INTERACT

Situating Urban Ecological

Experiments in Public Space

Alexander J. Felson and Linda Pollak

Urban environments are poorly understood in ecological terms, in part because they are complex, but also because the discipline of ecology, since its inception as a fi eld of knowl-edge in the early twentieth century, has avoided people.1 In-creasing the quantity and quality of urban ecological research is critical to developing strategies to address climate change, mitigate and reduce ecological degradation, increase the re-silience of cities, and improve health. Such research requires innovative methods that extend beyond the discipline of ecol-ogy and suggests the reformulation of design approaches to relationships between nature and culture in cities.

Building a knowledge base for urban ecology requires es-tablishing experiments in urban spaces, to enable scientists to analyze both visible and hidden ecological information — to study fl uxes of energy and matter in urban ecosystems and how they change over the long term, and understand how the spatial structure of ecological, physical, and socioeconom-ic factors affects ecosystem function. The complexity of cities, however, limits the ability to conduct experiments. Further, engaging cultural, economic, and political factors is beyond the expertise of most ecologists.

For most of its history, the discipline of ecology has repressed the fact that all environments are the result of an intertwin-ing of human decision-making and biological processes. The long-dominant ecological theory of the climax state did not attribute signifi cant importance to landscape history, instead understanding succession as a trajectory toward a point of ultimate stability and viewing land-use changes as landscape artifacts. It is only recently that ecologists have broadly ac-knowledged that no site is untouched, and that changes in the environment brought about through human activity play a signifi cant role in the defi nition of ecological systems. The recognition of disturbance as fundamental to ecological sys-tems and supportive of biological diversity is part of a set of related shifts, including an understanding of ecosystems as more open and interconnected, in the context of new theories such as emergence, resilience, and patch dynamics. 2

Yet the concept of disturbance has a different signifi cance for an urban site.3 Historical and present-day management

and movement of energy and resources create unique pat-terns and dynamics at regional, continental, and global scales, which cannot be understood on the basis of research carried out in other places. Even adjacent sites may share few mate-rial characteristics; most urban soils are the result of fi ll, of-ten including concrete or other debris, and building elements are as likely to come from other continents as from regional locations.4

The degradation of ecosystem processes in urban areas re-fl ects the fact that the design of cities has tended to prioritize human activities — including vehicular circulation, public use, and safety — over other living systems. The dominance of im-pervious surfaces reduces habitat and connectivity, blocking soil processes and increasing storm-water runoff, altering watersheds, and conveying contaminants into water bodies; lack of soil, leaf matter, vegetation, and subsequent food webs hinders biological processes.

Although there is signifi cant investment in making cities more sustainable, there is comparatively little knowledge of how ecological processes in cities actually work. Much of what constitutes knowledge of urban ecological conditions has been derived from translation of research of nonhuman-dominated environments. Ecologists shifting to urban study sites have tended to focus on the occurrence of remnant eco-logical patterns and processes, such as extant wildlife and

“ Public Utility: CITY SINK,”

a proposal for the design and

deployment of urban carbon

sink infrastructure in New York

City, Denise Hoffman Brandt,

Van Alen Institute New York

Prize Fellow, Spring 2009. CITY

SINK investigates the physical,

economic, and policy potential

to catalyze urban carbon seques-

tration reservoirs, or sinks, and

reframes urban planting practices

as an ecologically operative

program.

356 357

INTERACT

fl ora. However, the complex interactions in urban environ-ments, the compromised biological integrity of urban sites, and the possible infl uence of social and cultural factors on biological patterns preclude typical ecological assumptions and research approaches, making it diffi cult or impossible to adhere to research practices such as replication and limita-tion to a single variable.

Undertaking ecological research in cities involves new chal-lenges : dealing with regulatory constraints, political complex-ity, and project boundaries in terms of adjacent land uses, connectivity, setbacks, and other aspects of zoning and pri-vate property; persuading public and private entities of the value of research; and convincing stakeholders to accept the presence of experiments. Integrating human behavior into ecological experiments requires working within and across social boundaries, inventing strategies for grasping qualita-tive as well as quantitative data at a nexus of human, biologi-cal, and physical activities.

Designers can fruitfully collaborate with ecologists to inte-grate ecological experiments into urban spaces.5 Collabora-tion can occur at multiple scales — from an individual build-ing to neighborhood confi gurations and regional planning — to identify and develop experimental sites. Beyond helping to

navigate hurdles of property ownership, politics, and regu-lation, facilitating movement through review processes, and playing an advocacy role through different phases of a project to ensure its realization, designers can engage the social and cultural dimensions of an urban environment, making experi-mentation an integral part of urban life.

A critical aspect of situating an experiment in a populated environment is the interface between research and public space. The most common strategy of siting ecological research in nonhuman-dominated environments has been to keep it “below the radar,” that is, to enable it to pass unnoticed. In an urban environment, however, not calling attention to some-thing is not an adequate means of protecting it.

The boundaries of a site can be understood as a multifunc-tional dynamic zone serving the outside as well as the inside of the site : integrating as well as protecting an experiment, giving it a public surface, making a spatial and informational contribution to urban space, providing a culturally recogniz-able public identity to enhance an experiment’s meaning and perceived value. It is not only that ecological experiments in public space may have an educational or demonstration com-ponent, but rather that this component is integral to the so-cial /cultural program of situating experiments in cities. It is

Identifying the traits that enable

species to dominate highly

urbanized surroundings may help

to predict and possibly mitigate

the biotic homogenization occur-

ring in these areas.

As part of the NYC Reforestation

project, researchers spray marking

paint to communicate to the Parks

Department and volunteers the

desired location of high-diversity

10 m x 10 m plots, each containing

six species. The Parks Department

augered the holes in preparation

for a day in which volunteers led by

researchers arranged and planted

more than 10,000 trees across

New York City.

For the NYC Reforestation project,

a typical sampling method is used

to evaluate existing vegetation

and soils on plots to be planted for

long-term research. Trees are

identified and caliper is recorded,

shrubs are identified, and percent

cover of herbaceous species sam-

pled. Testing includes soil com-

paction and sampling (S1– S10), and

readings of existing canopy cover

(D1-D4). Additional baseline data

where feasible include stem counts

for herbaceous plants and seed-

bank sampling.

358 359Situating Urban Ecological Experiments in Public Space

INTERACT

the connection — telling people what is going on — that would allow the existence of the experiment in the shared space of a city to make sense.

Collaboration may foster larger, more formative roles for ecology, creating new ecologically driven programs and form. By embracing design, ecologists can enable their research to become integral to the development of cities and public space. The design of public spaces as research environments may be understood as a hybrid practice, providing opportunities to infl uence cities in new ways, to monitor, evolve, and adapt to changing urban ecological conditions.

This essay is a prolegomenon to a longer

work on collaboration between designers

and ecologists in support of urban ecologi-

cal research.

1 In the early twentieth century, F. E. Clem-

ents, the founder of modern ecology and

the originator of the ecosystem concept,

made a decision to study the natural world

exclusively and therefore avoid human

influence and human-dominated environ-

ments.

2 Until the 1970s, there was no major par-

adigm shift in ecology. Much of what was

ecology in the 1970s was built on theories

that are now considered outdated.

3 There are questions about whether

the concept of ecological disturbance is

transferable to cities, which are cata-

strophically disturbed and do not

have the same biological resilience as non-

urban areas. Typically ecologists describe

the threshold as the point at which an eco-

logical system no longer functions the way

it once did and does not return to a previ-

ous condition.

4 Unbuilt sites, from empty lots to urban

wetlands, have often been used as dump-

ing grounds for material excavated to build

tunnels, subways, and other infrastructure

and buildings.

5 For the purpose of this essay, “urban”

includes any intensively built environment.

“Designers” include architects, landscape

architects, urban designers, engineers,

planners, artists, and others involved in the

making of public spaces. Although this dis-

cussion focuses on public space, it is pos-

sible to consider private buildings, infra-

structure, and landscapes as potential

sites for situating ecological experiments.

Interventions proposed for

abandoned lots in Brooklyn

introduced ecological research

units as amenities for the

community.

Ecologist Steven Handel’s

research at the Freshkills Park

site has informed the planting

of small, pioneer clusters of trees

and shrubs that could attract

bees and birds, which act as

pollinators and seed spreaders.

The Queens Plaza Bicycle and

Pedestrian Improvement Project,

by Marpillero Pollak Architects,

extends from New York City’s East

River along a 1 1/3-mile length

of heavily traveled wide roadways,

coinciding with the exposed steel

structure of the elevated subway.

The “rooms” are like huge lanterns

visible from near and far, their

luminous presence revealing the

hidden orders of the existing

structure as they appear to float

within it.

360 361Situating Urban Ecological Experiments in Public Space

INTERACT

The two matrixes of images

belong to an issue-driven research

by Linda Pollak on specific aspects

of urban environment: they show

traces of phenomena in which

natural forces interact with urban

infrastructure at a threshold

between pedestrian and vehicular

fields. Both address the role of

water in relation to hard surfaces,

which are part of pedestrian

public space, and which belong

to multiple groundplanes.

The matrix of images of historical

cuts and patches documents

a method of intervention, showing

traces of human action on the

surface in support of storm-water

infrastructure.

The matrix of images of curbs

is a registration of forces of distur-

bance, showing effects of storm-

water runoff, including erosion,

differential settlement of materials,

and growth of vegetation.

362 363