Japanese Knotweed - Could the fight be over?

http://www.lincolntown.org/depts/ComCom%20assets/Japanese%20knotweed%201.jpg

Just watched a news report on ITV about scientists at Cabi - a not-for-profit agricultural research organisation who are doing trials on introducing a tiny Japanese insect called Aphalara itadori which only feeds on Japanese Knotweed. They apparently stunt its growth which could mean the end to the fight we have with this invasive species.

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/01448/Aphalara-itadori_1448862c.jpg

Japanese Knotweed was introduced to the UK in Victorian times as an ornamental plant, and it grows over 1meter a month. It has no natural predators in the UK so it's growth here has been rife. The scientists have confirmed that the Aphalara itadori eats nothing else and they will be releasing the insect to selected sites this year.

Apparently, knotweed is edible by humans, and tastes like rhubarb. Nettle is another invasive species that is edible, and great for teas, risottos and tastes like spinach........there should be more people or restaurants promoting eating these plants to assist in controlling them. Time to get cooking!

The BBC News website has a time lapse video showing a knotweed plant growing more than 1 meter in 3 weeks, and also a time scale plan of knotweed spread in the UK since 1890 which is quite interesting.

+ BBC News

+ National Biodiversity Network

Focus 3 - Palm Oil and the devastation to Orangutan rainforest habitats

When I first set out the third year extended essay, my intentions were always to put a piece together about urban farming, but a chunk of the body was going to address the damage to developing countries and natural habitats, in the struggle to feed the world. I changed my mind at a point and instead chose to focus on how city communities can become more self-sustaining through community supported agriculture (CSA) schemes and Transition Town Movements.

Last night I watched BBC's Panorama program entitled 'Dying for a Biscuit'. It documents the rapid and in most cases, illegal deforestation of Borneo's rainforest - the natural habitat of the orangutan - for Palm Oil.

Undeniably terrifying for our closest cousins, it is just so sad to see what this agri-business schmizness is doing to some of the last magical places we have left on our earth. The orangutan population in this area has been estimated by the International Union for Conservation to have declined by 50% in the last few decades, while the Indonesian government has admitted that deforestation has killed 50,000.

The palm oil industry is estimated at £5 billion ($7.7 billion) in Indonesia. The Panorama team went to a plantation with a peat specialist to test the land that the plantations are grown upon. By law, any land that has a peat depth of 3 meters or more is not to be touched at all. Any interference with the soils will release huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. They tested the soil with a 3 meter testing pole, and what do you know, there was peat over 3.5 meters deep, on land that had palm oil plantations upon it. Duta Palma Group is responsible for this, and for logging illegally on high conservation land. The Indonesian agriculture minister gave the usual bureaucratic answers to questions posed to him by Panorama why this is happening.

Panorama has gone on to sending out questionnaires to UK supermarkets and leading product manufacturers about their use of palm oil in products. Sainsbury's is the only brand to have addressed a substantial portion of its palm oil footprint since it first began its sustainable palm oil programme in 2008. On their boxes of fish fingers they clearly state the palm oil is sourced sustainably, and a spokesman said they can go right to the source, knowing where the palm oil is from.

As a consumer, I do my damndest to ensure that the products I use are not tested on animals, and much prefer organic meat over any other, I'd rather go without if there is no choice. But when it comes to palm oil, manufacturers are so vague about ingredients in their products, stating simply that the product contains a percentage of vegetable oils. How can we as environmentally aware consumers be confident about what we are buying?? How can legislations be placed upon consumer products? There are already so many arguments about unclear salt levels, sugar levels, e numbers....etc etc.

The problem is that no price can be put upon what is being lost, until it is gone. Why is this so hard for governments to understand.

My other argument is that we wouldn't have these awful situations if it wasn't for human overpopulation. That's probably something for another day. I can feel body temperature warming rather swiftly.

+ BBC iplayer - Dying for a Biscuit

+ Orangutan survival and the shopping trolley - article

+ Palm oil products and the weekly shop - article

Thames Clean up

A gorgeous sunny day with temps in the two figures, and the lowest day time tides in five years....what else to do but head down to the river and do some cleaning.

This was a call by Thames21 for volunteers to help clean up various sites along the river that are not normally exposed. Tuesday morning was at the Isle of Dogs. A good turnout, dirty job but so worth it.

Focus 3 - Seoul's Cheonggyecheon Stream regeneration

Seoul has made a commitment to its people and flushed away any divisions the past had between North and South, by demolishing a highway that covered the Cheonggyecheon stream, which was formed during the Joseon Dynasty. For three decades, the stream was hidden beneath the highway, and it has now been turned into a gorgeous 5.8km urban river park.

The stream was designed to provide drainage for the city, and lasted hundreds of years until a shanty town developed next to it due to the city's overpopulation, with obvious pollution issues. This was in the 1940's, and over the next few decades the stream was gradually covered with concrete, and finally by 1976 a 5.6km highway was built over it.

Of course authorities were satisfied with the modernisation of the new highway and connections it created, but in 2003 city planners developed the Cheonggyecheon Restoration Project. The purpose was to revitalise the stream, and place Seoul in a position of being a more environmentally friendly city. The project cost around £186 million, and took two years, but is a beautiful example of how an inner city river or stream can bring new life, and create community pride.

After researching many city river regeneration projects, this project has influenced me the most. Perhaps it is the graphics, but I think more so, it is seeing city planners creating spaces that are sympathetic to the environment, and peeling away the layers of man-made infrastructure to expose the earth's beauty beneath.

+ pictures courtesy of inhabitat

Focus 2 - Heart of Africa in Chester Zoo

Chester Zoo unveiled today a new £225 million project that is said to transform it into the largest conservation, animal and leisure attraction of its kind in Europe. Chester Zoo's website describe it as the first domed ecosystem in the UK, with an African rainforest-themed sanctuary for a band of Gorillas, a large troop of chimpanzees, Okapi, and a variety of tropical birds, amphibians, reptiles, fish and invertebrates, moving freely among lush vegetation.

It really saddens me that we have to save these animals from the natural environments that we have ruined over the years. The cgi images are seductive, and the concept no doubt gets many people very excited, but for me, it just seems such a shame.

Proctor and Matthews Architects were responsible for the Gorilla Kingdom in London Zoo, and the Lions at the Whipsnade Zoo, both projects commissioned by the Zoological Society of London.

Looking into the Heart of Africa project at a little more detail, the dome itself is to be constructed from a material called Ethylene Tetraflouroethylene (ETFE). I wanted to know what it was comprised of and what environmental issues if any, it had. I came across a blog called Greenline which has a good explanaition of what EFTE is. Very basically, it is a plastic which is very strong and was designed to have high corrosion resistance over a range of temperatures. Its one of these new brilliant materials that has self-cleaning qualities, thanks to its chemical composition. It is super light, weighing only 1% of a comparable glass panel, and as a result, Proctor and Matthews Architects could design a space in excess of 10,800m2 of column free planting, with a longitudinal span of 165m and cross span of 75m. Finally, EFTE transmits more light than glass, is completely recyclable and installation costs are between 24% and 70% less than for glass panels.

Some buildings that have used EFTE are The Eden Project in Cornwall, The Beijing National Aquatics Centre and The Allianz Arena in Munich.

+ pictures courtesy of archinet

+ Chester Zoo

+ Proctor & Matthews Architects

+ Greenline blog

Focus 2 - Capital Growth

''We want to help Londoners transform the capital by creating 2,012 new food growing spaces by the end of 2012.''

The Capital Growth campaign offers practical advice and support to communities around London, and helps people get access to land to create successful food growing spaces.

+ Capital Growth

+ London Food Link

Focus 2 - 2012 Park - Green Oasis

Today's Evening Standard article showed some interesting cgi's of the Olympic Park and surrounding parklands.

4000 semi-mature trees will be planted in time for the opening in 2012...A company I worked for in the summer are the landscape architects for the Olympic Village, and were incredibly frustrated because as usual, the landscape budget is continually reduced as the realities of the other costs surface. This meant that hundreds of trees had to be removed from the initial proposal. 250 acres of parklands will hopefully not look too sparse.

The wetlands is probably one of the most exciting elements to this project....little is mentioned in the article so I shall say no more. . . .

As much as I hate the travel to that side of the world, I am really looking forward to seeing the end results, and considering various budget cuts, hope it will be as lush and rich in habitats and wildlife as the landscape architects and other environmentalists intend it to.

+ Evening Standard

Focus 2 - Growing Communities

Today some of us landscape arch's volunteered our brains and brawn in the freezing cold to help Growing Communities in their new urban growing site located on the grounds at the Castle Climbing Centre in Stoke Newington.

Growing Communities is a social enterprise run by local Hackney residents, with volunteers from the area and surrounds. They work to create sustainable food systems in the form of urban growing projects and sourcing perishable fruit and veg from local farmers and selling it via local box schemes.

The people at Growing Communities are a real inspiration, with 4 growing sites in the area and a packing site from which the boxes are then distributed. Whilst digging up the new grow sites, we got to engage in chatter with everyone, finding out how they help out and the various social opportunities Growing Communities nurtures. Everything they grow is completely organic and approved by the soil assciation.

This particular site is quite interesting, and since the Castle Climbing Centre has its own environmental policies, its quite appropriate for the disused land surrounding the castle to be used for a productive landscape. the Castle Climbing centre also has an environmental blog found here.

After working on this site we were taken to Allens Gardens, one of their other growing sites that has been established for a few years now. Mainly growing salad veg and herbs, it also has a little classroom with a sedum roof and composting loo for the beds. And a rainwater harvesting system. I did ask the lady who showed the site to us how they compromise with Hackney council the uses of these plots of land. Urban growing schemes are renowned for encountering barriers with land owners and councils...I imagine since Growing Communities is quite well established, they have been able to over the last few years prove their sustainability and economic viability.

Since I have been working on the thesis, I've discovered many urban community farming initiatives, but very few are researched and documented, and some are just too small to probably warrant websites. Growing Communities is probably one of the most effective entrepreneurial growing schemes I have come across in any of my research, and they have a very informative website, with good links too.

Brilliant for the focus week, the volunteering opportunity, meeting new people who are driven to make these much needed changes, and also to inform my extended essay. Thanks to Ida for providing the opportunity to help out. Will definitely squeeze in more time over the coming months to keep in touch and see how this garden grows!

+ growing communities

+ the castle climbing centre

+ the castle environmental blog

Focus 2 - Sustainable Habit Reminders

Came across these cute household stickers to create a visual focus around wall plugs and light switches, in order to increase people's awareness about electricity consumption....created by London-based studio hu2.

There's a selection of images for each room in the house....the one below is probably a neccessity in plenty homes.............how many times I've walked out without the keys.....

And the studio's run by a couple of hotties. Nothing wrong with that.

+ Hu2 Design

Focus 2 - A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash

Focus Week 3 started a few days early with the viewing of a multi-award winning documentary A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash at a new little cinema in Kensal Rise - The Lexi. My local transition town movement Transition Kensal to Kilburn is quick on the mark inviting members to events, talks, market days and important events like this documentary viewing.

The documentary, produced and directed by Basil Gelpke and Ray McCormack highlights the frightening issues surrounding our exhaustion of this non-renewable fossil fuel, in a manner that even a toddler will understand. Oil is described as the excrement of the devil, black blood, the blood of the earth and the bloodstream of the world economy, the latter seemingly the most appropriate when you consider pretty much every single thing we use, wear, consume has come to being thanks to oil.

The viewer is shown disturbing imagery of some of the world's most prominent ex-oil mining sites, dry, deserted and incredibly depressing - McCamey Texas, Maracaibo Venezuela and Baku Azerbaijan.

McCamey, Texas

Maracaibo, Venezuela

Baku, Azerbaijan

By 1900, 95% of Russian oil came from Baku, thereafter Venezuela discovered oil in 1914 and became the largest importer in the world. The USA is described as being the Saudi Arabia until the 1950's, being the largest oil producer for 100 years. Noone thought it would peak, yet a Geophysicist, the late Dr. M. King Hubbert had said for years that it will come to an end. He was laughed at. He created a graph of oil discovery and production called Hubbert's Peak which showed quite clearly the concerning issue's in relation to oil supply and demand.

The message throughout is that oil has peaked, but there are doubts about the middle east. Every year, oil producing countries have the same numbers for oil reserves and production, and some even rise, which according to those interviewed, does not make sense. If countries like India and China continue to grow, and strive for the standards of living that the rest of the world is used to, how are decreasing oil reserves meant to cope with these new demands for cars, food, products and industry? Worryingly, if Saudi Arabia does in fact exceed its sustainable oil supply, then the world has reached its supply.

We will continue to have multi-generational RESOURCE wars if the world's behaviours and attitudes do not change and look seriously for energy alternatives.

There are interviews with hugely influential people in the world-wide oil industry - a list of whom can be found here. Matt Savinar, interviewed throughout the film is an attourney from California with a political science degree and an informed individual in the peak oil crisis (often quoted in the US Congress, and US journals). His website lifeaftertheoilcrash is assigned reading at multiple university courses around the world, and worth adding to favourites.

I hope this documentary makes it onto the mainstream cinema circuits, with household effects like that the Inconvenient Truth did, but then again, like all things political, it probably wont.

+ oil crash the movie
+ transition kensal to kilburn
+ the lexi cinema
+ Hubberts Peak
+ lifeaftertheoilcrash

Durban Botanic Gardens

Today I took my mum to the Durban Botanic Gardens in my hometown. I actually don't remember if I'd ever been in the 18 years living here before I left. Shameful.

It traces its origins to colonial times, when it was founded in December 1849 for the introduction and trial of potentially useful commercial 'economic' crops by Dr Charles Johnston.

The Gardens later developed collections of sub-tropical trees, palms and orchids. The Durban Botanic Gardens remains a classic botanic gardens, reflecting the universality of the plant kingdom. It has, for over 100 years, had a fine mixed arboretum of African, Asian and American trees. For my recent project I had been researching the banyan tree, or 'strangling fig' (Ficus citrifolia) in India, and how the natives in the jungles form living walkways and bridges out of its vinelike aerial roots. The first tree on entering the Gardens was none other than this amazing tree.

Orchids, Palms and Cycads are the main collections of the Gardens which is currently ranked among the top ten botanical garden cycad collections in the world.

Pancakes with syrup and cream topped topped the morning. Yum.

+ Durban Botanic Gardens

Underground Green Belt Development

An interesting article of 2009 is that of a proposed development at Hersham Golf Club in Surrey. ReardonSmith Architects is designing the 5-star hotel for the Golf Club to be built underground. The 200+ guest rooms will be covered with a green roof, respecting the surrounding countryside and natural habitats.

While the construction will surely create a degree of damage to the landscape, there is proposed extensive on-site re-vegetation and re-organization of existing spaces (such as parking) that will actually leave the site even more eco-friendly than it is now.

Matthew Guy, ReardonSmith’s project designer, states “Our concept integrates hotel, spa, and golf facilities into a single architecturally exciting and organic composition below and above ground. The design fulfills the requirements of the brief for a bespoke five star hotel while returning hard standing to the Green Belt and improving the physical layout and visual attraction of the entire site. It represents a commercially viable solution to developing in the Green Belt and is, we believe, a world-first.”

Pictures courtesy of Inhabitat

I think many landscape architects welcome subterranean developments, but more needs to be done in urban areas to combat urban heat island issues.

Having a quick look on the web, I found a project in Italy which I'd never come across before. It is an underground parking system which solves many of the traditional problems associated with urban parking; congestion, pollution, land space and security. The underground parking 'silo' is a continuous, reinforced concrete, diaphragm cylinder, 18.8m internal diameter.

It offers a number of environmental advantages over conventional parking systems, including reduced energy consumption, air and noise pollution. Its compact construction allows for minimal impact on existing architecture and road systems. It fits in with existing structures without being a concrete eyesore.

Currently systems are being constructed in Stockholm, Turin and Rome. Systems are subject to planning permission in London and Copenhagen.

+ ReardonSmith Architects
+ Inhabitat
+ Road Traffic Technology

Focus 1 - Teach-In: 2012 Imperative

The first Focus Week of this year and we were invited to take part in a one day set of presentations by pretty influential folk, aimed at invoking changes in the way University and College curriculums adapt teachings to climate change, through ecological literacy.

It took place at the Lecture room at the V&A on Monday 12 October. Organised by Jody Boehnert (established EcoLabs in 2006 and also co-founded Transition town Brixton) the various presenters each had some really interesting things to say, and an enthusiatic outlook in changing they way we and future students are taught.

I think the most important lesson to be learned from the day, was about changes happening from the bottom up. Curriculums and the issues surrounding changing these are swamped in beauracracy and red-tape......we cannot rely on governments to adapt at the speeds we need them to.

Below are some of the websites of associated peoples who spoke at the Teach-in:

+ Teach-in

+ Eco-labs

+ Climate Safety

+ New Economics Foundation

+ Doors of Perception

+ Tactical Technology Collective

Barbican Urban Farm - Squint Opera

Following on from the Urban Farm installation at PS1, Squint Opera have worked on imagery for an Urban Farm on the rooftops at the Barbican.

Urban farming is the topic of June's issue of Icon Magazine.

High Line is open!

Ten years in the making, New York city's High Line is finally open and providing New Yorkers with yet another green space, ready for summer!

The City of New York is full of parks - in fact, there are 1700! There are the enormous parks (Central, Prospect, Flushing) with medium-sized offerings (Bryant, Madison Square), and not forgetting little pocket parks everywhere like Stuyvesant and Washington Market. People such as Jane Jacobs and Jan Gehl would be the first to advocate green spaces for great cities.

On a newly renovated stretch of an elevated promenade that was once a railway line for delivering cattle — surrounded by the community activists, elected officials and architects who made the transformation happen — Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg cut a red ribbon on Monday morning to signify that the first phase of the High Line is finished and ready for strolling.

As you can imagine with such an eagerly anticipated event such as this, there are plenty of online reports dedicated to its opening:

The New York Times has posted a great panoramic here.

Treehugger and the Daily Green have put up slideshows here and here.

The Huffington Post added some great aerial shots here.


+ main image courtesy of inhabitat.

Brazil - Sao Paulo Eco Park

This is a fantastic and really inspirational project in Brazil I've just come across, very relevant to the seminars I attended at last week's ecobuild regarding building on brownfield sites.

Its based in a dense urban environment in Sao Paulo, Brazil, upon a once contaminated brownfield site which was previously a garbage incinerator. The architects ingeniously designed a deck floating on a stilted steel structure 3 feet above the ground, with the intention of minimizing soil excavation.

The deck is constructed from a Brazilian hardwood, sourced from distributors that follow strict rules on extraction and deforestation, and instead of using other materials for the rest of the park, the designers decided to retain a visual uniformity by using the same hardwood throughout. Rooms appear to grow out of the deck creating a fluid three-dimensionality.

It also features solar panels to produce energy and a water filtering system which I am guessing relates to the picture of the wetland below.

In this urban area, recreational and community facilities make the space an invaluable amenity for the neighbouring communities. They can enjoy music and events under a covered ampitheatre as well as a comminuty centre for eco-centric workshops. Without a doubt the site improves the social and environmental health of the surrounding neighbourhoods and it's inhabitants.

Self Directed Field Study - The Grand Union Canal

On Monday 2 March I visited the Grand Union Canal as part of a self-directed field study trip. The aim was to visit a canal that has been regenerated in some way and that will inspire our final project for year 2 - Re:visiting the Wey and Arun canal project.

I chose the Grand Union because of it's character and the very different identities it has along the stretch from Scrubs Lane through to Little Venice. It has a Nature Walk and a small 'Mary Seacole pocket park' near the gas works and Scrubs Lane. Here although it is overlooked by an industrial zone, it feels quite rural, with a wide sky above your head and little traffice noise.

Below is a map I put together showing the different identities of the stretch between Scrubs lane in the north west, moving east to Little Venice.

Once you pass Kensal Green Cemetery and Sainsbury's, it becomes more of an urban canal, with the odd splash of graffiti and denser buildings.....these buildings (aside from the old Virgin building with green lawns) have 'turned their backs' on the canal but the newer developments further down are restricted from doing this and must agree to British Waterways standard of embracing the canal and opening up to it.

The most inspirational part of this trip, was the Meanwhile Gardens Wildlife Garden. I touched on something vaguely similar in my initial Wey and Arun project which was a healing garden for the special needs children of neighbouring Gosden House school. Meanwhile Gardens however works in conjunction with Kensington and Chelsea Mind, an organisation involved in rehabilitating people with drug and alcohol addictions and mental health issues. They are encouraged to help out in a small section of the Wildlife Garden, involved in things such as planting and trimming hedgerows etc.



Aside from this, Meanwhile Gardens is a small (4 acre) urban sanctuary, in an area where a lot of people do not have gardens. It is a wonderfully peaceful space, creating habitats for various species of wildife - birds, insects and microinvertebrates. The history behind it is inspirational too, that a young sculptor 33 years ago looked at the derelict land left over after the council tore down terraced houses, and wantedto build a community garden. The council gave him 'temporary permission' and so he named it 'Meanwhile Gardens'. The gardens prospered and the name stuck and it really is a wonderful place, with access for everyone, the Nature Walks, Moroccan Garden, Meanwhile Skatebowl (oldest in the UK) and the Playhut.

Moving further down the canal brings more mixed housing and residential moorings. A new pathway specifically for cyclists was laid due to the narrowing towpath and heavy moorings. It runs alongside the canal and old church. Marked out with green gravel and a brown pedestrian alongside, it has taken the strain off pedestrians on the small towpath.

There are many things worth mentioning down this end but since Meanwhile is my focus the only other thing I will mention is Rembrandt Gardens at Little Venice - a lovely 'English Garden'....with manicured lawns and enchanting planting. It has wondeful views over the island at Little Venice and so the benches have been laid diagonally facing the canal. Behind some terraced planting climbs the wall and due to the sunken nature of the garden, the traffic surrounding the garden is drowned out.

GU Canal SSFieldTrip

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