In establishing a garden, a municipal ornamental planting, a city park or remediating highly disturbed soils for use in agriculture or horticulture it may be necessary to change the quality of the soil material at the chosen location to make it suitable for the chosen purpose.Soil science today has achieved a high degree of understanding the physics, chemistry and microbiology of soils to be able to help.
This paper discusses how by using a mixture of special composts and lignite (brown coal) it was possible to improve highly acidic, infertile and low water holding natural sandy soil to enable many different Australian native plants to be grown successfully in the Royal Botanic Garden at Cranbourne, near Melbourne. Lignite is not a commonly used soil improver and the use of it required special testing and experimentation.
“Brown Earth-Work” is identified as the core element of brownfield sites, emphasizing the physical and spatial dimensions of contamination.The establishment of landscape systems during the brownfield regeneration process is closely linked with Brown Earth-Work. Duisburg-Nord Landscape Park located in the Ruhr Area in Germany is regarded as a milestone project among brownfield regeneration practice worldwide. Through the lens of Brown Earth-Work, this paper demonstrates how a landscape approach can be adopted while facing multiple challenges and problems during the regeneration process of this project. The relationship between the remediation process and the central design strategies of Brown Earth-Work is examined as well.
This interview starts with a discussion on the current issues of soil environment in China, including the general soil contamination condition at a nation scale, the profile of healthy soil, and the common misunderstandings and knowledge gaps neglected by landscape designers in urban construction. Then more severe and serious soil issues are criticized, especially the concerns on the lack of ecological soil management and the legislation system and process of soil protection and prevention in China.
This article broadly discusses the relationships between healthy soil and food security. From seemingly harmless substance in soil that may cause colony collapse disorder and enormous agriculture loss, to efforts of phyto-technology in cleaning up contaminated soils,and China’s potential in soil remediation research.Healthy soil offers numerous ecosystem services, and its preservation and sustainable management are essential for food security and our future.
Landscape architects are dedicated to planting trees in the city, but the contemporary city is not hospitable to healthy mature trees. In response, we rely on often-competing planting strategies and details. Rarely, however, do we analyze the relative outcomes of our choices of soils systems, pavement details, and management practices. In response, two landscape architects, an arborist, and a soils scientist joined forces to undertake a comparative study — through fieldwork and laboratory testing — of plantings that have endured the stresses of an urban environment in Boston for between 5 and 45 years. Our findings are preliminary and suggest that additional data gathering and analysis is necessary, but they do begin to shed light below the surface of the city, indicating that soils under pavement are indeed highly dynamic systems that are influenced by their context and they mature and change over time.
The Brooklyn Botanic Garden visitor center establishes a visionary public interface between city and garden.The integration of the site’s ecological engineering and horticultural design — making the stormwater management component as ambitious as possible, getting complicated soil specifications right before planting, and tracking down niche growers to supply the carefully chosen plant palette — offers a new pedagogical paradigm with the Garden’s first highperformance botanical exhibit.
Emerging from the rubbles of a dismantled highway corridor and a post-industrial landscape, Providence Digs Park creates new sensory, cultural, and spatial experiences by designing a healthy soil landscape within the city. PROVIDENCE DIGS is an exploration of urban soil as a design frontier. This project demonstrates a deep understanding of urban soils as they relate to ecosystem functions, cultural uses, and human experiences that can lead designers to create resilient and beautiful urban landscapes.
framework for the gardens’ next generation. West 8’s plan provides a way to affirms Longwood as one of the greatest,most beloved gardens in the world. Simultaneously, the master plan solves real problems on-the-ground, resulting in a practical, living document that outlines an incremental andongoing transformation by combining a number of exciting,high-visibility projects, such as the renovation of the Main Fountain Garden with crucial infrastructural and operational upgrades. Advanced soil design is adapted to the Main Fountain Garden's need to accommodate increasing visitation and expanded programming. Both nuanced and bold, this plan is the map achieving another century of joy and wonder at Longwood Gardens.
Dirt, from the lithosphere to geophagy to ritual is difficult to define since it can represent the dissolution of everything;the final stop and conclusion to life. It is, however, nature and a salve of iron red oxide that resurrected this material an afterthought. The exhibition, “Dirt Yuta Suelo Udongo Tè,”points to dirt through various linguistic references: English,Talaandig (Philippines), Spanish, Kiswahili (east Africa), and Kreole (Haiti). Although a very open idea, the exhibition took on a slightly narrower focus. I first gathered up some mud from northern Minnesota’s Vermilion Iron Range in 1997 and have continued to use it since in my own art practice as drawing and sculptural material. However, after a conversation with a friend I thought it would make an intriguing exhibition.Although central to the exhibition, dirt was not just about the substance but took on a more metaphorical bent with personal and societal pollutions as an important exploration.
How far can landform be pushed to generate new localized climates?
Today, a gargantuan 35 gigatons of earth are moved annually, a number that rivals that of geomorphologic processes. The sculpting of the planet’s surface has fallen to human hands. At the same time, due to projected rises in global temperature, a significant number of agricultural production zones and their crops are at risk. The above two aspects bring the idea of terraforming back into focus.Born in the realm of science fiction since the early 1900s,terraforming is the hypothetical process of re-engineering a planet’s environment to support human life. The literallymeaning of terraforming, or “earth-shaping” is applied in my project, where in the large-scale landforms are designed to create viable microclimates for agricultural continuity.Through careful manipulation of geometry, agricultural risk can be mediated by curating specific microclimates: altering temperature, solar exposure, wind velocity, and hydrologic retention. Using Peru’s Ica Valley, one of the largest global exporters of fresh green asparagus, as a terraforming ground zero, it is possible to design a new climatically centered form of agricultural settlement. What emerges is not only a temporary solution for the continuity of the asparagus, but a new process of agricultural practice for an increasingly demanding world.Terraforming is the first step to building future landformed cities.