Nature in city; seed bank; ecosystem and social-urban development.
The terms “ecology” and environment” have different conceptual meanings which often overlap with the concept of “nature” in the context of academic and scientific research and analysis. For instance, ‘Natures and Ecologies’ studies explore the environmental dimensions of ecosystems which includes both physical parameters and biotic attributes of a particular region. The “environment "includes the physical world, the social world of human relations and the built world of human creation. [Ankers 2005] Within the various uses of the word today, "nature" often refers to geology and wildlife. Nature can refer to the general realm of living plants and animals, as well as the way that particular types of things exist and change of their own accord, such as the weather and geology of the Earth. My choice to focus on a developmental analysis of a seed back is derived from lectures and readings about the ‘Ecological city’ and ‘Ecological inventions’ in which I explored architectural and scientific studies in eco-city mechanisms, particularly regarding the manner through imagined and real environments in space came to serve as models for ecological design for terrestrial landscapes and buildings. This subject was touched within my first semester main project, in which I designed a model for a seedbank in the industrial area of Kings Cross. The seed banks are a type of eco system that relates to social-ecological processes and it is effective for environmental sustainability in the context of modern society.
In general, a seedbank is a type of genetic repository in which a variety of seeds can be stored and preserved, such as food crops, or those of rare species to protect biodiversity. The reasons for storing seeds may be varied, but often includes the preservation of biodiversity among species of plants which are considered to be crucially important for societal survival, such as the case of food crops. Many useful plants which were cultivated over centuries are now no longer used for commercial agricultural production and the increasing rarity of certain species is indicative of the threat of genetic homogeneity in the context of contemporary commercial agriculture. Storing seeds also guards against catastrophic events like natural disasters, outbreaks of disease, or war. [Ankers, 2005) Environmental factors can pose particular problems capable of destroying biodiversity among crops and plant species, such as both manmade and naturally occurring catastrophic events, which collectively reduce biodiversity of trees and other plant species on earth. The current pace of global climate change is a particular example of an environmental phenomenon influenced by human activity which has resulted in losses of green spaces, availability and biodiversity of natural occurring food, herbal medicine and shelter for wildlife.
The seedbank can serve to protect biodiversity where humans collect and store seeds. This genetic repository is meant to safeguard against the consequences in case of catastrophic events such as environmental disasters or the outbreak of disease or war, so that humans can preserve and reproduce plant species. Seed banking has considerable advantages over other methods of conservation, which include the relative ease of storage, economy of space, relatively low labour demands and consequently, the capacity to maintain large samples at an economically viable cost. Stored seeds maybe viable for 100-1000 years. Storing seeds is a relatively inexpensive conservation measure, and takes so little space that millions of seeds can be stored in a small facility. Seed banks are also good sources of plant material for research, when taking seeds from the wild is difficult or undesirable.
Industrial and Ecological Environments
Another reason for designing the seedbank and the green house was to make the site and the location around Kings Cross more “green” in a manner which made the area a less industrial and more environmentally friendly place for locals and visitors. Four major benefits of creating and developing “green” spaces in urban or industrial areas are they increase the level health and degree of social connection among residents of the areas, aid the environmental sustainability of the region and have significant positive impacts on the local economy. Moreover, designing the seed bank was to act as a component of the of new Kings Cross Masterplan.
Landscape designers and architects provided public green spaces for growing different types of plants, such as Camley Park, Handyside Gardens, Wharf Road Gardens and Cubitt Park. The most popular park is Camley Park, which is home to around 300 different types of plants, as well as numerous species of birds, butterflies and bats. Camley park also includes a variety of ecological environments, such wetlands, woodland and meadows. (Hutton, 2013) Gardeners of the parks also engage in food recycling projects such as composting to produce natural organic fertilizers. The aim of “green” projects such as these is to generate training and spin-off micro enterprise opportunities inspired by eco-friendly principles, such as zero carbon food waste collection using bicycles and trailers, algae cultivation and hydroponics. These programs will also be supplemented by educational programmes, such as examining how closed-loop recycling can be used to provide renewable fertiliser to support local food growing.
The industrial heritage of Kings Cross has arisen as an element of urban folklore since the end of World War II. The area is provided with good transportation access, including roads, rails and access to the river. The industrial area used to have many benefits, such as concentrating dedicated infrastructure in a delimited area to reduce the per-business expense of that infrastructure. Examples of such infrastructure include roadways, railroad sidings, high-power electric supplies, high-end communications cables, large-volume water supplies, and high-volume gas lines. [Ankers, 2005] However, the consequences of wholesale industrialization are evident in Kings Cross, which contains multiple scars of a post-industrial landscape, such as abandoned coach sheds, abandoned gas holders and The Regents Canal. These industrial areas encroach upon many of the areas designated as social area for housings and public spaces, such as public parks and pose a particular set of disadvantages for locals and visitors to the area in the form of environmental problems such as air pollution, water pollution and the lack of shelter for wildlife. Kings Cross Masterplan can provide social advantages that can make the area more environmentally sustainable and thus beneficial for society by designing public gardens, public squares and redeveloping abandoned buildings and industrial areas into new public “green” spaces.
The Kings Cross and the High Line in the New York.
My project and Kings Cross Masterplan draws similarities to The High Line Park project in New York City. The High Line was developed in 2003 as a public park designed upon the principles of reclaiming post-industrial urban landscape for “green” projects. The High line is a linear park built upon an elevated section of a disused New York Central Railroad spur called the “West Side Line”, which extends throughout a section of western Manhattan. The design of the park changes the rules of engagement between plant life and pedestrians in a manifestation of the designers’ strategy of “agri-tecture”, which combines organic and synthetic materials into a blend of changing proportions to accommodate” the wild, the cultivated, the intimate, and the hyper-social.” [Ankers 2005]
Each of “green spaces” present in the landscape of New York City emblemizes a specific relationship between the urban landscape of the city and the natural environment. Central Park brought a civilizing nature to urban dwellers newly divorced from the countryside; the covering of the rail tracks at Riverside Park constructed an automotive escape from the city to exurban areas newly conceived as landscapes of leisure; and the High Line provided a precedent for the re-inhabitation of urban infrastructure made obsolete through the transfer of industrial production overseas. [Hutton 2013] The High Line Park is a particular example of how innovative architectural principles can be incorporated to repurpose obsolete industrial infrastructure into environmentally sustainable “green” spaces in the context of post-industrial urban society. The city council of New York in 1847 developed a street-level railroad running along the west side of Manhattan to move freight, but there were so many accidents between rail cars and other traffic that the infamous stretch of tenth avenue became known as “death avenue”. In 1934, the High Line Aqueduct was officially opened as a rail line which was designed to directly connect with factories and warehouses along the route, which allowed for the loading and unloading of cargo inside buildings. (Hutton 2013) The recycling of the railway, which had previously not been used in decades, into an urban park has helped to facilitate the revitalization of Chelsea through improving the environmental conditions for individuals who live and work in the area. My project draws upon the same premise as the High Line model of repurposing industrial urban space, in which I was tasked with recreating an old cottage in the public space into an environmentally friendly “green” space, such as a public park.
Urban layout for the eco-system
Urban ecosystems may be developed to create sustainable urban environments with long-lasting infrastructure and a great liveability for its inhabitants. It is an approach for successfully reducing environmental impacts of industrialization by altering the constructed environment in urban areas to create and preserve “smart cities”, which support environmentally friendly initiatives such as sustainable transportation. Eco-cities primarily employ architectural design principles such as green roofs, vertical landscaping as methods of decreasing the environmental impact of urban land use. The construction of green roofs and investment in vertical landscaping boasts numerous benefits for local residents and businesses, such as the allowance for rainfall collection and the creation of natural insulation for residential and commercial properties. (Ankers 2005)
My seedbank design similarly functions upon the principles of environmentally sustainable urban infrastructure. The design includes two separate buildings that are connected by a long balcony and complemented by the addition of ramps and stairs to provide easier access to locations such as Camley Park, the Camley Cottage, the Waterpoint platform, the main entrance on Camley Street Road and the bridge connecting to other areas of Kings Cross. The building nearest to the main entrance is the green house, a two storey structure which includes amply room for planting beds, planting benches and fridges-shelves for storing seeds. The green house also has access to the roof, as well as the ramp that connects to the Waterpoint platform. The public toilets were placed near entrance for visitors of the green house and the Camley Park. The building next to Regent’s canal and Camley Park is used as the café space and the rest area for visitors. The café space is a two storey building which is connected with green house by the main balcony, as well as via another balcony located on the second floor of both buildings. The first floor is used as the area accommodating the kitchen and café, and the second floor includes a balcony that is used for access to other parts of the building, such as the roof, as well as a section which includes hammocks that can be used for visitors’ rest.
Other elements of the currently existing site, such as the site’s available ground space and architectural elements like the brick wall of the Waterpoint platform, could play an important role in the development of the site into an effective green space. The available ground space could be used as a garden for the planting and cultivation of different crops and plant species, including plants that live in cold and moist climates. The brick wall of the Waterpoint platform could be transformed into a “green” wall which could provide additional space for planting and aesthetic development of the site. The site will also an underground rain catchment tank that will collect groundwater for irrigation of plants and reduce consumption of municipal or “city” water.
For my design, I explored different naturalistic models that combine modern architectural design with nature, such as the landscapes of the Camley Park. However, a majority of my inspiration came from the Eden Project and High Line Park in the New York. The Eden project, which was designed by Nicholas Grimshaw, is dominated by two huge enclosures consisting of adjoining domes that house of thousands of plant species. It was designed by Nicholas Grimshaw.
Materiality for eco-buildings.
The material assemblies of constructed landscapes generate a matrix of ecological, economic and social conditions in situ. Materials in landscape architecture are physical fragments of remote quarries, factories and forests and their acquisition, transportation, production and consumption is a factor contributing to changes in the dynamic systems of natural landscapes and ecosystems. Depending on the choices of materials for the transformation of landscape, materials can connect a project to its specific location and general region when compatible, which has the added benefit of a project contributing to the sense of natural place. (Ankers 2005) Aspects related to choice of materials which objectively determined include the properties of density, ductility, type of strength and thermal action of the material in question. A material’s qualities are the capabilities of material to be transformed in response to the subjective human imagination and for human purpose. (Ankers 2005) Designers participate in this monumental shifting, reorganization and recycling of materials around the globe, the great majority of which is bound as urban parks, buildings and highways. These accumulated urban landscapes produce at once ecological, social conditions in situ which include the ecological conditions contained in the material exchanges produced by construction, the economic dimensions of trade made possible through infrastructural networks, and social dimensions such as the discourse enabled through construction of public common areas. (Ankers 2005)
As I seek to demonstrate through the design of my seed bank project, the use of recycled or repurposed materials is essential in the construction of eco-buildings as it reduces both the environmental impact and financial costs associated with the manufacturing process The model of my seed bank design could be constructed using responsibly sourced materials while producing minimal waste to build an environmentally sustainable and energy efficient facility which could easily be adapted to fit the purpose of a variety of situational demands. It contains the laminated timber construction with heavily insulated glass, which provides for ample natural light to easily enter the facility and thus reduces the costs associated electrical infrastructure, such as lighting. Low waste manufacturing principles were also considered in the construction of the seed bank, such as through the use of Glulam, a strong material consisting of glue-laminated layers of timber, whose offcuts are used as a source of fuel. In addition, the ‘triangle parts ‘of the timber structure trap air between two layers of ethylene tetrafluoroethylene) which acts as a thermal blanket to trap heat and thus better regulate the internal temperature of the greenhouse. Photovoltaic panels were also added on the roof to operate as supplementary energy generators in the design. In additional the roof structure can serve as a “green roof” structure that work as vertical landscape and create natural insulation for different humans’ needs.
Does my seedbank provide advantages of economic impact?
One of the major and most noticeable economic impacts of the movement towards developing a sustainable urban eco-system is the notable increase in productivity across existing industries as well as the introduction of new industries, thus creating jobs. The movement away from carbon-producing energy sources to more renewable energy sources, such as wind, water and solar power, provides local economies with new, thriving industries. The creation of these industries, in turn, births an increase in the demand for labour; thus, not only does total employment increase, but an increase in wages also mimics increasing employment.(Ankers 2005)
Moreover, one of the main priorities of a sustainable city is to reduce its ecological footprint by reducing total carbon emissions, which, economically speaking, means increasing productivity. Merely increasing the rate of productivity in an industry reduces costs, both monetary and environmental. As an industry becomes more productive, it can more efficiently allocate and use both its physical and human capital, which also allows for a higher wage and reduced environmental impact, due to using less energy and resources to produce same amount of materials. (Ankers, 2005)
Social-ecological processes.
Another task is to understand the advantages and disadvantages of the environmentally friendly urban eco system, particularly in regards to the manner through which eco-instillations and materials could benefit local environment and society. These advantages and disadvantages are connected with concepts such as bio-metabolic processes and metabolic circulation processes which are studied in the context of the relationship between urban modernization and natural cyclic processes. A modern city is constituted through a dense network of interwoven socio-ecological processes that are simultaneously human, physical, discursive, cultural, material, and organic. One example of this relationship can be seen in the context of urban areas containing an abundance of CO2 producing factories and automobiles and how CO2 emissions have impacted the health of the population as well as the surrounding environment and climatological stability of the planet as a whole. All these factors complete the global geographic mappings which “produce” the city as a palimpsest of densely layered yet depressingly geographically uneven-metabolic socio-ecological progresses. This intermingling of material and symbolic things produces the vortexes of modern life, combines to produce a particular socio-environmental milieu that welds nature, society, and the city together in a deeply heterogeneous, conflicting and often disturbing whole. [Hutton, 2013]
The development of sustainable urban eco-systems celebrates the making of the city as a system of circulatory conduits that would render the metabolism of the city in rhythmic harmony with the surrounding environment. Metabolism and circulation are modern concepts of architectural vision and design practices which are fundamentally connected in the modernization of a city. (Ankers 2005) Urbanization can indeed be viewed as process of contiguous de-territorialisation and re- territorialisation through metabolic circulatory flows, organized through social and physical conduits or networks of “metabolic vehicles”. (Ankers 2005) Some cities, such as New York, are developed upon a structure based on the simple idea of combining materially functioning systems with individual points of connection. In other words, through the administrative lens of urbanism, the city was reconstituted as a set of integrated infrastructures, which attempted to organize the city into a singular system of managed circulation. (Ankers 2005)
Social and communication improvements in the ecosystem:
Human communication with nature can involve working in and the use of nature in the context of daily life. Human actions are important for the well-being and health of not only individuals, but also the environment in which they engage in action. The subject of seed banking highlights the potential advantages on both an environmental and sociological sale. Working in community gardens can help provide residents with much needed exercise and through extension improve the overall quality of health among the local population. In addition, the presence of naturalistic landscape such as parks or in the countryside can reduce stress levels among residents which can contribute to improved brain function. The presence of natural landscapes like green spaces in urban environments also encourages increased communication and cooperation between residents of the local communities. Several studies have shown that parks have the ability to increase physical and mental health of those who live around and utilize them. This is especially true concerning children and the senior population. A 2003 study featured in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health showed that the percentage of green space inside a .6-mile radius and a 1.86-mile radius had a significant relation to the overall general health of individuals who lived in the area. The study demonstrates that this correlation seems to be especially high when concerning particular demographics such as youth, the elderly, and members of lower class socio-economic groups. A 2004 study at Deakin University showed that green space is crucial for the physical and mental growth of children and that participation of minors in physical activities is dependent on the close proximity and accessibility of urban green space. (Ankers 2005)
Interpersonal relationships and other forms of social connection thrive where there exists a strong sense of community between residents. Numerous studies, such one highlighted in a 2012 article published by the Journal of Management of Environmental Quality, have shown that parks can cause a significant rise in social connection in communities within which they are located. In contrast, high density development separates residents, resulting in social disengagement. The crowded urban environment makes it difficult to interact with residents and inhibits productive social communications (Hutton 2013)
In order to effectively mitigate the impact of human activity on the ecological sustainability of the surrounding environment and facilitate social interaction within the constructed environments of urban landscapes, it is important for cities to develop and implement effective practices in urban sustainability. Several studies show the crucial role that parks and other eco-friendly urban ‘green” spaces play in helping the environment, such as an article in the July 2011 issue of the Journal of Environmental Protection which illustrates some of the many advantages of urban green space. Ecologically sustainable urban green spaces supply cities with opportunities for the preservation of biodiversity and regulation of the urban climate, such as the heat index in urban areas Many surfaces in urban areas absorb heat, such as the asphalt on streets, which studies have shown can increase temperatures in a city by five degrees. However, urban green spaces can serve as effective methods to regulate the temperatures in urban areas and contribute to air and noise pollution control. (Hutton 2013) Community needs must drive ecological development. Some recreations and parks in a modern city are good example of the ecological place that society can celebrate, such as The High Line in New York or Camley Park in London.
The role of architects in eco-cities
One of the primary task for modern architects designing “eco-city” facilities is to identify spatial systems in nature and engage in a suspension of judgement which grants the urban project a kind of formal liberty, whose indeterminacy reacts to complexities of reality that the eco-city must now make use of. In this way, such ethical claims of virtue reach material conurbation in the very urban form realized in such projects. In a gracious gesture towards nature, great heed is paid to the habitats and migration patterns of animals dwelling on the site. In addition, native aura and fauna are catalogued and efforts are made to account for the unique systems of symbiosis that must be preserved, and so on. (Ankers 2005) Landscape designers should consider exploring the use of new materials which are effective in theory and in practice as “eco-friendly”. Within the expansion of sites and scales, designers should employ ecologically friendly practices in the process of material production and acquisition to attempt avoiding the high costs and negative environmental impact of traditional manufacturing methods.
Conclusion
Through the discovery and understanding of eco-system processes I have gained in the course of class lectures and from books and articles, I have come to understand how these processes relate to the urban and natural environments and how these aspects influence the development of a city. In addition, I have gained an understanding of how the choice of materials in urban construction can generate ecological economic and social conditions within not only the local community, but the greater fabric of society itself I believe the comparison of industrial places in New York and London was effective for supporting the essay, because both examples demonstrate how post-industrial urban landscape can be reclaimed to create ecologically sustainable environmentally friendly “green” spaces, which can provide new homes for plants and wildlife in urban environments. I hope that my discoveries on this subject will direct me in the future through adopting a career in which I can work designing urban ecological architecture and other ecological inventions to make humans life easier.
Bibliography
Anker, Peder. 2005. The Closed World of Ecological Architecture. The Journal of Architecture. 10(5). {Accessed 24thApril 2016}
Hutton, Jane.(2013) Reciprocal Landscapes: Material Portraits in New York City and Elsewhere. Journal of Landscape Architecture. 8 (1) pp. 40-47 Available from: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/18626033.2013.798922 {Accessed 24th April 2016}
