miles
from Fort Masson to east of the Golden Gate (today's Marina District and all of Crissy Field),
were filled (Haller, 2001, p.8).
The Army, in cooperation with a series of private contractors, began a multi-year effort in 191 I1
to eliminate the marsh by erecting pile-supported boardwalks traversing the marsh, anchored
at the end to the berm constructed decades earlier to provide road access to Fort Point.These
boardwalks were succeeded by earthen causeways that effectively compartmentalized the marsh,
terminating the last remnants of tidal exchange. The freshwater streams that drained the Presidio
watershed into the marsh were culverted. The new 'compartments' of brackish water were
Filling of the wetlands begins. Note
offshore barge used to pump sand
and. Also, note remaining marshland
in foreground. (SFPL)
systematically filled with bay mud and sand hydraulically pumped from offshore shoals by dredges
and barges. The site was "graded to a near-flat datum ten vertical feet above sea-level, erasing all
traces of tidal mudflats and marsh" (Haller, 1994).
The westernmost part of this new filled land became a'kidney-bean-shaped' automotive racetrack
one mile in circumference, with grandstands large enough to accommodate 25,000 people. It was
this circumferential development that would become, as aviation quickly became viewed as the
way to the future, the footprint upon which the Crissy Field airstrip would be constructed.
With the completion of the Exposition in 1915, the Army would increasingly use the grass field
within the racetrack as a landing strip, ultimately leading to the establishment of the first military
air station on the west coast in 1918. The heavily trafficked grass airfield, as decades passed, soon
gave way to a longer, asphalt-paved airstrip to accommodate the requirements of more powerful
aircraft (Rieder, 200 1).
& ~ig
The period between the 1930s and the transfer of the Presidio to the National Park Service in
1994 witnessed varying waves of Army presence at Crissy Field, including the militarization of the
entire California coast duringWWII, but will not be considered in detail as the 'ecological status'
of the landscape was fixed across the period. The next significant event in the ecological history
of Crissy Field was the remediation effort that was conducted in the late 1990s.
In fifty years, the lower Presidio, now known as Crissy Field, was transformed from an ecologically
stable, ecologically rich, natural environment to a completely constructed, ecologically sterile,
and ultimately ecologically unstable, landform. The way that the new Crissy Field as a so-called
ecological park dealt with the juxtaposition of this truly non-ecological cultural landscape with a
reintroduced natural ecology is an interesting story to tell and will be considered in further detail
next.
Much has been said about what should constitute an ecological restoration of a landscape, and
whether a 'pure' restoration should even have a definition (Rieder, 2001). Ecologists would say
that a landscape restoration requires the repair of any human-induced damage to the point of
returning the landscape to its original condition. The National Park Service, perhaps unexpectedly
in today's political climate, best codifies this philosophy on restoration:
"Altering an area in such a way as to reestablish an ecosystem's structure and function, usually bringing it
back to its original (pre-disturbance) state or to a healthy state close to the original.'"
Many ecologists and popular environmentalists would follow the above line of reasoning, offering
that the only way to restore the wetlands at Crissy Field was to design them in such a way as
to be 'ecologically natural,' or in a state representative of the way they were prior to human
degradation.8 The more urbanistically pragmatic Society for Ecological Restoration (SER), on the
other hand, defines an ecological restoration as:
This definition allows for some flexibility in how that recovery might be conducted or what
exactly the end state must be for the project to be considered a success, yet continues to place
emphasis on the natural condition when defining site ecology.
An alternative conception of ecology within the highly urbanized context of Crissy Field might
ignore natural ecologies, arguing instead that a complete restoration would bring back to the
forefront the cultural elements that defined a specific historical chapter of the landscape.
According toThe Secretary of the Interior Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties 12,
"restoration isdefined as the act or process of accurately depicting the form, features, and character of a
property as it appeared at a particular period of time by means of removal of features from other periods
in its history and reconstruction of missing features from the restoration period."' 0
Yet a cultural restoration of the ecology in absolute would necessarily preclude any natural
ecological restoration. Rieder (2001 ) refers to this type of restoration as a"cultural layering" that
often begins to favor "specific intervals of time to the exclusion of others," promoting the "reuse
of a site driven by historic precedent" without considering current use or natural conditions. 67
Nevertheless, given Crissy Field's poor state at the time, most agreed that restoration was the
preferred policy directive. Yet each actor's definition of restoration defined how they believed
these directives should be formulated into design.
In the late 1980s, anticipating the Army's departure, the National Park Service (NPS) instituted a
series of planning studies to consider what might be done at Crissy Field. For almost a decade
prior, civilian use of the strip had been slowly increasing, and it had become, by the late 1980s,
a part of the collective recreational consciousness of San Franciscans. A fifteen-year tradition
started in 1979 when the Chronicle's 21 t Annual Fourth of July fireworks display found a new
home at Crissy Field. Upwards of 100,000 people were attracted to this carnival-like event each
year." Events such as this and others hosted by the Golden Gate National Recreation Area
were germane to the subsequent development of the park in that they helped to establish a new
recreation-based cultural relationship to the landscape.
In 1990, a week-long observation of Earth Day was celebrated at Crissy Field. Rows of booths and
activities for parents and children alike drew as many as 200,000 people to the event. Citing the
'sublime' setting, event planners chose Crissy Field, among others reasons, for its dramatic natural
9. Society for Ecological Restoration International. [available online, http://www.ser.orglabout.asp] According to its mission
statement, SER "is a non-profit organization infused with the energy of 2300 members - individuals and organizations who
are actively engaged in ecologically-sensitive repair and management of ecosystems through an unusually broad array of
experience, knowledge sets and cultural perspectives.They are scientists, planners, administrators, ecological consultants, first
peoples, landscape architects, philosophers, teachers, engineers, natural areas managers, writers, growers, community activists,
and volunteers, among others." SER is widely recognized in the field.
10. As quoted in Kirkwood, 200 1.
I I. This 4chof July celebration at Crissy Field is rooted in my own collective consciousness as a cherished family event growing
up.
setting.' 2 With the emergence of a new collective recreational consciousness oriented around
Crissy Field, with events such as Earth Day and others, an emerging shift in the philosophical
consciousness connecting the field to the environment was seen as well.
The shoreline portion of Crissy Field was deeded to the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in
1988, affording for the first time continuous public access to the waterfront, albeit a deteriorating
military shoreline of concrete slabs, rubble and chain link fencing (Rieder, 200 I).This land transfer
triggered the National Park Service and the Golden Gate National Parks Association (GGNPA)
to initiate the planning studies previously mentioned to postulate the future of the Crissy Field
parcel. This process, which included a wide range of contributing participants, culminated in the
Presidio General Management Plan of 1994. Operating under four defining principles - restoration,
remediation, recycling, and renewal - the plan provided the following vision for the new Crissy
Field:
"People entering on foot from the east will encounter the Golden Gate promenade and connecting paths
spanning a broad recreational open space interspersed with restored wetlands. As they walk west along
the promenade, the restored dune systems along the bay will give the feeling of a natural beachfront. The
Golden Gate Bridge and its dramatic setting will be the focus of views to the west. The historic airstrip
and buildings beneath the bluff will evoke images of past activities at Crissy Field... The historic airfield
structures at the west end of the field will be rehabilitated for new uses, and the I 920s grass landing field
will be restored to its historic appearance..."31 68
With this statement, the NPS had defined an aggregated conception of"restoration," aiming to 2.
change the landscape condition in order to restore, to the maximum extent possible, the naturally 4
functioning systems of the pre-military backdune tidal marsh while highlighting and preserving FD
the cultural significance of the landscape as well (GGNRA 1994). Heargreaves Associates was
retained to provide a physical design for the NPS master plan.
According to Michael Boland, (Director of Planning for the Presidio Trust), the most contentious
element of the design plan for Crissy Field was its natural element, or the constructed wetland.
Ecologists argued that the 20-acre tidal marsh, because of its limited size, would be unable to
support any functioning ecology. They envisioned a much larger system more in line with the
historical extent of the original marsh. Recreationists, on the other hand, most noticeably
represented by avid windsurfers, believed that the reintroduction of the wetland and a connecting
channel to the bay would ruin one of their most prized surfing beaches. Not only did they fear
that their launching beach could be eroded by the marsh, they also feared the loss of their parking
lot facing that beach that provided them with easy loading and unloading vehicular access for their
boards.
Ecologists wanted the marsh to empty at or near its historical point, even though the feasibility
of this was next to impossible. Historical photographs show the original channel passing though
what is now the completely built-out Marina District of San Francisco. The windsurfers wanted no
12. The equation of sublime with nature is not lost here, as in many ways it references the same link promoted by picturesque
planners and philosophers.
13. 1994 NPS General Management Plan for Crissy Field, as quoted in (Haller,2001 p. 134)
channel at all. The end result was a channel somewhere inbetween the desires of the two main
constituent groups, the design of which being the product of intense engineering and hydrological
study [for a discussion on the specifics on the channel controversy, see boxed text below]. Nevertheless,
the self-regulation of the marsh and its channel has failed, and backhoes are required to clear
blockages within the canal once a month to keep tidal exchange flowing (Boland, 2006).
When a beach is in equilibrium, as was the case at East Beach, waves add the same amount of sand
as they wash away - a condition known as littoral sand transport. However, excavating a channel to
open the marsh introduced a new current into the marsh and across the beach, disrupting the beach's
equilibrium and causing the loss of most of the sand. Within a matter of months, the beach had shrunk
by as much as 25 feet, to the point that many feared it would disappear completely.
But the siting of the channel was the result of a storied process, and the belief, at least at the time, was
that the final decision would prove a sustainable one. Yet it was not this easy, mainly because of the
proximity to East Beach, a popular windsurfing spot.
As an example of the many design decisions confronted, the location of the tidal channel was examined 69
from several vantage points: historical, political, technical, and design. The proposed restoration of
this crucial component, the sustaining element of the design, would, over the course of four years, be
tested in numerous locations. The channel became the pivotal point for the project in that without a I1
well-positioned channel, the reduced acreage of the marsh would be prone to frequent closure and
mounting maintenance, and therefore not sustainable (Williams & Josselyn, 1994). 0-
FD
o.
Politically, the channel had to look like and function according to the publicly held perceptions as to
what a natural channel should look like, ruling out a hydrologically superior concrete culvert. This
was central to the effort to provide educational and interpretive opportunities for the NPS, as well as
securing donor support. Similarly, the vocal constituency of boardsailors extolled the virtues of this
particular stretch of beach as one of the best boardsailing locations in the world. (Rieder, 2001).
From a technical standpoint, hydrological and marine engineers advocated for the same protected
location coveted by the boardsailors. Historical documents, coupled with current statistical analysis
of littoral transport, indicated that the channel would function to a grater level of confidence in this
protected location, without generating "the abundance of decaying plant matter that the boardsailors
feared." The proposed 25-acre marsh, a reduced portion of the once 180-acre marsh, would avoid
unacceptable risks only with a protected channel (Rieder, 200 1).
Different alternatives were considered to deal with this 'problem', spurred in large part by the
angered windsurfers.Alternatives ran the gamut from completely redesigning the entire waterfront,
to redirecting the outflow of the marsh, to just leaving the condition as it was to allow for a new
equilibrium to establish itself. The agreed-upon solution, somewhere in the middle of this spectrum,
called for sinking a series of piles parallel to the beach while allowing for the channel to be located
where it was most likely to succeed. These piles, over time, in interacting with the new sand
transports post channel construction, have allowed for the beach to regain its previous equilibrious
condition.
iv. Site Ecology: Integrating Remediation and Restoration
Prior to construction of the park, and as a condition of the agreement of the transition from post
to park, the Army agreed to clean up the contaminated areas of the Presidio, including Crissy Field.
With nearly a century of military occupation, the Army had contaminated the area with a variety
of toxics, which at Crissy Field included polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon plumes (PAHs), pesticide
plumes, heavy metals, and solvents. Remediation of onsite soil and groundwater occurred in one
of three ways (Porter, 2003):
* Excavation and offsite disposal of the most heavily contaminated soils, leaving holes to be
dealt with as part of the subsequent park construction
* Excavation and offsite disposal of the most heavily contaminated soils, replacement with
native soils from within the Presidio to avoid introduction of non-native seed stock and
soils to the park
* Excavation of soils for onsite treatment by Low Temperature Thermal Desorption
(LTTD).
Of the approximately 95,000 tons of contaminated soils excavated from Crissy Field, 7,000
tons were treated onsite using LTTD (considered an ecologically sensitive, ecologically effective
solution for petrochemical remediation) (Power, 2005), while the remainder, or approximately 70
88,000 tons of soil were hauled offsite to certified toxic dumps in the CentralValley. Groundwater
contamination was addressed with the use of a magnesium peroxide compound injected into the
soil. This compound provided a steady source of oxygen for a native type of bacteria that would
decompose the hydrocarbons (Porter, 2003). -n
In keeping with the goal of recycling as many on-site materials as possible, contractors dismantled
more than 50 permanent and temporary structures on the site by hand in order to preserve
old-growth redwood timbers. Over 40 surface acres of old runway and asphalt paving, along with
15,000 tons of concrete and rock from the shoreline, were crushed and used as underlying fill in
the subsequent development of the park and to form the foundations for new hillocks and dunes.
An additional 380,000 cubic yards of soil excavated in creating the marsh were repositioned onto
the old airfield, providing topographical relief and grade separation to an otherwise level site.
The restoration of the tidal marsh took approximately a year to complete, with six months
required to excavate 227,000 tons of fill from the site and another six months needed to plant
about 100,000 native plants raised from seed in Presidio nurseries. In balancing needs for
recreation space, planners decided on a smaller footprint for the man-made marsh - 25 acres as
opposed to what originally been over 135. Located at the entry to the park as one comes from
the city of San Francisco, the constructed marsh is 2,000ft long by 400ft wide, and just about Ift
deep at low tide.
In designing the marsh, attempts were made to replicate the natural hydrology of the entire Crissy
Field area. The original site drainage, consisting of rotting wooden stave pipes over 70 years old,
had proved inadequate with flooding during seasonal rain events.While excavation was occurring
as part of the remediation process, new pipes were laid that directed stormwater outflow into
the newly constructed wetland, to allow for bioremediation and biofiltration of stormwater prior
to being discharged into the bay - the condition endemic to the site.
Attempts were also made to restore the original wetland's rich biodiversity, including fish, birds,
and other small aquatic organisms. The all-native plantings were placed in late 1998, and plants
continued to be added well through 2000. Post-occupancy study of the marsh has suggested
that the reintroduction of native flora has served to precipitate a rapid recovery of the site's
predevelopment ecosystem.
Other notable design features are worth mentioning as well. On the eastern edge of the park,
vehicular parking is provided by two frequency-defined zones. The first, smaller zone provides
limited parking for weekday visitors, and is paved using permeable asphalt. The second, larger
zone, which provides overflow parking on weekends and special events, is not paved and is
instead seeded with resistant grasses to allow for stormwater penetration where the raindrop
falls. Early failure of these grassy parking areas, especially during the rainy winters, has prompted
improvements in parking management and soil stabilization and is considered to be an ongoing
process (Boland, 2006).
Extending from this parking area along the entire 1.5 mile waterfront is a wide promenade along
the bayfront. It is on this promenade that the most active recreation occurs, including jogging, Q
bicycling, rollerblading, and dog walking. This walkway curves along the crest of the dunes, which (
are themselves roped off to prevent damage to sensitive habitat. The patches of roped dunes vary -n
in size, level of vegetative cover, and slope, suggesting varying degrees of habitat provision. a-
An important element in the redesign of Crissy Field was the preservation and revelation of
historical elements of the site. The most visual example of this preservation effort was the grass
airfield itself. Although no longer used for aviation, the field was reconstructed in its exact location
first defined by the Panama-Pacific Exhibition in the 1910s. The curvilinear 'kidney-shaped' edge
was preserved and pathways were constructed to define the perimeter of the area. In addition,
preservation of Spanish-colonial style buildings was conducted in coordination with extensive
renovations and reprogramming (one of the buildings became the Crissy Field Community Center
and another became a coastal ecology center).
In addition to the incorporation of physical elements of the site's storied cultural ecology,
non-physical elements were used as well. First, strong emphasis was placed on integrating the
development of the park with the development of community stewardship and pedagogic programs.
With site remediation complete, the "Help Grow Crissy Field Campaign" was launched, attracting
over 3,000 volunteers from schools and community-based groups to help plant an additional
100,000 native plants in a two-year period. Volunteers were taught directly about site conditions,
ecological values, and botany, and more indirectly on the importance of community participation
and organization. This program has continued with aweekly Saturday drop-in clinic to provide for
the ongoing maintenance of park plantings (NPS c.). 72
According to the National Park Service, "it was their [volunteers'] first experience with a natural area M_
and a national park. Being able to see the results of their work both on the day of the activity and over
time as the plants mature - allowed many people to develop a sense of ownership for the restoration. -n
When a community establishes a sense of guardianship for an area, it is less likely to be vandalized or _
used inappropriately."' 4
14. http://www.nps.gov/partnerships/rest_crissy_field.htm
The project's commitment to "community inclusiveness" as a fundamental driver in the creation
of park created a prominent place for contributions of time and money from individuals and
community groups through the Help Grow Crissy Field Campaign.Whenever possible, activities
were staffed with trilingual personnel - English, Spanish, and Chinese - so that volunteers could
enjoy the interpretive aspects of the program and make a strong and long-lasting connection to
the site (NPS c.).
The National Park Service also collaborated with Ohlone individuals and tribal groups to include
the midden in the development of the park.The Ohlone and the National Park Service signed an
agreement to set aside 5 acres to preserve the midden adjacent to the new marsh site, leaving it
to be disturbed as little as possible. This celebration of place as cultural history differs from the
more traditional archaeological approach, which would have excavated and removed discovered
objects, preserving them in a museum (NPS d.).
In creating its eventual program, park designers integrated cultural ecology, natural ecology,
pedagogical experience, community building techniques and venues for active recreation. The
outcome, as thus described, is a landscape defined by both a celebration of its history and current
site conditions as well as its connection to a larger urban condition. Attention will now be paid 73
to understanding the different ecological elements that define Crissy Field.
.4__ 4- -
i. HABITAT DIVERSITY
Water:The primary creation of habitat revolves around the constructed marsh system, where
subsequent assessment has indicated the presence of a naturalized system, including mud-dwelling
crustaceans, mollusks, fish and predatory native birds. Migratory birds flying the Pacific Flyway
between South America and Alaska have begun to use the marsh as a feeding and resting spot
in both fall and spring. Careful attention was paid in the engineering of the outflow channel to
ensure the appropriate level of salinity and tidal ingress/egress.
Land: Enclosed plantings of native shrubs adjacent to the wetland on the site of the Ohlone
midden provides a habitat patch for small mammals, insects, and native and non-native birds while
a roped enclosure 'protects' from the presence of dogs and people.
Patches of habitat were also created along the length of the restored sand dunes, although their 74
limited, elongated size bounded on both sides by intense human activity questions their ability to
provide habitat for animals larger than small birds.
-1,
-n
Complexity. Heterogeneity in patch dynamics isbetter than homogeneity (Selman, 1993; Forman, 75
1995).The creation of an irregularly shaped marsh, varying widths, densities, and height of foliage,
and alternating conditions along the dunes would suggest support for ecological diversity. -.
(A
Disaggregation of human and natural uses. Attempt was made to disaggregate and physically
separate the parts of the landscape into three typologies. The first, the most 'natural' setting,
precludes the presence of direct human activities. These areas include the dunes, the marsh, and
a buffer around the marsh. The second typology allows human entry but only along designated
paths. A wood-planked walkway crosses the midden area to allow human exploration but keeps
the majority of the area off-limits. In this area dogs are precluded. The third typology allows for
active recreation, and includes the entire length of the beach (aside from a preserved connecting
corridor between the dunes and the bay), the wide walkway behind the dunes, as well as the
grass airfield and picnic areas. Allowing for patches that remain undisturbed by people and dogs
would suggest a decrease in disturbance and an associated increase in ecological richness in those
areas.
Regional Relationship:The restored marsh at Crissy Field isthe only marsh within a many-mile
radius. This would suggest little lateral transfer of species from other marsh areas. The exception
to this reality would be that of birds and insects able to fly greater distances as well as perhaps
waterborne species. Crissy Field's main regional connection is that to migratory bird species.
Native vegetation was used for all plantings onsite. This includes the grass airfield, which used
native bunch grasses instead of standard turf. According to documentation on the NPS website,
over 100,000 native plants were seeded onsite and used in the design.
Surface Water: The design of the park replicated, albeit to a limited scale, the natural surface
water condition at the site.
Water Loop:The design of the park revolved around the engineered reproduction of natural
site hydrology. Stormwater outflow, instead of being piped and discharged directly into the bay as
was the condition prior to restoration, is redirected into the marsh to allow for biologic filtration.
Although not a part of the original design, planning work is being done to consider the extension 76
of restoration efforts along the creek that feeds the marsh, creating a linear, continuous upland
riparian corridor.
Irrigation:The only area of the site that is irrigated is the grass airfield. The original intent was
not to provide any irrigation, yet public discontent over the natural browning of the grass has lead
to the establishment of a limited irrigation program.
Impervious Coverage: Impervious surfaces were kept to an absolute minimum. The pathways
and the promenade are all pervious, constructed of crushed, compacted stone. Most surface
parking is seeded earth. No new impervious construction, with the exception of a small public
restroom and outdoor shower source for surfers, was added to the site.
v. SITE FITNESS
Physical aspects of the site, such as size, topography, aspect, climate, soil, hydrology, vegetation
and wildlife, together with cultural and social influences, and current uses combine to give a site
its distinct character. An ecological approach would take prevailing site conditions at its lead.
Efforts to integrate natural and cultural features at Crissy Field into a self-sustaining system would
suggest a desire to promote improved site fitness.
In overlaying the park design on historical photographs of the natural site condition,there isa clear
correlation between the placement of design features and historical conditions. Dunes are located
generally in the same place and are around the same size, while the marsh, albeit a bit smaller, is
also located generally on a portion of its original site. This demonstrates an understanding of the
need for design to consider fitness as it speaks to the pre-established equilibrium as a result of
natural processes.
In order to maintain the opening of the marsh channel, the monthly use of a backhoe has proved
necessary. Again, this was not part of the original design plan, but has resulted from unanticipated
littoral sand drift along the beach.
Overall, the maintenance program at Crissy Field is required to maintain the 'natural' state of the
design but is less intensive than the maintenance program one would encounter at most urban
parks.
Fertilizers and pesticides. Fertilizers and pesticides are not used at Crissy Field. 77
In a general sense, an ecologically designed landscape should promote greater ecological health -n
rather than detract from it. While this isa difficult concept to quantify,the program of an ecological
park should, in a qualitative sense, provide a spatial element through which ecological repair and/
or creation of habitat is more possible than without it. Crissy Field meets this threshold, as it has
provided for the addition of native habitat and hydrological cleansing that would otherwise not
be found on the site.
i. PEDAGOGY
With the learning center and informative signage along major pathways,the park in avery immediate
sense provides active communication with the parkgoer around issues pertaining specifically to
the natural ecology. The provision of guided tours further promotes this objective. The revelation
of the function of the landscape provides a passive communication that in combination with the
signage, is intended to provide the parkgoer with a fundamental understanding of the relationship
between the land and natural functions, biotic and abiotic, that are in constant play in the landscape
around them.
A trailway around the marsh is lined with signage that discusses the historical context of the marsh,
from its pre-human days to the designed restoration. Discussion of specific ecological processes
and accompanying imagery is provided with this signage. Design features that do not detract
from the quality of the landscape also impart the idea of respect for nature through sensitive
interaction. Ropes, for example, are low to the ground and blend into the foliage. Pathways are
clearly delineated so as to define paths of entry while areas of highest critical environmental
concern are labeled as such to discourage entry.
The level of pedagogic programming at Crissy Field, channeled through the Crissy Field Center,
is impressive in both its scope and scale. The Center is housed in a renovated Army building,
and contains a media lab, urban ecology lab, arts workshop, bookstore, library, museum center,
classroom, and meeting space. A dedicated staff runs the Center, while volunteers from different
academic, professional, and cultural backgrounds provide a series of seminars and outdoor events.
A look at the events calendar shows at least one activity each day of the month.
An ongoing open call for volunteers to "help keep Crissy Field green, clean, and free of invasive
weeds" isapopular attraction at the park (NPS e.).Donations through the Conservancy Membership
program help secure financial means to promote park programming while encouraging a sense of
stewardship of the land.
As part of the Presidio, Crissy Field is financially self-sufficient.The restoration of the park was
financed completely with charitable donations and programming is maintained through leasing of
space on the Presidio. Public appropriations are not used to finance park operations.
H. Discussion
This study began by postulating on the notion of ecology and what the use of the word in the
redesign of Crissy Field was intended to reflect. If Crissy Field is a physical representation of
the ecological park model, what can it tell us about that model? From this, what can the park
tell us about the importance of a designed interrelationship between the cultural and natural
landscapes?
In considering first the natural features of the park, both the park designers and current
administrators concede that there have been unanticipated failures in the sustainable functioning
of the constructed marsh. While natural ecology has been reintroduced and is thriving, continued
success, at least in the short term, requires mechanical intervention. This outcome is not what
was intended, and a study to better determine how to allow for natural regulation of the marsh
has recently been returned on commission.
While the lack of sustainability is not ideal, is this failure relevant? If in fact what is important
is intent, and not necessarily outcome, should we not consider as the defining element the fact
that the design called for the reintroduction of a missing natural system as the central feature of
the park? It is argued that the significance of Crissy Field lies in its placing of natural ecology as
its central feature, the way perhaps a picturesque designer would have molded hills and trees to
create the perfect image. What separates Crissy Field from the picturesque is that its aesthetic
was driven by the natural conditions, not by an idealized vision of that condition.
From a purely systematic perspective, the marsh's connection to the larger hydrological system at
Crissy Field and the greater Presidio area is being reestablished and is beginning to function much
as it had prior to human intervention in the 19th and 2 0 th centuries. Although smaller in scale,
it is clear that inclusion of the marsh in the design of the park represents not only an aesthetic
insertion to the landscape but a learned natural insertion reflective of a positive ecological ethic.
Further, if in fact aesthetics were the only desired outcome in including the marsh, the project
could have been done easier, cheaper, and perhaps in a more visually dramatic fashion. While
aesthetics are part of any design process, the primary goal of the intervention was a functioning
natural ecology that through its own internal workings, could become self-sufficient.
Tied to this natural program is a cultural program that integrates parkgoers with the natural and
historical ecologies of the landscape. The intent to provide a pedagogical experience to observers
that speaks to the relationship between the site on which they stand and the larger urban and
regional landscapes around them is commendable. The park thus becomes an outdoor classroom,
providing a revelatory experience of both the natural and cultural ecologies that would otherwise 79
go unnoticed.
The myriad of different activities organized through the Crissy Field Center with respect to both
the natural and cultural ecologies of the site is testament to this resolve. Summer programs -n
bring youth into the park, teaching them the value of stewardship, while weekend activities attract
visitors and community members alike to help with the ongoing ecological maintenance of the
park.
The notion of revelation, both through signage in a direct sense but also in a slightly less
demonstrable experiential sense, is key at Crissy Field. While recreating natural ecologies
and preserving cultural ecologies is an important aspect of the park design, perhaps of greater
importance is the communication of those natural and cultural ecologies to the parkgoer. With
this, the purpose of the ecological park becomes the provision of an improved understanding of
the natural systems functioning with the landscape and the connection of those systems to the
surrounding urban environment.
What is so impressive about the design of Crissy Field is the balance that was found between the
natural and cultural landscapes. Instead of feeling as if this balance came at the expense of one
landscape over the other, one cannot help but experience the synergistic relationship between
these two programmatic interventions, that in the end, provide a whole better than the sum of
the parts.
I. Summary Matrix
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Chapter 6. Comparison to Golden Gate
Park: The Early Picturesque
"When man undertakes to make a woodland park, his object and sustained endeavor must be to cause
the result to seem to be a work of nature... [As a result] the most artistically and practically successful
woodland park making may not challenge the widest praise, simply because those who see it do not
realize that it is the work of man. They instinctively take it for granted that nature made it."
Having considered two ecological parks in rather extensive detail, this study now turns to its
consideration to the first of two non-ecological parks. The intent again is to help identify the o
significance and meaning of the ecological park by comparing it to the park type from which it (
purports to distinguish itself. As with the ecological parks, the role of ecology, both natural and
cultural, will be considered in the design conception and current manifestation of Golden Gate
Park. This chapter will begin with an analysis of the ecological conditions as they existed prior to -o
the park development and how they were changed as the park was built. Intent will be discerned
from an analysis of the dialogue, both historical and contemporary, as it deals with ecological
value. The chapter will conclude with a brief discussion on the significance of Golden Gate Park
as representative of the Picturesque movement, and the possible distinctions between its design
and the lessons previously discerned from the analysis of the ecological park.
84
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Golden Gate Park, conceived and designed during the early part of the picturesque municipal
park movement, demonstrates the contemporary attitude towards nature, ecology, and the role
of park. Its selection as a case study is intended to demonstrate the ideas and principles that
guided the design and construction of the picturesque park and the influence of the natural
world in this design and construction process. Golden Gate Park was the product of an Olmsted
protege, and the dialogue between the two illuminates the contextualization of the park within
a grander movement. This chapter will focus on the siting of the park, the dialogue leading up to
construction, and will end with a consideration of Golden Gate Park's current state.
Of the 1,000-acre site, shifting sand dunes covered all but 270 acres at its east end. Of these 270
acres, approximately 200 were also originally dunes, but according to William Hammond Hall, (.
Golden Gate Park's first superintendent, they"had by natural process become clothed with native
growths" of grasses and other binding herbaceous species, making them relatively fixed. Wrote
(D
Hall: -o
I
86
o
0
The Outside Lands included what are today the Richmond and Sunset districts of San Francisco,
a sizable area to the west of the Height-Ashbury and what is now downtown San Francisco. The
vast majority of these roughly 8,400 acres were covered in blowing sand dunes which blocked
streams in the west to create a series of tidal and freshwater ponds and lakes, the most significant
of these being Lake Merced, Pine Lake, Laguna Honda, and Mountain Lake, many of which exist to
this day, albeit in highly altered states. The constantly shifting sands, cool temperatures, and the
inability of the sand to hold water, proved a harsh environment for plant life (Young, 2004).
Yet despite this adverse environment, vegetation here was rich in diversity,with a"variety of grasses,
herbaceous species, and afew shrubs." These grasses included dune grass (Leymus mollis), salt rush
(Juncus lesuerii), Pacific wild rye (Leymus pacificus), and sand-dune blue grass (Poa douglasii). Low-
growing groundcovers like sand verbena (Abronia latifolia), California salt bush (Atriplex californica),
beach strawberry (Gragraria chiloensis), and sea plantain (Plantago maritime), were found along
I. William Hammond Hall, as quoted in (Young, 2004).
the interior rows of dunes. Yellow bush lupine (Lupinus arboreus) and chamisso beach lupine
(Lupinus chamissonis) were the most conspicuous shrubby plants, the latter being most common
where sand gave way to dirt. Elsewhere, one could also expect to come across coastal sagewort
(Artemisia pycnocephala) and coyotebrush (Baccharis pilularis)" (Young, 2004).
As one critic who preferred a competing site later described this area, the park had "been located
in the midst of sand hills that are devoid of any natural beauty or attraction - a mass of barren, desolate
sands, utterly unsusceptible [sic] of any improvement whatever." Others were more blunt; Thomas
Magee, the influential editor of the San Francisco Real Estate Circular, repeatedly refereed to it
simply as "The Great Sand Park"(Young, 2004). Clearly, the windswept, shifting, and yellow sand
dunes with their scattering of vegetation failed to approach the landscapes described by Andrew
Jackson Downing or the picturesque parks en vogue designed by CalvertVaux and Frederick Law
Olmsted.
With the discovery of gold in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada in 1848, San Francisco grew from
a meagerly population of an estimated 1,000 in 1846, to 30,000 in 1856, and 234,000 by 1880.2 In
35 years, San Francisco had gone from being nothing more than a pueblo on the Pacific coast to
being the 9 th largest city in the United States. With this growth in population came a new wealth, 87
and the new social and political elite that were created began to demand the civic qualities of the
best"eastern cities." How better to catapult San Francisco into the realm of the great cities than 0
build a picturesque park of grandeur as had been done recently in New York City and Brooklyn.
And who better to build this park than Fredrick Law Olmsted himself. Only he could bring
sophistication and culture to wild San Francisco.
(D
Upon invitation, Olmsted submitted apreliminary plan for an open space system in 1866, consisting
of a "Rural Ground" of approximately 200 acres connected to a series of linear corridors and
avenues extending north and northwestward. "Olmsted carefully avoided the term park for any
portion of the project,"TerenceYoung, a prominent Golden Gate park historian, describes, because
a park, in his mind, was inappropriate for the semi-arid west (Young, 2004).
But Olmsted's plan for a park system was lukewarmly received. It wasn't the grand, densely
planted, Central Park of New York that an influential group of constituents desired nor was it in
line with the immensely popular writings of Andrew Jackson Downing. As in New York City and
decades later in Boston, a primary motivating factor in the desire for park was the real estate
value such an improvement would create. It is not completely coincidental that the constituents
pushing for a park owned much of the Outside Lands. Yet another group rejected the notion of
park altogether, arguing that San Francisco's "treeless, wind shorn and sandy suburbs" offered "no
fair opportunity of forming a park."
The Daily Alta California, a major San Francisco-based newspaper at the time, added its voice
to the rising chorus in support of parks but against the Olmsted plan for a system. Instead, in
solidarity with those pushing for new real estate, and in line with the contemporary picturesque
2. 1846, Museum of San Francisco; 1856 and 1880 populations, U.S. Census
philosophy of the time, the paper favored a large central park where one could be completely
immersed in a natural landscape. Under the banner of"A Great Public Park Wanted in San Francisco,"
the Daily Alta California maintained that the city's landscape, devoid of any "real and necessary"
nature, was in great need of a grand park.
"Looking at our city from the bay, or the Golden gate, in the summer and fall, we see a mass of yellow
houses on yellow hills of yellow sand or yellow rock... We want a place where, under the protection of our
hills, we can have fifty, a hundred, or two hundred acres, sown with grass, planted with trees and laid with
roads pleasant for walking and driving. We need the reviving influences of beautiful nature."3
(D
Olmsted was sympathetic to the naysayer who based his argument on what was thought of
contemporarily as poor site conditions. He himself considered the project a daunting endeavor,
but realized that any opportunity of success would be hinged upon the ability to design an open
space particular to the arid coastal conditions of San Francisco, not the verdant semi-tropical
gardens east of the Mississippi. "It must be admitted that the attempts to form a park in the style
of Central Park or the parks of London and Paris, would be absurd... That it would need to be of an
original and quite peculiar style is probable." But thoughtful design could overcome these anticipated
barriers and produce a space particular to San Francisco yet as equally dramatic in the style of the
picturesque, Olmsted argued. "Though, it would perhaps require much careful study to secure it, it is
not unreasonable to believe it practicable" (Olmsted, 186x).
D. Site Selection
Olmsted's park system in present day Hayes Valley was coolly received. Most people in San
Francisco preferred a single, large park to a series of smaller, linked facilities. George Fitch, the
editor of the Daily Bulletin, captured the popular sentiment at the time, arguing that San Francisco
should be like NewYork, a world-class city. The latter, he noted, did not create a system of parks.
Why vary from a proven formula?
3. Young,2004.
Instead, city commissioners, many of whom stood to profit by improved real estate, voted to
acquire a large parcel within the Outside Lands to become the new park for San Francisco. Hired
first as an engineer to survey this newly designated reservation, William Hammond Hall (1846-
1934) reflects on the site selection in an 1886 report to the park commission:
"The selection of the present Park site was made in the face of bitter opposition. It was generally believed
and repeatedly urged by a good portion of the local press, that an attempt to built and maintain a Park on
the dry sands and brush-covered hillocks which composed the site, would prove a costly failure... declaring
that no Park could be built there, and no verdure maintained, at any cost which the city could afford... As a
matter of fact, the selection has proved, and will continue, as time rolls on, to prove, a wise one. The sands
afford a warmth essential in a Park for San Francisco, which a clay soil would have rendered impossible
to attain..." (Hall, 1886).
With the site selected, the next task became surveying the land and planning for a park that would
reflect the popular conception of what nature should look like - green - but pragmatically feasible
on a landscape of sand.
Faced with this daunting prospect of programming a park upon a landscape of"sand waste," the 8g
new park commissioners in April 1870 called for bids for a land survey. Numerous offers were
received, but the lowest bid, at $4,860, came from William Hammond Hall,"a pivotal character in
the creation and definition of Golden Gate Park" (Young, 2004).
The contract was awarded to Hall in August 1870, and he immediately set to work with a corps
of assistants to identify the boundaries, soil, and surface features of the park on an otherwise -M
uncharted piece of the city. In February of the next year, Hall presented his completed topographic
survey to the commission, reporting that, of the park's 1,019 acres, only the easternmost 270 or
so "were clothed with native growths" with the remainder a wasteland of Pacific sand dunes. The
commissioners accepted Hall's report and deliberated the next course of action. Obviously, if a
Central Park-type landscape were ever to emerge from this unpromising site, the dunes would
have to be removed or stabilized. There was no room in the static picturesque idea for an evolving
landscape. But how could this stabilization occur and who would do it?
Hall, an inexperienced landscape designer (or 'gardener' as the profession was called at the time),
immersed himself in the literature written about the great eastern parks, including Central Park
and Prospect Park. A firm believer in the Romantic ideal of the picturesque, Hall caught the idea
of taking those plans and closely adapting them to the specific conditions found in San Francisco.
He exchanged a series of letters with Frederick Law Olmsted, soliciting advice on the planning
and design of this new park. In a reply to Hall, relating specifically to the notion of adapting and
applying a preconceived plan, Olmsted wrote:
"I do not believe it practicableto meet the natural but senseless demand of unreflecting people bred
in the Atlantic states and the North of Europe for what is technically termed a park under the climatic
conditions of San Francisco. Experience in Persia, Turkey, Smyrna, Spain & Portugal would afford more
suggestions for what ispracticable and desirable than any that could be derived from English authorities.
But the conditions are so peculiar and the difficulties so great that I regard the problem as unique and that
it must be solved if at all by wholly new means & methods. It requires instruction, not adaptation.'"
Nevertheless, any park design would require the taming of the dunes in one way or another, yet
no clear precedent existed in the U.S. for how to do this - early attempts to mimic European
efforts failed in San Francisco. Ultimately, after repeated failures, the method that proved to work
was discovered by accident, after soaked barley seeds fed to one of Hall's horses germinated and
developed a thick mat over the sand. Hall then mixed these seeds with those of endemic coastal
pine and lupine and spread the mixture over all the dunes both within the boundaries of the park
site and on adjoining parcels,'halting' the movement of well over 1,000 acres of drift sands in as
little as a year or two.
Topsoil, which was otherwise non-existent, was created using horse-manure collected from the
streets of the city by municipal sanitary services.
With the temporary stabilization of the dunes and a developing soil medium, quick-growing and
hardy evergreen trees were planted in many places throughout the park. Intended to serve as
shrubs and to give the appearance of deliberate care in the short term, these evergreens were
also used to provide shelter from "the driving winds" for the intended specimen trees planted 90
directly behind them. Of all the natural systems at play on the site, wind, more so even than the
sandy dunes, proved the most important consideration in the ultimate design of the park.
"Simplicity of design and economy of construction,improvement, and maintenance, were ever held in view. P
I was early warned from an experienced source, and confirmed the lesson by observation, that it was an .
easy matter to make a great garden and lawn of the Park by the expenditure of sufficient money, but
that it would cost enormously to maintain such a place, and that the most desirable ends of"repose" and
"warmth" were chiefly to be obtained by simpler means; namely, a judicious shaping of the grounds, a
sheltered location of roads and walks, a skillful disposition of trees and shrubbery, and the maintenance
of a green covering to the ground without constant watering."5
F. Site Hydrology
Yet given the sandy soils and varied topography, drainage on the park site was very good - too
good in some areas. In the sandiest of soils, the only way to keep the newly planted verdure green
was with extensive, almost daily, irrigation. Fortunately, a significant aquifer existed beneath the
park site, varying between 10 and 35 feet below surface grade. The aquifer was closest to the
surface on the eastern edge of the park, which coincidently was also the highest topographical
point. The gravity advantage that this provided in combination with the easy to dig sandy soil
throughout the park made the construction of an elaborate system of drainways and irrigation
piping a relatively easy endeavor (Clary, 1980).The primary intervention against the preexisting
4. Letter from Frederick Law Olmsted to William Hammond Hall, October 5, 1871, Hall Papers, Bancroft Library,
p. 1-3 as quoted in (Young, 2004)
5. Hall, 1886.
Vision for the park. Notice the
lack of development along both the
north and south sides of the park.
(SFPL)
site hydrology was bringing the water to the surface. In the year prior to 1876, an estimated
17,822,600 gallons of water were used to irrigate the newly planted greenery throughout the
park (S.F. Parks Commission, 1870-1).
G. A Philosopher of the Picturesque Comments on Golden Gate Park in 1886:
If one person need be chosen to represent the picturesque philosophy, Frederick Law Olmsted
would be an easy choice. In many ways, his personal beliefs defined the popular philosophy towards
park and nature and their meaning to the city. Therefore, Olmsted's commentary in the 1880s
on the development of Golden Gate Park is a useful addition worthy of further exploration.
In the 1880s, the Park Commission conducted a post-occupancy study of sorts, looking at the
progress and considering the future of Golden Gate Park. It was to this Commission that Olmsted
submitted an open letter.
On the role of parks in a general sense "fit for occupation by a city's crowds", Olmsted offered that
the use of "natural outlines and growths" need be considered in designing a landscape "suitable
for the distinctly rural recreation of people." With this, the park becomes a venue through
which "relief and counterpoise to the urban conditions of [the] ordinary circumstances of life" is
achievable. In order to attain that rural landscape, Olmsted continued,"the work of nature" must
be harvested, and in doing so, the "the obstacles to the necessities of use must be removed." In
line with the agrarian ideal of the American experience, he offered that natural processes should
be encouraged and controlled or"started and assisted." For Golden Gate Park, Olmsted argued,
the most important consideration need be in the "provision of ways by which the results of
nature's work may be enjoyed by the public without injuring and wearing them out" 92
With this, Olmsted criticized a section of the park known as ConservatoryValley. Here, manicured MC
gardens, not a rural landscape, were programmed into the landscape. o
"What has been done for this purpose, chiefly in the garden of your Conservatory Valley, is a good piece
of handicraft in the style that for some time past been in fashion, but from which a reaction seems now D
setting in through communities older than your own. Your ornamented ground and flower garden being
in no respect the product of local circumstance, or representative of distinctly local taste or study, and its
full value being already realized, calls for no expression of judgment from me as to the possibilities of its
future. I will only say that I am included to think that it was unfortunate the ground was taken for this
purpose within the territory to which the term park has been applied, because it tends to confusion of
public opinion between the wholly irreconcilable purposes of a rural park and those of an urban garden,
and to favor neglect of the more substantial and more permanently important of the two."6
Yet overall, Olmsted's commentaries were positive. He offered that Golden Gate Park could
not "fail" in the notion of the picturesque ideal so long as "decently conservative management
and sustained study of the demands which nature makes apparent" were to continue. Nature, if
channeled correctly,could make Golden Gate Park far more attractive and useful in ten years and
"a hundred years hence than ten," he added.
To this letter from Olmsted, Hall offered his own personal predications. Yet Hall's commentaries
were ironic, even to the standard of the time.
"The art of improving grounds has undergone great changes in modern times. It was formerly the
practice to make everything assume an artificial appearance, after fixed and regular forms, a seeming
6. Olmsted, 1886.
attempt to apply the rules of architecture to landscape gardening. Of late years, however, it has become
the practice to leave nature as nearly in her normal state as possible, and only to endeavor to hide that
which is unsightly, while still concealing the means applied."7
Yet with this said, the entire endemic landscape and ecological function of the Golden Gate Park
site was reformed, leaving nothing in its "normal state."
In an extended commentary to the San Francisco Park Commission about 10 years after the
initial construction of the park commenced, Hall reflects back on his motivations and design
considerations, specifically relating to nature, as he defined it:
"The theory of this whole improvement was clustered around the ideas of "repose," and "warmth" and
"enlivenment." To attain these in our particular climate, without sacrificing breadth of treatment... and
to make a park-like effect by simple and inexpensive means, was the subject of seven years' thought
and work on my part..."
"The forestry and landscape architecture of the place was particularlythe subject of consideration. What
was the nature of the landscapes, which could be produced and maintained under the circumstances, at
reasonable cost? What was the character of verdure with which the place should be clothed, and what 93
its general plan of disposition to effect the leading ends desired? These were the ideas and questions
that led the thought and guided the work, in originally laying out and planting the Golden Gate Park." 0
0
a-
"When the work ofgrading was to be begun, there was a proposition strongly urged by outside influences,
and seriously entertained, to grade off the place to a plane, like a public square, and run straight CD
avenues athwart it, thus destroying all semblance of natural configuration, and all possibility of rural and CD
true park-like effect... On the other hand, when after the present plan had been adopted, and the work
of grading was in progress, the idea was practically developed of retaining the general topographical
configuration of the place, and planning to it - opening up reasonably direct lines of communication
from valley to valley, by partially cutting away intervening hills, where absolutely necessary so to do,
and filling up unsightly hollows to give a breadth of effect, and secure open spaces of reasonable size
for lawns, meadows, and concourses - the cry went up that the face of nature was being ruthlessly
destroyed, and money being uselessly expended.... The result shows that had the gratuitous suggestions
offered been taken, we would now have a place akin to a contracted beer garden in plan, and in no way
affording the space and relief which the Park of today presents, much less the broad landscape effects
which are being developed there."-William Hammond Hall
From The Development of Golden Gate Park and Particularly The Management and Thinning of its Forest Tree Plantations:
A Statement from the Board of Park Commissioners. 1886.
Published by Bacon & Company, S.F Calif., 1886. Document attained at the San Francisco Public Library History
Center and Archives, March 2006.
7. Young, 1886.
H. Golden Gate ParkToday
Golden Gate Park is at a crossroads, one that will significantly define its future relationship to both
city and the land. This crossroads is most eloquently encapsulated by the reality that almost all the
trees on the site, now 125 years old, are reaching the end of their lifespan. Natural succession has
not occurred, and according to the GGP maintenance plan, without intervention, it is estimated
that in 25 years, only 50% of trees will be left standing. A replanting program at varying levels of
intensity has been conducted over the last decade, and the goal of this program is to replace and
replicate the exact siting of trees first established by Hall. Neither ecological considerations nor
sustainable principles are guiding this reforestation effort.
The current management plan for the park begins with the following preamble:
"Golden Gate Park's landscape isalmost completely manmade, and as such has maintenance requirements
that belie its naturalistic appearance."
The plan points out that the park in its current condition retains minimal provision of natural
habitat.Almost all lake water is eutrophic and banks artificial, precluding the establishment of any
lacustrine habitat. With the aging canopy, removal of dead wood, and a reduction of understory
vegetation (also not self-replicating), availability of habitat in the park has decreased in recent
years. Evidence suggests that predation by, and competition with, domestic and feral animals such 94
as cats have reduced the site's fitness for what was once its primary wildlife - migrating birds
(Golden Gate Park Master Plan, 1998). o
Recognizing the difficulty in balancing the conflicting objectives between habitat provision and
public use, the management plan refers to Hall's original plan for the park, which created two
distinct zones based on level of activity. In the western portion of the park where programmed -0
human activity is to a lesser degree than in the eastern part, the plan calls for a greater emphasis
in provision of habitat. Whether or not this plays out in practice is unknown.
An important element in the management of the park and its ecological sustainability is its use of
water. Total park irrigation is estimated to range between 1.5 mgd during low use periods and
4.0 mgd during high use periods, or the equivalent to that which would supply between 4,000 and
10,000 average California homes per day.8 Onsite wells supply two-thirds of the water supply
while municipal tap water provides the last third. In light of the staggering water consumption
of the park, the city of San Francisco is considering the use of reclaimed water from a proposed
tertiary plant. No plans beyond conceptual proposals have been documented. 95
0
0
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-0
** Historical" indicates the period when the park was first designed, "today" indicates the condition as
reflected by the current management master plan. **
i. HABITAT DIVERSITY
Water
* (Historical): No habitat provision was considered. Dales in the sand dunes that had once
collected seasonal rainfall and had supported a functioning ecosystem were filled and
drained during the course of park development.
* (Today): Minimal attempts at providing riparian habitat are discussed in the management
plan, yet poor quality has hampered attempts to'naturalize' the lakes and ponds.
Land
(Historical):Although providing an experience of'nature' to the city dweller was an intended 96
goal of the plan, designing for habitat was not part of that provision. Some reference has
been found to migratory birds using the park early in its development as a resting spot, but o
this could not be confirmed.
(Today): Minimal attempts at providing upland habitat are discussed in the management
plan. Special zones are designated in the park where primary use objectives are defined
by habitat provision. Management practices in these areas include reduced woody debris -o
collection and reduced maintenance of growth. Establishing a multi-staged forest in the
park is argued to help promote increased habitat for migrating birds.
Complexity
* (Historical): Although zones were curvilinearly shaped and designed of various sizes and
heights, the high level of maintenance and low level of endemic plantings would suggest
minimal possibility for provision of habitat.
* (Today): In calling for amulti-staged,multi-aged canopy and avigorous,yet diverse, understory,
the management plan suggests a strategy towards increasing patch complexity.
Regional Relationship
* (Historical and Today): Regional connections are minimal.
Water Loop:Although water used as part of the irrigation program isintroduced, the majority of =
onsite water comes from underground aquifers. This allows for a large portion of the water that
is pumped to the surface to percolate back into the aquifer, establishing a closed loop hydrological -V
system.
Irrigation: In order to maintain the verdant foliage of the park on an otherwise arid site, intensive
irrigation is required.
Impervious Coverage: In keeping with the picturesque vision of a rural landscape, the use of
impervious surfaces was, and continues to be, minimal.
v. SITE FITNESS
Physical aspects of the site, such as size, topography, aspect, climate, soil, hydrology,vegetation and
wildlife, together with cultural and social influences, and current uses combine to give a site its
distinct character. An ecological approach would take prevailing site conditions at its lead.
In keeping with the picturesque ideal that calls for the use of'nature' and natural site conditions to
be the driver of design, a clear correlation between the placement of design features and historical
conditions does exist. Although the physical form of the park and the distribution of hills and
valleys might reflect endemic conditions, the highly unsustainable planting program demonstrates
an overall low fitness of design.
Maintenance.
* (Historical): In promoting the ideal landscape, historical maintenance activities were
extensive throughout the entire park, reducing the availability of natural habitat.
* (Today): The current management plan does call for alternative practices in certain areas
that would suggest promotion of ecological habitat, including the allowance for understory
growth and the delayed removal of dead wood.
i. PEDAGOGY
The level of pedagogic programming at Golden Gate Park is minimal. Outside groups do lead
tours through the park and have mobilized recently around preservation of the windmills along
the western edge of the park (windmills that Hall believed were distasteful and not in keeping
with the picturesque ideal).Volunteerism in regards to park maintenance has been encouraged
in recent years by the San Francisco Parks Trust, although ecologically-based pedagogy is absent
from these programs.
ii. INVOLVEMENT & STEWARDSHIP
In the course of research for this study, little evidence was found to suggest an active and involved
stewardship program.
Park construction and maintenance have been, and continue to be, funded by public expenditure.
J.Discussion
While it is clear that Golden Gate Park is an entirely synthesized landscape with little or no
connection to natural ecological conditions, can anything be deemed from its planning and
development processes that might shed light on a positive role that ecology and natural functions
might have played on its design? Golden Gate Park was selected as a case study of the picturesque
in order to gain afirm understanding of the ideas and principles relating to the natural conditions
that guided the design and construction of park. Was there any designed and synergized connection
between natural site conditions and the needs of the city, its residents, and natural systems? 99
As was made clear in the analysis of the history of Golden Gate Park, quite a bit of attention was o
paid to the nexus between intended program and existing natural features. In fact, these natural .
features were used to define and organize the program. As has been discussed, this is keeping
with picturesque philosophy.
But this is where the connection to natural ecologies began and ended in the story of Golden
Gate Park. Nothing about the park is natural, nothing speaks to the condition of the site prior to
being park, and very little, if any, connection exists between this constructed landscape patch and
the greater ecological mosaic of the region.
Without extensive maintenance, including irrigation and fertilization, the park would not exist in
its present form, reverting over time much to its state prior to being park, a maze of ecologically
dynamic interconnected sand dunes. The current program is therefore unsustainable.
From a cultural perspective, this park continues to lack a significant pedagogical component.
Other picturesque parks, on the other hand, such as Prospect Park in Brooklyn, have introduced a
greater educational program. The ravine, an area which has been replanted with native herbaceous
species, is being left to develop naturally - i.e. with few maintenance interventions - and in so
doing, has begun to allow for active learning pertaining to the dynamism of an unfolding natural
environment. Prospect Park is also home to the Brooklyn Center for the Urban Environment,
which has asignificant educational program relating to the park and the greater city area, much like
the Crissy Field Center at Crissy Field. A similar level of pedagogy is not found at Golden Gate
Park, even though the area is known for its progressive philosophies towards the environment.
Why does the level of ecological programming continue to be so low at Golden Gate Park?
While it is impossible to answer this question definitively, it is proposed that given the inherent
conflicting role between the park and its site ecology, such programming would be both difficult
to produce and would not be enthusiastically supported by an otherwise environmentally-literate
populace. A fascinating proposal for the park, although not a likely one, would be the allowance of
certain areas to revert to their natural state, and organizing a pedagogic experience around that
reversion.
Yet Golden Gate Park is cherished in the collective consciousness of San Franciscans, and in
no way should the criticism of ecological merit be taken as a criticism of the merit of the park
itself. From a programmatic standpoint, it is highly successful and is an important element of the
recreational network and aesthetic quality of the city.
Golden Gate Park is fairly representative of the early picturesque park. It represents an insertion of
aprogram that would otherwise not exist on the site and would not persevere against reversionary
tendencies without constant human intervention. Next, a study of a park conceived during a
much later, more mature, period of the picturesque movement will be considered in continuing
the development of the story of the picturesque park and the natural and cultural environments.
K. Summary Matrices
100
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Chapter 7. Comparison to Back Bay Fens:
The Later Picturesque
"[The Back Bay Fens] is a direct development of the original conditions...in adaptation to the needs of a
dense community. So regarded, it will be found to be, in the artistic sense of the word, natural, and possibly
to suggest a modest poetic sentiment more grateful to town-weary minds than an elaborate and garden-
like work would have yielded."
- Frederick Law Olmsted, 1880
The following chapter provides the second exploration of a picturesque park. In earlier chapters,
two ecological parks have been considered, while a first comparsion against a picturesque park,
Golden Gate Park, has also been made. Here, with a second picturesque park, we add the last 103
installment to the story set out upon at the beginning of this thesis. Specifically, in examining the
Back Bay Fens, we consider what many offer to be the precursor of ecologically-based landscape
planning and design. For this reason, it is important to keep the lessons learned previously and the -
following question in mind as one reads this next chapter: is the ecological park new?
-n
Back Bay Fens, along the Muddy River. Notice the phragmitis choking
the riparian zone. (Ron Gilbert)
A. Introduction
Although emerging from the same municipal park movement that produced Central Park, Prospect
Park,and Golden Gate Park,among others,the Back Bay Fens,as part of Boston's Emerald Necklace,
reflected a more mature, ecologically sensitive conception of what an urban park should be. Instead
of being one park, the Emerald Necklace was a string of many that followed natural topographical
and hydrological systems. The Back Bay Fens, which is detailed in the next section, moved beyond
a mere reference to natural systems as at Golden Gate Park, instead harnessing these systems
to define a synergistic relationship between recreational space, open space preservation, and
improvement of natural systems.' The Back Bay Fens was as much about repairing a hydrological
system as it was about creating a park. This was a truly revolutionary concept.
Olmsted envisioned a park system as away to enhance several natural features - linked waterways,
heavily massed vegetation, and picturesque islands- as much needed relief to the rapidly urbanizing
Boston area (O'Connell, 2001). In 1880, Olmsted wrote that the Muddy River plan would involve
"the preservation of the present channel with certain modifications and improvements adapted to
make it permanently attractive and wholesome...The result [being] a chain of pleasant waters....
all of natural and in some degree picturesque outline (O'Connell, 2001).
The use of the Back Bay Fens as a case study is important in that it reflects a latter, more developed 10o
picturesque philosophy. Many consider the Emerald Necklace as the crowning achievement of
both the picturesque movement and the Olmsted firm. The use of this case study,when paired
against the work done at Crissy Field and Xochimilco, which both involved significant attention
to hydrological systems, will help illuminate one of the questions underlying this thesis research ,
- is the ecological park a new model in park design or is it merely an aesthetic re-conception of -
established practice?
The municipal park movement was late to make it to Boston. It was between 15-20 years after
Central Park had been commissioned that Boston would commission its first picturesque park at
the Back Bay Fens. But this elapsing of time brought with it an evolved conception of park, and in
this light reflects a mature picturesque philosophy. The result of the Fens came as the culmination
of almost two decades of discussion, debate, and philosophizing as to the role, form, and feasibly
of a public park in the densely built Boston area. The following presents a brief synopsis of this
dialogue as presented in the definitive source on the subject, Zaitzevsky's Frederick Law Olmsted
and the Boston Parks System.
In the early 1860s, in response to Central Park, Boston held a design competition for the Public
Garden. Up until that point, the legal status of the plot of land was unclear, and the relationship
between the vested elite and the public citizenry in their use of this space was convoluted. But the
design competition operated under the assumptions that this plot of land would become a jewel
of the public domain, much like Central Park, albeit smaller in scale and condensed in scope.
I. Improvement of natural systems, in contemporary language, was synonymous with sanitary improvement.
The public garden, Zaitzevsky (1982) argues, is best seen as the "preamble" to a much more
ambitious debate on the need for a park system in the city of Boston. But its significance lies
beyond the site itself, as it reflects the attraction of the picturesque philosophies of curvilinearity
and a rural ideal to one of the densest cities in the United States. This sparked a conversation
within public discourse on the need for increased quality public space in Boston. After a brief
hiatus during the Civil War, this conversation "resumed with vigor in 1865" (Zaitzevsky, 1982).
This conversation was driven by the Boston daily papers, much as in San Francisco,where countless
editorials and letters on the subject of parks were published (Zaitzevsky, 1982). In October 1869,
a group of citizens presented to the City Council a petition for a public park beyond the public
garden. Approximately 40 individuals and corporations, including Marshall P.Wilder, a prominent
horticulturalist, and Jordan Marsh and Company, signed the petition. In response, the council
established a special committee "to report on what action the city should take." Two public
hearings were held in November 1869. As a result of the testimony at these two hearings, the
council "passed an order requesting mayor Nathaniel B. Shurtleff to petition the Massachusetts
General Court to purchase land for one large park or several small parks" (Zaitzevsky, 1982).
Uriel H. Crocker, a conveyance lawyer, wrote a letter, first to the Boston Advertiser and then to
the special committee, describing a system of parks. His plan included embankments on both
the Cambridge and Boston sides of the Charles River, "but its main feature was a continuous
winding parkway leading from the Charles River to Chestnut Hill Reservoir" The largest portions
of the land proposed for development lay in Brighton (which had not yet been annexed), but
had segments in Boston, Brookline, and Cambridge. Zaitzevsky (1982) explains that rather than n
imitating Central Park by providing a site where "a drive of considerable length might be made to $
wind so ingeniously that those who passed over it should not be made unpleasantly aware of the -n
fact that they were riding round and round within narrow and confined limits, Crocker proposed
an extended linear park in which people could ride or dive directly into the open country."
Crocker felt that his park plan was a true central park, in the context not of municipal boundaries
but the metropolitan region. It would provide easy access to the vast majority of city dwellers.
This was a clear departure from what had at that point been conversations bounded by municipal
delineations.
Crocker's plan reflected the dialogue occurring in Boston at the time which was dissimilar in
one but very important way from the dialogue that was occurring in other cities across the
United States: a park for Boston would be a metropolitan park - one that transgressed municipal
boundaries - following natural features and topographical distinctions rather than political
artificialities. This was uncharted territory in local politics, and the legislative process enabling
such action was slow to develop. After a series of failures, the ParkAct of 1875 set the stage for
a park system. But the system that actually developed, unlike the Crocker Plan and other similar
plans set forth afterwards, was smaller in its metropolitan scope, although it did include two cities
- Boston and Brookline - using the Muddy and Stony Brook rivers as the spine of a park system
rather than an unguided imposition on the landscape.
Over the next twenty years, the plan that emerged from the Park Act changed significantly. As
a result of financial constraints imposed by the Great Fire in 1872 and the general economic
downturn of the country, the park plan found itself in direct competition with other municipal
projects, such as new Boston sewers (Zaitzevsky, 1982).
In 1877, a "meager" $450,000 was appropriated by the City Council to purchase land of"no less
than 100 acres" for the Back Bay Park. After a failed design competition, Olmsted was asked to
design the landscape (Zaitzevsky, 1982). Olmsted's savvy was in aligning the park construction
with the movement to build new sanitary sewers in the city - once considered competitors for
the same pot of money - the goals (and means) were to be aligned in Olmsted's plan.
Presented with the site, Olmsted's first challenge was to resolve the difficult hydrological and
engineering problems posed by the Back Bay park site. Because of the limited funding appropriated
for the park, the most undesirable lands were purchased, most of which were submerged under
water during high tides. Although once part of vast salt marsh which lined the entire portion of
the Boston peninsula, the area then was nothing more than an expanse of foul-smelling mud flats
littered with debris and raw sewage.
With the growing population of Boston and Brookline after 1820, the full basin, as it was known,
became progressively fouler. Both the Muddy River and Stony Brook, which together drained 10O
several thousand acres of Roxbury, Dorchester, and Brookline,also received raw sewage, depositing
it in the basin. As estuaries of the Charles, both streams were influenced by the tide for quite
a distance upstream and tended to overflow during high tides.With the increasing urbanization
of the area and the associated increase of raw sewage, the last vestiges of salt marsh had all but
vanished by the 1850s. A survey conducted in 1877 concluded that"animal life was no longer able
to survive in the waters of the Back Bay" (Olmsted, 1899).
The area that Olmsted had been asked to turn into park was the portion of the Back Bay Basin
to the west of the Cross Dam, the area into which both the Muddy River and the Stony Brook
discharged.
The park proposed by the commissioners in 1876, to which Olmsted was requested to advise,
"was in the form of a narrow parallelogram, connected by one arm to the Charles River and by
another to the proposed park on Parker Hill" (which never was built).
Working with the commission's proposal and the survey work subsequently conducted, the
Olmsted firm drafted its first detailed plan for the site (and the city of Boston), dated October
24, 1878. Although satisfied with the plan, Olmsted himself was skeptical about his own work. He
had asked to meet with the city engineer,Joseph P.Davis, before the plan was formally adopted"
(Zaitzevsky, 1982).
Because of the widely recognized nuisances of both flood and smell and newly appropriated
funding for sanitary improvements, plans had already been drafted for a "conventional masonry
storage basin" that would serve not only to collect the overflow of the Muddy River and Stony
Brook, but also to keep the odorous mudflats submerged under water. Because the entire Back
Bay area was slated to become a wealthy enclave, a sewage filled basin in the area was clearly
not the optimal solution to the problem. In this light, as well as perhaps because of his personal
convictions, Olmsted sought to modify the basic concept into an acceptable landscape design that
would be more sensitive to the natural flows on the site.
A new plan was published in the commission's 1879 annual report, entitled the "Proposed
Improvement of Back Bay." In the plan, Olmsted designed a meandering waterway emblematic of
the state of a natural river as it passes through a marsh. The marshland itself is diagrammatically
dissociated from the borders of the park "which were to be planted more conventionally with
trees and shrubs." In order to manage flooding, a gate was planned at the confluence of the
marshland and the Charles River. Charlesgate, as it was named, would regulate the daily ebb and
flow of the tide (Zaitzevsky, 1982).
Olmsted's proposal for the Back Bay Fens was quite different from the common preconception
of park, and was revolutionary in tying together recreational program and natural systems. As
Olmsted himself took every attempt to argue, the design was "primarily a sanitary improvement,
the main feature of which was a storage basin for storm waters of Stony Brook." Yet in contrast
to the means typically used at the time to secure sanitary improvement, Olmsted realized that
an integrated landscape feature that replicated the functionality of the preexisting site condition
could bring about the needed sanitary improvement in way that could also provide a recreational 107
and aesthetic amenity to the city. With this realization, a primary goal of Olmsted's plan was to
return the site to its original salt marsh condition.
-1
With the exception of the trees lining the roadways on the periphery of the basin, Olmsted used
marsh grass and shrubs that could tolerate salt water as the planting elements along the banks of
the stream channel. His intent was to create a landscape that appeared as if it had always been
there - a remnant of an ecology surrounded by city. The effect of such a landscape, he explained,
-1
(D
This ecological design of the basin left about 50 acres, or one-half the total acreage, for recreational
purposes. The major parkway of the system (now the Fenway), paralleled by a bridle path, ran
along the eastern edge, with a second road (now Park Drive) on its western edge. Footpaths
109
nD
ran along the border of the marsh, but not into its interior, thus providing a distinct physical
separation between human use and natural functions.With time, Olmsted was able to convince
the park commissioners to change the name from the Back Bay Park to the Back Bay Fens in
keeping with the character of the scenery (Zaitzevsky, 1982).
Yet Olmsted's plan was as much about creating perception of nature as it was about actually
repairing natural systems. Although the design of the park would lead one to believe that both
2. (Olmsted, 1880).
the Stony Brook and the Muddy River emptied into the marshland, the reality was that concrete
culverts channeled the water from those streams underground and directly into the Charles,
bypassing the marsh entirely. This was because Olmsted did not know how to deal with the
aesthetically displeasing 'slime' that forms at the confluence of fresh and salt waters (Zaitzevsky,
1982).
When complete, the Fens was designed to appear 'natural,' and to many at the time, it did. But at
closer observation of this new landscape, noticeable differences between the Fens and a natural
salt marsh could be found. In order to avoid the bare mud banks exposed at low tide endemic to
salt water marshes, Olmsted limited the rise and fall of the tide to only a foot using a mechanized
gate at Charlesgate. In order to create a more dramatic visual aesthetic, he also chose a far greater
variety of plants than would have normally grown in such a confined area (Zaitzevsky, 1982).
But the intent to integrate natural function and human intervention into a symbiotic relationship
is not lost in these deviations.
When the Charles River dam was completed in 1910, the water flowing into the Fens from the
Charles was fresh in nature instead of salt, thus rendering the entire design obsolete.As a result .C
of this perceived obsoleteness, the Fens was used as dumping ground for fill taken from other
projects across the city, such as the excavation of the subway. Even a highway interchange was
built over it.
Today, because of a lack of maintenance, the river channel is highly silted, and choked along its
banks by an invasive reed - Phragmites communis. Little is left of Olmsted's original design, except
perhaps for the general boundaries. The riparian ecology of the river is in a state of disrepair,
flooding is once again a serious problem, and sediment contamination is an emerging concern.
The Muddy River Restoration Project is the first phase of the comprehensive Emerald Necklace
Master Park Plan, published in 1989 byTomWalmsley and Marion Pressley and updated by Pressley
Associates in 2001. The plan calls for the following objectives for the Muddy River:3
The municipalities of Boston and Brookline have teamed, putting together a panel of landscape
architects, engineers, ecologists, and preservationists, as well as a 29-member citizen advisory
committee. The Massachusetts Office of Environmental affairs has matched federal funds and the
3. Muddy River Restoration Project, Project Description. Downloaded from www.muddyriverproject.org (MRRP).
Boston Parks and Recreation department has been named the coordinating manager of the project
(O'Connell, 200 I).The master plan as drafted is guided by the Department of Interior's standards
4
for the treatment of an historic landscape: rehabilitation, restoration, and conservation.
With the construction of the Charles River dam, tidal influences no longer purged the river
channel, allowing for sedimentation to build up over time. Currently, the Muddy River is only I
foot above the mean water level of the Charles.The resulting slow current has encouraged the
growth of a litany of invasive species, choking any remnant aquatic habitat.
In order to minimize the flooding that has become more common in recent years, sediment will
be dredged to restore the original depth and width of the river. Submerged areas of the river will
be daylighted and remaining culverts will be expanded. Invasive vegetation, including phragmites,
will be completely removed and the shoreline restored to its designed picturesque condition.
11I
Although aesthetically pleasing,
phragmitis, a common reed, has
become a serious ecological
problem within the Fens.
(Courtesy of the Loeb Cr
Library, Harvard)
-1
In addressing the water quality of the river, attention is being paid to eliminating combined sewer
overflow during storm events. The town of Brookline has eliminated all such discharge, while
the city of Boston is in the process of studying mitigation effects on its side of the river. Illegal
drainage connections from abutting buildings have been discovered and removed in both cities.
Study isalso being conducted on improved management of adjoining catch basins so as to minimize
intrusion of sediment into the river.
Aside from the improvement of water quality and the promotion of aquatic habitat, the plan calls
for the reestablishment of riparian habitat lost to invasive species over the years. This riparian
habitat is to be characterized by a "diverse section of plantings including emergents, wetland
species, low and high shrubbery, and trees" (MRRP).
In addressing the cultural ecologies of the landscape, key elements of the Olmsted plan, including
original grading, plant distributions, placing of trees, and preservation of buildings, are incorporated
4. See restoration section in Crissy Field chapter.
into the restoration plan. While phase I calls for the ecological restoration of the Muddy River,
phases II and III focus more specifically on the cultural landscape. The execution of these phases
has not yet begun.
A series of BMPs will ensure the sustainability of the project and protect the newly reestablished
natural and cultural ecologies. These BMPs run the gamut from increased street and catchment
area sweeping, to particle separators in storm drains and vegetative swales.
112
Lauren Meier, a historic landscape architect at the Olmsted Center for Landscape
Preservation and a member of the citizens advisory committee on the project, describes the work:
"I look at this project as a rehabilitation, as opposed to restoration...It's an intensive amount of work that
well exceeds the kind of repair work you'd do in a normal preservation project and includes some new
elements that are compatible with the historic character."
Because flood prevention was the primary motivator of the restoration project, it is receiving the
earliest attention. In order to maintain 'sensitivity' to the historic landscape, innovative dredging
practices that vacuum sediments into a filter rather than using a typical dredging 'clamshell' are
being used to minimize impacts on both the cultural and ecological landscapes.
A total of 5 acres of phragmitis are being removed from the riverway as well. The rootstock of
these reeds has captured years of contaminated sedimentation, which has resulted in the reeds
having been classified as a toxic substance. This requires that the phragmitis be disposed of at a
regulated toxics landfill, adding an enormous expense to the project (O'Connell, 2001).
F. Application of Ecological Analysis
** "Historical"indicates the period when the park was first designed, "today" indicates the condition as
reflected by the ongoing restoration master plan**
i. HABITAT DIVERSITY
Water
* (Historical): Restoring the natural salt marsh condition was a primary design intent of
the original plan. Although the natural hydrological flow of water was regulated, flood
management and pollution control was attained by 'naturalizing' the site.
* (Today):The restoration plan does call for water quality improvements and a restoration of
aquatic habitat, although the site's endemic salt water condition will not be reintroduced,
nor could it be, given the damming of the Charles River.
Land
* (Historical): Significant riparian habitat, using native vegetation, was created within the
marsh and along the banks of the Muddy River.
* (Today):The restoration plan calls for repair of riparian habitat, including the daylighting of
several culverted portions of the river.
Complexity
* (Historical): By designing a meander through the marshland and upland portions of the
river,varied habitat patches were created. A successional cross-section of plantings - from
salt-water grasses that could be submerged in water daily, to salt-tolerant shrubbery that
could withstand exposure to salt-laden winds periodically and finally plantings along the
edge that were salt-intolerant - a variegated character in the patch dynamic was created,
similar to endemic conditions.
* (Today): Although the salt marsh is not being recreated, riparian and aquatic habitat is.
Albeit an introduced ecological system based on new hydrological conditions, the recreated
network does contain complexity through patch dynamics in its provision of habitat.
Regional Relationship
* (Historical and Today): As part of larger park system, regional connections were much
stronger than most parks designed at the time. The parks were anchored by a natural
feature,a river corridor,which further enhanced biotic biodiversity.This regional connection
is being strengthened by the current restoration proposal, linking the entire network with
a strong, endemic, riparian corridor.
* (Historical and Today): Native vegetation was, and will continue to be, used extensively.
Surface Water: 14
* (Historical): Although the design replicated the original hydrological condition of the site,
it remained contaminated with sewage. In order to regulate the site hydrology, a gate at
the confluence of the marsh and the Charles River was constructed to ensure that the
marshland was always covered in water. This prevented noxious smells from exposed
mudflats.
* (Today):The redesign facilitates a more naturalized function of the Muddy River and Stony
Brook. The management plan incorporates a series of interventions to improve water
quality and the watershed's ability to self-regulate.
The natural cycling of water along the park between Jamaica Pond and the Charles River is a
defining element of both the original design and the restoration plan.
Historically, the park was not irrigated. Current language pertaining to irrigation has not been
found, but is assumed to be minimal.
In keeping with the picturesque vision of a rural landscape, the use of impervious surfaces is
minimal.
v. SITE FITNESS
The program of the park is in line with natural site conditions, suggesting a high level of site fitness.
The restoration of the hydrological system and associated habitat push the park to improve the
overall ecology of the area beyond the site boundaries themselves.
Maintenance
* (Historical): Need for maintenance within the marsh and along the riparian corridors, the
areas with the highest likelihood for biodiversity, was minimized by design.
* (Today): The current management plan calls for the use of BMPs, including ecologically
sensitive techniques, to guide the management of the park post-restoration.
(Historical and Today): Fertilizers and pesticides are not used in the 'natural' zones of the park. It is
unclear how the current park master plan speaks to the use of petrochemicals within the active
recreational areas, however the use of pesticides and herbicides by the Boston Department of
Parks and Recreation is minimal.As of 2002, only two people are authorized to use pesticides at
the Parks Department, and their use is generally regarded as a last resort. Use of herbicides and
pesticides in the Arnold Arboretum, which is considered to be a model of BMP, decreased by 85%
in the late 1990s as a result of the adoption of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) strategies that
rely on natural predators (Kellogg et al., 2002). Simmilar conditions could be expected at the
Back Bay Fens.
(Historicaland Today):
In a general sense, an ecologically designed landscape should promote greater ecological health
rather than detract from it. While this isa difficult concept to quantify,the program of an ecological
park should in a qualitative sense provide a spatial element through which ecological repair and/
or creation of habitat is more possible than without it. The program, in both its original design,
and the proposed restoration, does suggest a promotion of ecological stasis. The park, and its
associated elements, works to promote ecological health along the Muddy River rather than
detract from it.
2. Contextual Analysis: Cultural Ecology
i. PEDAGOGY
* (Historical): None.
* (Today): An ad hoc assortment of ecologically based programming is conducted by the
Emerald Necklace Conservancy, the Urban Environmental Initiative at Boston College,
the Boston Parks Department, and others, yet this network of different organizations
has not been formalized into the operation plan of the park, questioning the long-term
sustainability of the effort.
116
-,
-C
(Historical and Today): Park construction maintenance has been, and continues to be, funded by
public expenditure.
G. Discussion
Olmsted attributed his motivations at the Fens to improving the sanitation condition of the site,
and that the provision of park and open space, endeavors through which he had defined himself,
were secondary. His design used a landscaping program in line with the best sensibilities of the
picturesque as a driver to improve the overall health of the landscape. It is this use of design
- integrating the desire for open space, recreational amenity, and improved real estate potential
- but in a way that also improved an impaired natural system, which truly distinguishes the Fens
from Olmsted's (and the picturesque's) earlier work. Instead of using the most sophisticated
technologies of the time to build a catchment basin, Olmsted believed that he could harness the
power of natural systems to provide a solution equal in functionality but far superior urbanistically
and aesthetically.The Back Bay Fens revealed an ecological system and reconnected this system
to the cultural landscape, using park programming as a vehicle to do so. It would not be for
eight decades or more that the landscape profession would once again entertain this powerful
philosophy.
With this said, the ecological merit of the project is open to debate. While it did attempt to
recreate the endemic hydrological and associated ecological systems, it did so by providing
an 'idealized' representation of these systems. It took the best features of the salt marsh and
mitigated those that were considered less than best. It used agate to control water flow in order
to minimize the unsightly presence of mud flats in the marsh. In fact the gate itself was the source
of many ecological problems during the early years of the park (Zaitzevsky, 1982). In keeping with
picturesque philosophies, the design maximized curvilinearity and emphasized dramatic view, even
if doing so detracted from the naturalization of site ecology.
Yet it is important to remember to measure the implications not necessarily by today's standards,
but instead relative to contemporary practice at the time. With this considered, perhaps the
genius in Olmsted's work was the realization that in defining the landscape, both phenomenological
and ecological benefits could and should be the goal. He had over time learned that the early
picturesque philosophies of providing allusion and reference to nature in order to satisfy the
'needs of the soul' could be expanded through design to actually provide real interaction with
endemic natural conditions.
What isalso important to consider is not that the Fens was unable to recreate a perfect ecological
system (we have difficulty doing this today), but that the project marked afusion between a desire
to improve the environmental conditions of the city,the provision of park space, and a restoration
of a natural system. As can now be said, this work and ideology can be seen as the underpinning
of today's ecological park.
Borne out of a movement to create for Boston what other great cities in the U.S. were building
for themselves - municipal parks - the Back Bay Fens took the landscape profession to a new
and more holistic level by recognizing regionality, natural systems, and cultural expression through
space.
An omission of the plan, both historically and today in restoration efforts, has been a lack of
connection to sustainable cultural ecologies,including pedagogy and stewardship. Efforts to improve
the natural ecological conditions along the Muddy River have, in contrast, taken precedence in
recent years. Perhaps with time, a connection to the cultural landscape of the city will reinforce
itself organically.While the effects of this resolve to reintegrate the Fens with the city have yet
to be demonstrated, there is hope that the Muddy River and Back Bay Fens can once again be
reconnected into a synergy of natural and park systems - in other words - a living symbiotic
relationship between the natural and cultural landscapes.
H. Summary Matrices
(Historical)
JLt
0,
i~
·
a : B ~
CD
vl
(Today)
(Today)
NIe I
I
i·a ·-
r;, ~ , ,B-c;J:~irXIIS*vSL:i iiY'i~-:r:ai~L?~;-ilirl~i:aii
Chapter 8. Results of Investigations
* See methodology chapter for a discussion on the measurement scale used below.
Points
High (x4) = 32
Med (x2) = 16
Low (x ) = 2
121
50
Crissy Field
Points
High (x4)= 48
Med (x2) = 10
Low (xl) = I
59
Golden Gate Park (historically)
_I _I 7IIL' -I,
: ;· · ·
Points
High (x4) = 0
Med (x2) = 4
Low (x ) = 4 122
8
i
d,
I I I I I I I I I I ·
Points
High (x4) = 0
Med (x2) = 6
Low (x 1) = 7
13
Back Bay Fens (historically)
Ii
_I 1 ---::-··1;--
·-·- --· I
: ·
Points
High (x4) = 16
Med (x2) = 18
Low (xl) = I
123
Back Bay Fens (today)
~d
I I I I I I ' I I~ I~
Jý f
Points
High (x4) = 4
Med (x2) = 24
Low (x 1) = 2
30
Comparison
As one can see, the ecological parks score consistently higher than the picturesque parks in their
reflection and embodiment of an ecological landscape, as defined by the literature.
Chapter 9. Discussion
Discussion
New names are given to old ideas as often as old ideas become new again. There is predication
in our society to assume that what seems novel today has never been considered before, even
though the likelihood of this being the case is empirically quite low. Therefore, new ideas in cites
are often in fact old ones. In considering the ecological park and the arguments that are used
to describe this typology as a new model, it becomes necessary to reflect back on the ideas
and motivations of historical precedent before jumping to the conclusion of outright novelty. A
thorough presentation of the history of the municipal park and the relationship of these landscape
interventions to the natural and cultural environments has been explored. A more synthetic and
focused analysis has been provided for two picturesque parks. From this, philosophizing on any
'newness' offered by the ecological park became a logical and possible progression.
If in fact the ecological park is new, then what are the introduced implications of this park typology 12
on the quality of the built and cultural environments? The intent of this research was to deconstruct
the physical and cultural elements of the ecological park and its purported predecessor, the
picturesque park, and in doing so, coming to some fundamental understanding of a new significance 2
between the former and the latter, respectively.
In order to focus within this otherwise nebulous conceptual framework, two case studies of each
the ecological and picturesque were selected based on their ability to represent, or at least reflect,
their respective movements. Against these case studies, an exhaustive review of the literature
relating to both the notion of park and the notion of landscape was applied. Based on this review
of the literature, the basic significance of two ecologies - the natural and the cultural - and the
synergies between them as they play out in an urban landscape emerged as an important tool in
analyzing the parks.
The supposed dichotomy between nature and culture is germane to this postulation, and hence
the requirement to pay equal attention to both individually and to their intersection. The
significance here lies in that an ecological park, or any other park for that matter, in attaining for
that intersection, is, or should be, different from an ecological landscape where a pole on the
nature-culture continuum is perhaps better preferred. The idea of park and its connection to the
city both formally and programmatically is one that should not be forgotten in this discussion.
This is because the design of an ecological restoration where natural habitat is the only concern
is likely to be, and should be, different from that same design intent when championed by a
park intervention. This next section discusses the results of the above-referenced investigation,
focusing on the characteristics that define the ecological park.
B. Ecological Park - On methodology
On first look at the methodology used in this study, it is possible to debate the disaggregated
presentation of the natural and cultural elements of a landscape. But in closer detail, it is
important to entertain the inexorability of these two phenomena and the importance that their
interrelationship has within an urban landscape. Parks, as adesign product, are inherently a cultural
landscape. This holds true from the smallest pocket park in a neighborhood corner to the largest
municipal park in center city. Parks are products of social constructs and societal predication and
are therefore important physical representations of contemporary philosophical ideas. They are
much more than agrassed or treed plot of land - they reflect how it is that we envision the space
around us and how we define the nexus between our cultural world of buildings and varied artistic
expressions and the natural world of ecological process and flow. With this, the park becomes a
representation of how it is we see the idealized vision of two intersecting landscapes.
Before continuing with the discussion, the following is a bulleted presentation of the main ideas
identified in the exploration of two prominent ecological parks:
* Provision of park program that enhanced both the natural and cultural ecologies of the
landscape.
* Attempts to repair the broken hydrological cycle between park, chinampa region, and 0
Mexico City.
* Expansion of the notion of park to include a more functional and dynamic relationship
with the city.
* Provision of important habitat for migrating water foul.
* Connection of historical preservation with natural resource conservation.
* Important catalyst in the promoting of a greater ecological consciousness relating to the
chinampa region, championed through pedagogical programming.
Crissy Field
This thesis began with the proposition that the significance of the ecological park lay not necessarily
on its ecological merit, although natural ecology is an important and necessary component, but
in redefining what John Dixon Hunt has called a"third nature." This redefinition, it is proposed,
allows the ecological park to transgress this tri-partite categorization of first, second, and third
natures, allowing it to embody what could be considered a fourth nature.' But how would a fourth
nature be characterized?
In careful analysis of Xochimilco Ecological Park and Crissy Field, the most significant element that
would define this fourth nature isthe use of cultural landscape to provide pedagogical experience
about the natural landscape. Ecological Parks take an endemic natural system,whether by repairing
a degraded condition such as at Xochimilco or recreating a lost condition such as at Crissy Field,
and using the power of revelation as a central and defining element of the landscape design,
communicate an ecological understanding of the landscape to the parkgoer.
One of the most important elements of the ecological park is its ability to recast itself based on
the needs of the community in which it is housed. Within a broader philosophical conception,
there is variability from one application to the next in the provision of contribution to the city's
cultural and natural landscapes. While Xochimilco focused its program less on provision of habitat
and more on historical revelation and repair of hydrological systems, Crissy Field focused its
program more on the design of viable habitat and less on historical revelation. This is indicative
of the ecological park's ability to adjust its focus based on particular local conditions and is the
fundamental root of its strength and relevancy to today's city.
With the word 'ecological,' an immediate connotation is that of nature. While nature is important
to the ecological park, it is not necessarily the defining characteristic. Both Xochimilco and
Crissy Field could have been more successful given the perspective of natural ecology if in fact
their only focus had been to repair a natural system. There are numerous examples both in the
United States and abroad of an ecologically-based focus having allowed for the re-introduction
I. Hunt describes the primeval landscape predating human experience as being "first nature," while the landscape
utilized by humans for their benefit is the "second nature." A "third nature," Hunt argues, is the synergistic
relationship between first and second natures and is best reflected by the municipal park.
of an endemic, natural, ecosystem - the Florida Everglades come to mind. But the ecological
park does not purport, not could it purport with any reasonable level of credibility, to embody
such work. Doing so, almost by definition, would be succumbing to the idea offered by some
that the preferred policy solution in all landscape intervention should be to return the site to its
pre-human or pre-cultural condition. Instead, the ecological park highlights the natural landscape
through the cultural landscape - whether by exploring historical elements or uses of the land such
as Duisburg Nord in Germany or by promoting active engagement with nature through didactic
program - and in doing so, highlights the importance and fundamentality of people and ecology in
the urban landscape.
Both Xochimilco and Crissy Field use a natural system as an organizing feature around which all
other program revolves. It uses the landscape, both directly and indirectly, as a teaching element
of the presence and importance of natural systems in the city. In doing so, the ecological parks
examined in this study have had the added benefit of providing both natural habitat and hydrological
repair of impaired systems. The ecological park uses its cultural program to reinforce its natural
program with the intent to move towards both cultural and ecological stasis over time. With this,
the park itself becomes a vehicle through which sustainability of landscape, and the sustainable use
of the landscape, becomes a real and feasible possibility.
The contextual relationship between the park and the city is reconceived in the ecological park. o
Whereas the park was once seen as a place to escape from the city (recall Olmsted's writings
on the topic), the ecological park becomes an integrated element of the city. Connections to
the urban fabric - physically, pedagogically, and experientially - are highlighted and supported by 0
both program and design. Golden Gate Park and the Boston Fens, contrarily, are defined by sharp
physical boundaries between where city ends and park begins. Crissy Field and Xochimilco blur
these edges, suggesting a greater integration between park and its natural systems and the greater
milieu in which the park is contained. In this regard, the typology of landscape as characterized
by use, becomes less distinguishable from one to the next, and the notions of natural systems
reconnecting with the city are therefore reinforced. This physical reconnection is supplemented
by cultural connections, which celebrate the inexorable relationship between communities outside
of the park with those inside of it. Or in other words, that experience within the park becomes
an experience within the city.
At first glance, perhaps the most striking difference between the picturesque and ecological
parks is one of aesthetics. At Crissy Field, for example, very few, if any, trees were planted as
part of the landscaping program. To many, it is difficult to imagine a park without a tree. But
in experiencing the park, one does not feel as though trees are missing. This points to the
fundamental difference between the ecological and picturesque parks. Golden Gate Park, for M
example, which was superimposed on a physical and ecological landscape very similar to that of
Crissy Field, could not look more different in practice. Here, there is lush tree canopy (although
currently unsustainable), and the aesthetic vision of the landscape reflects the irrelevancy of
endemic conditions, imparting instead a place-unspecific idea of an idealized natural condition.
The ecological park, in contraposition, defines its aesthetic based on the natural conditions of the
site. Therefore, the visceral reaction to a strong aesthetic dissimilarity speaks to a much deeper
philosophical divergence.
In considering the Back Bay Fens, one cannot help but question whether this philosophical
divergence holds true, or that perhaps the Fens departs from the picturesque by reflecting the
philosophies more attune to the ecological park. While it is true that Olmsted, in this latter work
of his career, adapted the idea of the picturesque to more adequately address local site conditions,
the park as a whole was still reflective of the notion of natural idealism - or that in other words,
aesthetics should be used to present an ideal representation of natural systems. This contrasts
with the ecological park's use of aesthetic representation to effectively reveal and communicate
endemic natural systems. While it is not argued that the Back Bay Fens, in its design guided by a
greater understanding of regional connection and endemic site conditions, was a step forward for
the picturesque, it is not distinct enough in its reflection on the relationship between landscape
and city and the inter-dynamics of ecological systems, both natural and cultural, to be considered
a fundamental departure from the picturesque.
H. Ecological Park - Encapsulated
With the analysis thus presented, the characterization of the ecological park has been considered
and has been compared to the picturesque park. This comparison has shed light on - and provided
support for - the argument that in fact the ecological park is fundamentally different from the
picturesque, and in such, moves beyond being a mere aesthetic recomposition of its predecessor.
- Integrates the natural and cultural ecologies of a landscape through a park program
- Provides a strong direct and indirect pedagogical experience that revolves around
revealed ecological process
- By focusing on systems, addresses natural and cultural issues that extend beyond park
boundaries
- Uses park programming to actively engage community members, and in doing so,
promotes the importance of stewardship
- Uses endemic site conditions as the underlying principle guiding its physical design,
defining a strong sense of place and identity.
What is always important to remember is that at the end of the day, people visit parks because
they enjoy spending time in them. An over-dominance of didactic experience at the expense of
more subtle phenomenological experience can easily translate into an unsuccessful intervention.
Providing places that people enjoy must be the driver of all good decisions in urbanism and the
ecological park is not an exception. Tying together the provision of good urban spaces with good
ecological program becomes the challenge to the profession.
While the relationship between natural and cultural ecologies has been stressed, this does not
necessarily minimize the importance and significance of the natural ecology itself within an urban
construct. As White (2002) argues, with an ever-increasing portion of the population living within
metropolitan regions, the need for cities to move towards ecological sustainability in both the
use of resources and their interaction with the natural systems that intersect them becomes
ever-greater. Ecological Cities, as White (2002) calls them, interact with the landscape in a way
that is sustainable over time. Can then the ecological park become the means through which this
2. A post-occupancy study of residential sites around Crissy Field has shown an increased use of native plantings in
landscape design (Farrell, 2006).
sustainability is achieved? It is not too difficult of a conception to imagine that ecological parks
within cities become places where both the systems of cities and the systems of nature reconnect.
The Arcata Marshland Recreation Area, where a series of constructed wetlands replaced the city's
only sewage treatment plant, moves in this direction by not only providing new natural habitat and
new recreational amenity (an extensive system of trails and didactic signage provides experience
through the landscape) but reintegrates the city's and the natural hydrological system in a way that
then becomes mutually beneficial.
It is difficult to imagine a truly urban park where wastewater treatment becomes the centerpiece,
but both Crissy Field and Xochimilco have taken steps, albeit mitigated ones, in this direction.
The marsh at Crissy Field bio-remediates stormwater runoff, while the constructed lakes at
Xochimilco recharge depleting groundwater aquifers with tertiarily treated wastewater.
But the future of ecological parks could and should include greater synergies between city and
natural systems than perhaps seen today, and depending on the needs of the site, improved
provision of natural habitat, improved capabilities of mitigating adverse environmental conditions,
and broader experiential explorations of nature in the city.
With the changing spatial conception of park, the ecological program could easily extend beyond
the site boundaries with the use of planting and permeation of design elements that suggest a
greater integration into the city. Much like how Olmsted used tree-lined Parkways to connect
parks within the city, ecologically based design elements could distribute themselves into the
fabric of the city blurring, or perhaps making indistinguishable, the transition between city and
park. This would produce a duplicitous achievement - an expansion of natural habitat and regional
connection and also promotion of a more livable, aesthetically enviable, and increasingly sustainable
urban environment.
J. Ecological Parks -And then there were many
Ecological parks hold the promise to help cities move towards more sustainable futures. They
are fundamentally flexible, providing particular benefit as the site or city requires. They can help
clean water or celebrate a cultural history; they can help provide needed habitat or outdoor
classroom space; all in order to provide the city with a venue through which engaged connection
to the landscape becomes possible, and systems, both cultural and ecological, are pushed towards
greater stasis.All this, while providing a place of quality for recreation and relaxation - elements
that we have come to expect from open space in our cities. In taking from Spirn's (1984) prologue,
ecological parks can help us imagine what the city could be like if designed in concert with natural
processes. If the successes of Xochimilco and Crissy Field are of any applicable conclusion, the
future city holds promise.
:33
(,
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