The Intentional and Unintentional Skate-park

A bit of a throw back, both in place and in line of thought, but I have not stopped thinking about landscape architecture over the past year outside of the profession. Back in Trondheim, in the neighborhood of Rosenborg, there is a public plaza designed - at least in part - to accommodate skate boarders. This area provoked me in particular after having proposed skate parks/plazas to New York clients, who time after time turned down the idea after much consideration on the basis of liability risks and insurance costs.

The theme of this dialogue goes along with many conversations in playground design in the US - how much protection do children at play really need? Do we as designers aim to accommodate the desires of the end user (the child), or do we serve the client and become a slave to the product lines touting "safety" while knowing that the users may very well 'misuse' the elements in the end.

I feel that this plaza space tells the story well - designers cannot guarantee the use and misuse of their spaces, but they can try.

The plaza, the skaters. Variations of smooth and rough paving designate well where the skaters can go at ease.

The elements - benches, steps, plinths - aesthetic choices, or skating intrigue, or both?

The metal edge here allows skating without damaging the corner of the stone. However the light color choice of the stone and the courses of fieldstone imply that perhaps this wasn't originally intended as a skate-element.

Detail of steel edge and skate board marks.

If the squared off stone pieces were not exactly intended for skating, then these rounded elements definitely were not. Despite the soft edge and slightly rough paving, the shape clearly did not work to dissuade skaters from it.

While many see skating and such marks as a form of vandalism or disrespect to a space, I found myself appreciating them. This plaza is in an area with various sports fields, and is seldomly crossed otherwise. In this event the skaters have claimed the space as their own and allowed their marks to dually show its use, declaring themselves as a community. Skating is announced as a sport requiring a 'field', just as the adjacent basketball courts and soccer courts which were planned for. Perhaps the plaza wasn't exactly supposed to be a skate-park, but clearly there was a need for one in the area and this design serves the purpose - intentionally or unintentionally.

Connected..

I read a blog a few weeks ago wherein the author held a firm stance that it is impossible to go 'off the grid' in this day and age (http://www.infrastructurist.com/2010/07/29/is-it-possible-to-go-truly-off-the-grid-a-guest-post/). It was a good reminder of everything 'the grid' encompasses, and the fact that whether we realize it or not, we are all connected. There are services we share as a society - whether you are living 'remotely' in the countryside off a long driveway or in a dense city where you see your neighbors every day. What strikes me as interesting is that with all we share, why is it so difficult for western society to identify with the concept of communal resources. Is it because our electric wires and sewer systems are buried underground, or is it simply that the road has been there so long we forget that it belongs to all of us? 

Now that I am returning to city life I will continue to ponder this and wonder how it is that we designers might be able to exploit the communal-ity of infrastructure and help residents understand the connections that make their (local) world work. And further, to help us remember that the most important systems we need to deliver the resources we live from are not only the man-made technological ones, but also those natural ones which we so often take for granted. 

Forces II

Last week I went to visit a glacier, or at least a small leg of one. Svartisen is the second largest ice mass in Norway, one of the largest in Europe and while I (rightfully) expected to be impressed by the glacier itself, I could never have imagined the incredible workings of it seen on the way. I am convinced that this hike was the best experiential lesson one could have in geology. 

It is difficult to travel through Norway and not recognize that the country has been shaped by glaciers. The steep cliffs and uneven coastline quickly signal that this place did not geologically form quite in the same way or at the same time as the larger part of Europe or North America. However, it was not until arriving by boat into area cleared by a glacier within the last 100 years that I truly understood how this intense natural process works. The glacier scrapes away earth and bedrock, leaving a series of vast, uneven masses. 

Scale - there is a 6'-2" Norwegian in the photo above.

Given time after the glacier passes, water runs over the newly exposed rock surfaces, smoothing and eroding areas forming puddles, streams, and pools. Sediment turns into soil and slowly birds and insects return and the wind carries seeds which develops vegetation.

Given enough time, soil and vegetation cumulate and become the more typical landscape that Norway is noted for.

Oh, and before I forget.. Here is that little glacier arm that has caused (and continues) all of this-

Forces of Nature

This was a tree which once stood strong in a forest. Its former part of the forest has been cleared in a way that no machinery ever could.

Last winter, the (now) seemingly gentle waterfall in the picture above began to freeze. Ice collected and created a type of dam which lasted until a warm day in April. With temperatures around 70 degrees (F), the waterfall gained power from the melting snow at its source. Simultaneously, the ice dam weakened in the sun until the water was able to explosively push through. The power from it prevented the water volume from following the usual river path (which curves to the right of this photo). The rush of the water alone, with the debris and rock carried by it, shredded trees and a telephone pole in its new path. The result was stunning in the demonstration of shear force.

These photos were taken in June, and under the soil there were still mounds of ice and snow amongst the forest debris. (Virvasdalen, Nordland, Norway)

Natural Reclamation

A little eerie, but somehow simultaneously heartwarming and reassuring - the land in this picture was a major highway just 20 years ago. In fact, this stretch used to be part of the E6 - the only main traffic route through northern Norway - where it crosses the arctic circle. 

On top of the harsh weather conditions associated with this latitude (there were still spots of snow in mid June), this area also falls on a mountain at rather high altitude for Norway. The tree line in Norway is low - falling around 300 m (or 1200') above sea level for the south, and becoming much lower (down to 100m or lower) as one progresses to the north. The remaining barren landscape exposes the ground to strong winds and snow drifts through the roughly 6 month winter, so locating (and maintaining) road and rail lines becomes a difficult task. In some sections near here, long sheds have been built over the railway to shelter from intense winter drifting. The area is also bisected by many streams which ebb and rage during periods of snow melt, threatening complete wash-outs for the line of infrastructure. After repeated washouts and snow problems, it was determined to move the highway and the Polarsirkelensenteret (arctic tourist visitor's center) east of the original location. 

Landscape at 66.56 degrees latitude with arctic circle center and markers.

Today the vacated highway is being reclaimed by the nature around it - and quite rapidly at that. The open landscape and former infrastructure is open to hikers (and grouse hunters) who can actively see the restoration of habitat taking place. We found a nest of eggs from a bird known in Norwegian as Heilo - the Eurasian Golden Plover (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_Golden_Plover) - camouflaged but out in the open landscape maybe 15 feet off the old road - the current infrastructure far beyond. 

  

The train crossed our path before our return to the visitor's center - allowing an informative shot of the infrastructure - the rail line following the river, with the current highway in the background. 

Taming Wilderness

Over an hours drive from the nearest city, about 5 kilometers on a windy uphill path from the highway and across a couple rivers in Nordland lie a series of farms which were established in the 1830s. Making the hike up from the E6, on what is now a series of decently marked paths in part of Friluftsliv (or outdoor, literally 'free air <=leisure> life') tourism, makes one wonder how and why these farms were ever founded and maintained up until the 1970s. 

(Bredek farm is top, center in the distance)

The answer turned out to be fairly simple - at the time, the farmland in the valley served by roads was running short, so farmers were forced upland and into remote areas to establish fields and grazing pastures. Along with this, I can only imagine, came a heavily work-ridden life removed from society around. The alternative option or next step in this migration turned out to be the expensive and arduous move to America where accessible, flat land was still plentiful. 

Above is one of the first fields found on approach to Bredek. The stone wall is as old as the cultivation - having been built from the rock found when clearing the land. The full farm follows, with much of the older equipment still intact - from wooden sickles to steel wood stoves which must have been hauled to the site. The farm's environment and site is exquisite in nature with the views to the mountains, shelter from strong winds, natural water sources and constant reassuring sounds of a nearby waterfall and the woods full of birds and wildlife. 

Two-thirds of the way back, spotting the highway and railroad infrastructure below, the remoteness really sank in.

The concept of living off the land, and the very real proof that this earth does not hold the capacity for everyone to do just that today. The need for cities and densities becomes clear, but how do we reconcile this with man's desire for space and yearning for natural surroundings. My very presence in this place seems to bring the story full circle without quite answering any of the questions. Settlers moved from Europe to the New World for land and opportunities, built cities far removed from farming sensibilities and nature, and bred a generation of assorted urbanites - some of whom, like myself, now seek a break from the stifling city life to better reflect on its problems only to find that perhaps we simply end up back where we started.

Wilderness

A trip and several hiking tours up north have had me thinking a lot about wilderness - those natural areas still untouched by man, and how such a landscape transforms slowly over time once we drag our infrastructural entourage through an area. It seems fairly evident how humans change nature when we tread over it, but I also wonder how it changes us. I find more and more of my observances here in Norway certainly reflect some societal practices that have been created and or adapted over time as an effect of the local natural world. My next few posts will delve into this theme of man vs. nature (or is it man in nature, or nature around man, or just nature alone?).

One of the introductions that many foreigners get to Norwegian culture is a saying: "There is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing." While one might laugh it away the first couple times they hear it touted, there is definitely something to it. I'm not sure that I've been anywhere else in the world where a cold, rainy day would be so quickly deemed appropriate for a long hike, yet here I find myself again and again encouraged to layer up and head outside despite (or perhaps in spite of) the weather.

All fashion morals aside, last week I donned a full (borrowed) rain outfit for a leisurely stroll in some hills around the Rana and Saltfjellet areas. While the look isn't one I would have tried out in New York, here it works - in the least saving one from cooping themselves up inside for weeks in the name of bad weather.

Hiking comfortably in the rain also makes it possible to experience some ecologies that go unseen on dryer days.

Giant ant mound

Snail

rainbow