Traveling by car around our country, we are likely to find signs indicating a high point offering us a wider view of the surrounding landscape. Such overlooks may enrich our experience by prompting us to pause and reflect on more than just the physical aspect of what we see. This book offers that kind of overlook from an armchair instead of a car.

In this book Matthew Coolidge, founder of the CLUI, and Sarah Simons, its director, presents the work of a non-profit research organization which, since 1994, has been exploring and exposing the ways we humans have interacted with the earth’s surface in the USA. Whether or not you think such work is important, or even interesting, depends on your level of curiosity about the American landscape and the unusual things in its internal fringes reveal.

The contributors to this book believe that, “The shared space of the earth is physically and metaphorically what unites us, and until we colonize space, what we have here on this planet is all we have to work with. So it makes sense to investigate the human experience from the ground up.”

There are many disciplines dedicated to increasing our knowledge of the earth and its past and present inhabitants. But not all of perception’s spectrum has been explored by scholars, scientists, and other kinds of specialists. These overlooked parts may have the answers to our lingering questions hidden in plain sight.

The CLUI’s mission is to explore the roads not yet taken and to assemble the information found on them to help us understand where we are now. The results are compiled, sorted, processed, and stored in the  Land Use Data Base to be used for research and educational purposes.

Much of the CLUI’s work is carried out as an open source project by a volunteer army whose findings are published in the Land Use Data Base on the CLUI website, ludb.clui.org, and in its printed newsletter, the Lay of the Land. The bus tours, which are open to the public,  encourage reading the landscape for discoveries that further the Center’s research on regional projects. Tour routes are carefully studied and punctuated with stops at the sites and meetings with local experts. Live narration provided en route is supplemented by information on the history and context given in videos of the tour sites.

The book’s six chapters are:

1. Round on the Edges: Let’s Look at Ohio
2. Terrestrial Miniaturizations: Thinking Big in a Small World
3. Subterranean Renovations: The Unique Architectural Spaces of Show Caves
4. Under Water: Intentionally Drowned Towns
5. Practiceland: Places Playing Places
6. Federaland: America’s Internal Fringe.

The titles suggest a fanciful version of the National Geographic, but the tone is very different. As Ralph Rugoff, a contributor to the book observed,

“…Even when describing odd, disturbing, or potentially humorous phenomena, the tenor of these presentations is never dramatic or self-conscious. Texts tend to be straightforward and factually oriented,. . .photographs typically resemble the seemingly authorless images compiled in government and industrial archives. In their tone…the programs conjure the work of a benevolent social science agency. “

The organization espouses no policies and courts no particular audience beyond the attentive spectators who sign up for their guided bus tours to unlikely places.

Tour of a debris dam

The chapters are treasure troves of the little known. But rather than fail in an attempt to review them all, I offer a sampling of their content that I hope will inspire further exploration.

Endres Ware provided architecture and engineering services for the site, including the design of a bridge with a 105-foot span for pedestrians and light vehicles that leads to newly restored wetland areas.

Bridge deck plan

The wood deck of the pedestrian bridge, which is cantilevered from a torsion pipe beam that  spans between concrete piers,  is set back from its support so that it gives the illusion that the bridge is floating above the natural landscape below. The sinuous railing provides areas for people to lean out over the creek without blocking the deck.

Along the trails through the park are a maintenance building, public restrooms, and picnic and shade shelters that Endres Ware also designed for Ryder Park. The structures contribute an open framework that allows visitors to pursue the activities of their choice from strolling, jogging and cycling to picnicking. The uniform palette of materials: Ipe wood, also called ironwood, decking, solid concrete bases, steel pipe, and the curvilinear forms shared by the structures promote a perception of the meandering park as a single entity.

References to nature are most obvious in the splayed forms of the two picnic shelters arcing away from each other that suggest wind-blown leaves. Wood slats recalling leaf veins are bound together by upper and lower steel cables that run through them to form the central vein like that of a real leaf.

Picnic shelters plan

The shade structure, shown here in structural drawings and a photograph continue the palette of materials used in the picnic shelters and their skeletal form.

As shown in the photograph above, the 70-acre park projects a festive feeling appropriate to a waterside recreation area.

Doyle Hollis Park

The back elevation of the restroom building

Thoughtful design is not something one expects to find in the restroom buildings of public parks. Usually, one settles for adequate light and ventilation along with functional plumbing. So it is a pleasure to publish a noteworthy example of thoughtful, even elegant, design in the restroom facilities of the City of Emeryville’s Doyle Hollis Park, which opened in September 2009 on 62^nd Street between Doyle and Hollis Streets.

The rectangular concrete building, designed by Endres Ware, an East Bay architecture and engineering firm, incorporates a variety of  sustainable elements including “green roof” made of grass and other vegetation that decreases the rainwater runoff and protects the roofing system. A plumbing chase in the center of the bathroom has a grey water filtration system to receive excess drainage from the roof and enable irrigation for nearby landscaping,

A vines grown on tensions wires strung vertically on the end walls will soften the effect of the concrete, which contains high fly-ash/slag  content and protects the walls from weathering.

Natural light for the interior is provided by skylights, shown above, made of heavy glass tiles like those used in the New York subway stations. They occupy sections of the roofs over the men’s and women’s rooms.

Metal screens above and below the recessed wood section on the back wall allow air to enter the building.  The warm Ipe wood boards compliment the cool concrete, and the handsome stainless steel plumbing fixtures are convincingly durable.

If attention  to materials and details produces the kind of successful design shown here we might wonder why we don’t find it in other equally deserving public parks.  John Ware’s explanation is that the design for such facilities is often such a low budget priority that standard off-the-shelf  designs are used to save time and money.  Fortunately for the Doyle Hollis Park users, Endres Ware’s design process was driven by a desire to improve both the quality of the light and the need for abundant natural ventilation. What a difference these concerns can make!

by Lucio Flavio Pinto
translated from Portuguese by James Denison and Cassia Leal

It was a challenging spectacle that took place in Belem, the ninth version of the World Social Forum, bringing global solidarity to the Amazon. What really resulted from this initiative? That is the question that remains. One of the few things that remain after its departure.

Among capitals in Brasil, Belem has one of the lowest percentages of green space per capita, although it is located at the entrance to the Amazon, which contains one-third the world’s tropical rainforests. The most extensive green areas remaining in the city are the campuses of two federal universities, the UFRA and the UFPA, which hosted, for a week, the ninth edition of the World Social Forum, which ended on February 1st. These woods are surrounded by two of the most populous and dangerous districts in the city, Guama and Terra Firme, which contain 10% of the 1.4 million people living in Belem, and some 15% of its crime.

Guama grew by receiving migrants from the interior, who were thrown off of their native lands by the arrival of the new colonizers. These colonizers brought with them cow farms, timber mills, agricultural plantations and mining operations that are responsible for the largest destruction of forests in the history of humanity (the equivalent of expanding Sao Paulo to three times its size in only four decades). Terra Firme became overrun with miserable motels that were installed to receive desperate laborers who were forced off of their land and then urbanized by being herded up by the same coyotes who manage the manpower used to destroy the land where the natives used to live.

In meetings held in Terra Firme to prepare for the Forum a group was formed to ensure the participation of local people. But the idea of local participation evaporated because of the non-participation of NGOs and organizers who were in charge of the event. Furthermore, participation became an impossibility because of the 30 reais (15 dollars) entrance fee to the Forum that nobody could afford.

The Forum discussed none of the problems afflicting the enormous and chaotic outskirts of Belem, where one will find what is considered to be the largest flatland favela in the country, Paar, teeming with 140,000 inhabitants. In addition, Belem is the second most violent city in Brazil, after Recife, in proportion to its population. Ironically, during the week of the Forum, it was the very problems of these neighboring districts that inspired disdainful diatribes, on the internet, from the Sunday social columnist who writes for O Liberal, the paper that is owned by and represents the interests of the moneyed elite in the State of Para.

The international themed conference held in Belem, to emphasize the “Amazon question” and to provoke ideas and arguments about what to do about the current environmental situation, did not dare to cross the police barrier that isolated the dangerous districts, within whose limits are embarrassing black spots on the city’s image. Uselessly these neighborhoods looked on as the mob of foreigners held their unusual events. Locals from these neighborhoods did not participate in the hundreds of scheduled events, nor enjoy meaningful interactions with the foreign festival goers, but merely sold knick-knacks to them to make an extra buck. They had good reason to do this: out of all of the state capitals in Brazil, Belem has the largest informal economy and one of the largest unemployment rates in the country. A huge part of its citizenry make a living by doing odd jobs or work without relation to any kind of stable employment. From this there is an ever-expanding segment of the population that crosses over from the informal economy into the criminal world, with only the slightest possibility of returning.

During the days leading up to the opening of the World Social Forum, local people crossed over the security barriers, that isolated the campus, any way they could, carrying tables, chairs, pots, spoons and food to offer the public because of the inadequate supply of food services for an event of this size in Belem. Later, after an increase in security at the barriers and the entrances (to participate in the debates once inside the campus was free, but access to the entrances was super-controlled) local people began to rob, for the most part, the two thousand volunteers passing between the campuses of the Federal University of Para and the Federal University of Rural Amazonia.

First they stole the volunteers’ credentials, and then altered them so that they could pass through security and bring in with them their food, pastries and desserts. People also stole official t-shirts in order to pass through security (some of the volunteers actually had to sell their own official t-shirts in order to get money for the bus so they could get to and from the Forum). In this way, the marginalized people of this Amazonian metropolis tried to take advantage of the huge event of the year, which, according to organizers, welcomed 130,000 people. But because of thousands of extra t-shirts, many in unopened boxes, people began to wonder who really knew how many people were actually inside the event.

Thanks to a marriage of necessity between the need for food and the more than three thousand people camping out on the campus and thousands of others passing between the campuses during the day, there was a link between the bubble of solidarity and the hope for a better world, but there had to be physical manifestation of these utopias, those excluded from globalization in flesh and bone. Guama and Terra Firme were two of the most serious worries afflicting the government and the organizers, the hidden subject in the demand for independence by the World Social Forum (like a contra-faction against the summit of the ultra-rich in Davos).

The Federal government, the PT (Workers Party), dispatched 300 National Guard troops, and sent 50 million reais (out of a 160 million reais budget) for security alone. The State government, also ruled by the PT, put in a concentration of 7,000 military and civil police in the city of Belem. They set up barriers around the neighboring districts to protect the attendees of the Forum from the more than 200 daily incidents of crime in the area (60% of these are robberies, more than 2/3 of which are violent). Thousands of residents were stopped and searched by police patrols, neighborhood bars were forced to close at 10pm because of the marshal law that was imposed on the area. Daily routines were changed, but not for long.

Thanks to these measures, no violence disrupted the atmosphere of the Forum during its week-long stay in Belem. Isolated in this manner, the participants could develop, without interruption, their ideas and proposals for the construction of a better world and a sustainable Amazon. The uncomfortable reality, that was here before, will now return now that the gurus, prophets, disciples and people of goodwill have returned to their homes around the world. Carrying back home with them the same ideas and images that they brought to Belem.

Without a doubt, the World Social Forum brought to Belem people of great intellectual capacity, with strong credentials, willing to apply their talents to build a better future for the planet at large, and in particular, for the Amazon. Few, however, came to hear what the region itself had to say. Many had dedicated their time to studying the Amazon, remaining on constant alert to what is happening through their electronic devices, connected to satellites, accessing data banks, analyzing information, developing complex arguments and coming to conclusions about what is happening in the overexploited Amazonian soil. It seems, nevertheless, that this digital world is so fascinating that its users have no need to go out into the real world and see it for themselves. But the real life characters in this history are aware of their struggles and difficulties without the subtle sophistication of this new electronic idealism.

The Forum came and went like a traveling band passing by the young girl’s window that Chico Buarque de Holanda had in his hit song four decades ago. In one his movingly expressive verses he observed: “My suffering people/ said good-bye to the pain/ just to see the band passing / singing songs about love.” The love is gone, the suffering remains. That’s what life is, it invades and contaminates the virtual world, throwing out its virtue, that’s the way it should be.

The five-acre site is bounded by Union, Sansome, and Greenwich Streets and The Embarcadero. Buildings occupy only 40 percent of the site, which is divided by Battery Street into two sections. The office buildings on the western block are composed to create a view path to Telegraph Hill just beyond Sansome Street and up the well known Filbert Street steps to the hill’s summit crowned by Coit Tower.

The corporation’s low-rise brick buildings are configured with set-backs on each floor that create open balconies on their corners. The rounded corners have a rippling effect that relates the buildings to their landscaped setting.

Grouping buildings around the edges of the block allowed space for a central plaza to facilitate circulation between the buildings.The plaza’s centerpiece is a raised landscaped section that features a variety of water elements set in sculptural masonry forms.

A hard-edged concrete coping separates this section from the paved area around it. The composition is capped by a two-ton block of carnelian granite over which water spills into a pool below.

The plaza’s paving, inlaid with red, gray, and white granite blocks and divided into 35-foot-square diamonds, defines a path through the property from The Embarcadero to Sansome Street.

The path stretches like a carpet across Battery Street where a flight of stairs descends to the eastern park. The paved path then leads to a complex of office buildings in the southeast section of the block. Near the stairway a curved path introduces the informal park that serves as a foil for the plaza.

The hard edges and planar geometry of the plaza have yielded to artificially created grassy hillocks that shelter a stream, the counterpart of the plaza’s monumental fountain. Here Halprin recalled the Sierra foothills’ mining area where Levi Strauss sold his original work pants.

The stream enters the park near its southeastern corner from water mains under The Embarcadero. The rhythm of the water’s flow changes from rapid at the waterfall near the stream’s entrance to slow as the stream pursues its serpentine course through the park.

The water disappears under the street near the park’s northeastern corner.

Granite boulders set in the stream banks punctuate the stream’s narrative. Many of them stand-in for individual sculptures.

Near the northern side of the park the stream loops around, forming a small island bridged by round cast concrete stepping stones that recall those of stone in Japanese gardens. A willow tree trails its low leafy branches over the island where a pathc of lawn invites people to sit either singly or in small groups and enjoy the intimacy of this metaphysical still point in the world moving around it.

Soon after the completion of the Levi Strauss & Company campus in 1982 it became a tourist attraction. Indeed, outsiders were not aware that the plaza was Levi’s property. Company signs were discreet, and the open spaces were scaled for public use.  That the general public was not excluded from this privately owned property is a reminder of the civic generosity of this family enterprise, which conquered the world with blue jeans

Credits:

Buildings were designed by HOK with Howard Friedman and Gensler & Assocs.

Landscaping for the 3.2-acre site was designed by Lawrence Halprin

THE HISTORIC SETTING

The outdoor theater is located at the end of a road leading from the entrance to the Grove at the intersection of 19th Avenue and Sloat Boulevard. From the street level the road descends down the steep slope into the ravine. The descent proceeds through a wooded terrain dramatically different from the orderly residential streets surrounding the park.

It was the contrast between the Grove’s wild landscape and the settled area on the streets around it that inspired Rosalie Stern to take the advice of John McClaren, Superintendent of Golden Gate Park, and purchase the property in 1931 for a public park in memory of her husband, Sigmund Stern.

The ravine had been a place for recreational entertainment since the mid-19th century. George Green arrived in San Francisco from Maine in 1847. Joined by family members, he subsequently purchased the land bounded by 19th avenue and Sloat Boulevard that stretched down to the beach. On the slopes of a sixty-four-acre ravine Green planted hundreds of eucalyptus trees. He and his son created a resort area with such popular features as a trout farm and boating pavilion.  In 1892, the Trocadero Inn was built on the north side of the ravine where it still stands and can be reserved for social occasions.

The Trocadero’s late 19th century cottage style with gingerbread and a generous veranda, shown below, recalls its hey-day as a party place. In front of it is a grassy picnic ground, and further along the ravine floor is the theater.

Following her purchase of the property, Rosalie Stern began a decades-long commitment to developing the park property to provide recreation and free concerts for San Franciscans.

A view of the meadow with the new theater structure and its metal canopy on the left.

EARLY CONCERT AND THEATER HISTORY

Finding the site’s natural acoustics to be excellent, Stern and her staff planned the first summer concert for June 19, 1932. One of the park designers, the architect Bernard Maybeck, designed a temporary fabric canopy suspended above a raised stage at the base of the southern slope. The meadow was lined with portable chairs.

Preparation for concerts was difficult and expensive. Portable seats needed to be placed, exit aisles had to be roped off, and temporary barrier-free access created. The rudimentary stage required time-consuming readjustment of each performer’s equipment and the cumbersome installation of a canopy to protect the musician’s instruments from the sun. The limited number of seats meant that many spectators sought precarious perches on the steep slopes, causing soil erosion and damage to the trees.

Yet, except for the creation of paths around the site and low stone walls built by employees of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) the meadow’s character remained unchanged until the 1950s when the city built a modest backstage.

Lawrence Halprin first visited the Grove in the 1950s when he came to watch his wife, Anna, dance.  “Even then,” he recalled, “it was kind of a mess, with a terrible set-up for the back-stage. And the people sitting on the slope would slide down to the bottom.”

A view showing the new terraced seating of stone opposite the stage.

In 2006, the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency (SFRA) coordinating with the Port of San Francisco (Port) received a grant by the Association of Bay Area Government (ABAG) to study improving a segment of the Bay Trail along Cargo Way in the Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood. These Agencies selected RCCo to lead a consulting team to envision the conceptual design and prepare a report documenting the design process. All parties involved collaborated to bring about discussion and design efforts with stakeholders and the community in Bayview Hunters Point.

In addition to addressing the overriding goal of making this industrial boulevard safe and attractive for pedestrians and cyclists while ensuring that it serves the City’s cargo freight transportation needs, RCCo also integrated these other opportunities in the design for transforming Cargo Way:

• Improve a three-quarter mile strip of the regional Bay Trail and San Francisco’s Blue Greenway linking the Illinois Street Bridge to Heron’s Head Park.
• Provide better access to existing open space at Heron’s Head Park and Islais Creek.
• Create a continuous greenway from to Islais Creek to the India Basin Shoreline open spaces including Heron’s Head Park that takes advantage of the required landscaped setbacks that currently exist along Cargo Way on its south side.
• Create an attractive entryway into Bayview Hunters Point, India Basin Industrial Park and the Port’s Pier 90 -96 and Backlands
• Apply concepts for basic improvements such as street trees, curb ramps, etc. that are consistent with the new Better Streets Plan (BSP) for San Francisco.
• Create a model of sustainable, green streetscape design in an industrial area that can guide the design of subsequent parts of the Bay Trail and Blue Greenway.
• Design landscaping for the filtering and treatment of storm flows using Sustainable Stormwater Guidelines and Best Management Practices (BMP) established by the SFPUC.

Related Sites:

• Final Report for Cargo Way
• India Basin Industrial Park / Cargo Way @ SFRA
• San Francisco Redevelopment Agency (SFRA)
• Port of San Francisco
• The San Francisco Better Streets Plan (BSP)
]]> http://designbythebay.com/2008/09/cargo-way-conceptual-design/feed/ 0 http://designbythebay.com/2008/09/greening-the-backlands/ http://designbythebay.com/2008/09/greening-the-backlands/#comments Tue, 09 Sep 2008 17:56:11 +0000 Robin Chiang http://designbythebay.com/?p=172 The latest master plan for the Port of San Francisco's 47 acres Backlands, Piers 90 and 94, identifies potential tenants with both the means to build and operate within a sustainability program.]]>

In the mid-1990s, the Port of San Francisco’s planning and environmental staff collaborated to establish green guidelines for land use and development of the Port’s maritime facilities from Piers 80 to 98. One of the Port’s early moves was to turn Pier 98—bay fill that became a brownfields site—into Heron’s Head Park, a dedicated wetlands habitat. Owned and maintained by the Port, it provides a sanctuary for 78 different species of birds—and an ideal place to study the shoreline ecology of the south waterfront and how its flora and fauna have been impacted by industrial pollution.

The heart of this area is the Backlands, which takes in Piers 90 and 94. The majority of its 47 acres was undeveloped—as bay fill, it required foundations that were too costly for most industrial buildings. The development of Mission Bay forced the concrete and gravel suppliers located there to move to the Backlands. Norcal’s recycling plant was already in operation at Pier 96, close to barge and rail service. Bode’s and Hanson’s new concrete and gravel plants were required by the Port to be green by design and operation. Both plants also take advantage of service from barges and ships. Their open hard surface lots are paved in permeable concrete. Stormwater runoff is addressed by surrounding open areas and parking lots with bio-swales planted with reintroduced native plants.

Bode and Hanson have both made green part of their brands, installing large public displays of their sustainable building products. They jointly sponsored an ornamental garden on Third Street that helps form a green gateway to the Bayview. They also helped defray the cost of cleaning up a former dumping area at the end of Pier 94 to create another wetlands. New soil has encouraged native grasses and shrubs to grow, creating a home for local and migrating birds—a nature preserve in the making. Discarded tires and appliances, long buried by other debris, are removed as they continue to surface.

Green Synergy

The Port’s latest master plan for the Backlands’ 47 acres identifies potential tenants with both the means to build and operations that suit the green program. They are a bio-diesel processing plant and San Francisco Public Utility Commission’s wastewater treatment digesters. The oldest tenant in the Backlands is a tallow company. Due to clean air restrictions, it’s no longer allowed to process the grease it collects from local restaurants, so it’s been shipping the waste to Port of Stockton and from there across the Pacific to China. By locating a bio-diesel plant next door to the tallow company, the grease can be processed locally in a sealed system and then converted to bio-diesel fuel.

Greater synergy will also be realized by relocating the wastewater treatment digesters to the Backlands from their current site in a residential neighborhood half a mile away. The new treatment plant will be able to separate the organics and process them appropriately, either cooked directly into fertilizer or sent to the bio-diesel plant to be turned into fuel. The latter process will use the high concentrations of methane that are a byproduct of water treatment as fuel—another example of the Backland’s “virtuous cycle.”

What’s next for the Backlands? Logically enough, the Port hopes to attract sustainable industries, locating them adjacent to Cargo Way, creating a “green cluster” along the south waterfront. They envision improving public access on this road, which links Third Street to Heron’s Head Park, to integrate the adjoining Bayview district with the regional Bay Trail and San Francisco’s Blue Greenway. By reconnecting the city to the Bay in a way that signals a new attitude toward its ecological integrity, the Port’s efforts are as full of promise in their own way as the removal of the Embarcadero Freeway.

]]> http://designbythebay.com/2008/09/greening-the-backlands/feed/ 0 http://designbythebay.com/2008/05/glenpark/ http://designbythebay.com/2008/05/glenpark/#comments Sat, 17 May 2008 18:45:09 +0000 RCCo http://designbythebay.com/?p=16 The Glen Park Community Plan is one of several planning efforts underway in the City's transit-served neighborhoods. Glen Park with its BART station is a piece of the Citywide Action Plan to meet the need for housing and jobs. ]]>

The Glen Park Community Plan is one of several planning efforts underway in the City’s transit-served neighborhoods. Glen Park with its BART station is a piece of the Citywide Action Plan to meet the need for housing and jobs.



The Glen Park Community Planning effort seeks to make Glen Park a better place to live and to help Glen Park function better for transit. The long-standing Interest in a neighborhood planning effort for Glen Park increased in response to the 1998 fire that destroyed the local grocery. After the fire, the Planning Department identified grant partners and was awarded a Caltrans grant in mid-2002. After many unavoidable delays, the community planning was started and has culminated in the plan to give the Glen Park community the tools it needs to guide future development in keeping with the neighborhood’s values.

Related Sites:

• BART > Glen Park Station > News | Chronology
  The official site for BART, Bay Area Rapid Transit.
• The Glen Park Community Plan at the San Francisco Planning Department
  This community planning process sought to provide the opportunity to balance community needs and address planning issues facing the neighborhood. Planners tackle circulation issues important to the community, including pedestrian safety, traffic flow, access to transit, and parking. Planners also evaluate ways to respect the neighborhood character through zoning, design guidelines, and other city policies. Public improvement opportunities like the use and design of buildings surrounding the BART station, the design and character of streets, and connecting public open spaces and neighborhoods were also explored.
• Glan Park Station at Wikipedia
  This is the only BART station in San Francisco to have parking.

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