Life Without the Lawn? - Right of Ways

So what exactly does life in Southern California look like without the lawn?  Given that lawn is the ubiquitous ground cover here, what other visual prototypes exist for our front yards and interstitial spaces?  Below are some visual examples of that most interstitial of spaces, the public right of way on residential streets.  Usually covered in lawn with some street trees (we hope), the right of way exists as a public owned entity with no real public use.  So, assuming sustainability concerns pushes the lawn out of Southern California, what other aesthetic options exist?  A quick stroll through my neighborhood produced these non-traditional right of ways.  While not all of these may be great solutions aesthetically or sustainably, it was interesting to think about what the right of way could be beyond a green carpet. 

The Threat of Second-hand Driving

 (image from LA Times.  All Rights Reserved.)

In case you didn't already know that living near a freeway is not the best situation, the LA Times reported on a new study linking increased risk for heart disease for those living within 100 m (or 328 feet) of a freeway.  The main culprit: increased outdoor particulates for those living nearby.  

Los Angeles residents living near freeways experience a hardening of the arteries that leads to heart disease and strokes at twice the rate of those who live farther away, a study has found. The paper is the first to link automobile and truck exhaust to the progression of atherosclerosis — or the thickening of artery walls — in humans. The study was conducted by researchers from USC and UC Berkeley, joined by colleagues in Spain and Switzerland, and was published this week in the journal PloS ONE.

Researchers used ultrasound to measure the wall thickness of the carotid artery in 1,483 people who lived within 100 meters, or 328 feet, of Los Angeles freeways. Taking measurements every six months for three years, they correlated their findings with levels of outdoor particulates -- the toxic dust that spews from tailpipes -- at the residents’ homes. They found that artery wall thickness accelerated annually by 5.5 micrometers — one-twentieth the thickness of a human hair — or more than twice the average progression in study participants.

The Fifth Ecology - Los Angeles Beyond Desire

The Fifth Ecology - Los Angeles Beyond Desire project is, in their own words:

An urban planning proposal for the Los Angeles River area in downtown Los Angeles. Developed by the post graduate course "Resources 08: Los Angeles Beyond Desire" at The Royal Collage of Fine Arts, Stockholm Sweden.

Sadly, I missed the actual display of this project downtown last November / December, but there is still a digital version of it online.  The project write-up is an intriguing read that provides a number of highly conceptual, but interesting systemized approaches for rethinking the structure and operation of Los Angeles.  Like many other urban transformation visions, it uses the LA river as the key transformation space for a reclaimed LA.  After perusing it briefly, some of the interesting ideas that stood out to me:

* Dog Tongue Town, which uses biomimicry to define new urban form and block pattern based around water channels mimicing water distribution on a leaf.

* Pocket Public Space, which advocates for returning small chunks of land into public space to infuse LA's density with more open space.  (FYI - some of this is already beginning with creative public / private partnerships in West Hollywood among others)

* Agrimids, or dense, multi-dimensional housing units that produce their own crops through a mix of private gardens, community gardens, and large-scale agricultural terraces incorporated into new building prototypes.

 Below are some images from the project, highlighting the Dog Tongue Town and Agrimid.  

Greywater Action in LA

 (image from The Christian Science Monitor.  All Rights Reserved)

The Christian Science Monitor had a nice article about a seminar by the grassroots advocacy group Greywater Action in LA a few weeks ago.  The 5-day seminar on greywater took place at LA's EcoVillage near Koreatown, and focused on ways to recycle discharge from washing machines, sinks, showers, and tubs for irrigation of outdoor plants.  As the article points out, expect to see even more demand for this information and greywater expertise thanks for California legalizing its use last August.

In the months since California changed the gray-water permit requirements, demand has begun to build statewide, says John Leys of Sherwood Design Engineers in San Francisco, which has clients across the United States as well as abroad.

. . . .

'Ten years ago, we were not seeing any demand for gray-water systems," he says, but now clients of all types are requesting projects that range from simple and inexpensive backyard irrigation retrofits to complex, multipurpose gray-water systems that are part of the design from the beginning.

Scout Regalia

 (image of Outdoor Table Set from Scout Regalia. All Rights Reserved.)

The LA Times highlighted the Echo Park based design group Scout Regalia this past week.  In the designer's own words:

Scout Regalia is a Los Angeles based, multitasking design practice obsessed with the design and fabrication of space, furniture, home products, graphic identities, material processes, and sustainable living. Established in 2006 with Benjamin Luddy and Makoto Mizutani, the design studio is dedicated to supporting local fabricators, and aspires to embody innovation, discipline, and inquisitiveness in all the work that is produced. Embracing both the unassuming and ornamental aspects of design, Scout Regalia celebrates the inherent design of everyday living.

As if I wasn't already sold, among their many design interests are some cool outdoor furniture elements including an Outdoor Table Set and Patio Garden.

Image of Scout Regalia's Patio Garden. All Rights Reserved.

Bimini Slough Ecology Park

(image from LA Creek Freak. All Rights Reserved.)

Great overview from LA Creek Freak on the Bimini Slough Ecology Park, an interesting urban restoration project near Koreatown.  The article provides a nice history and background for the project including how the project came to be, details on its construction, and most importantly, how to get there to check it out.  A small excerpt from the post:

Fast-forward to the late 1990’s, and two non-profits which are located on this block:

• The Bresee Foundation grew out of the First Church of the Nazarine at 3rd and Juanita. Bresee provides services for youth and their families. In 2001 Bresee opened its community center building at the corner of Bimini and Second.
• Los Angeles Eco-Village (a project of its parent non-profit the Cooperative Resources and Services Project – CRSP) purchased two apartment buildings on the north end of Bimini Place. (Creek Freak Joe Linton lives there.)

The Bresee Foundation, under the leadership of Jeff Carr, began to make plans to close a block of Second Street to create a small park. Initial estimates for park construction looked to be about $400,000… until the city requested a $400,000 underground storm drain be built to get rainwater from one end of the park to the other. Carr told eco-village founder Lois Arkin about this, and she brought in the non-profit North East Trees to use that water, instead of getting rid of it. The solution of flowing that water on the surface of the park ends up being cheaper and better than building the infrastructure necessary to put that water in a huge pipe underground.

North East Trees designed a small park that features a creekbed bio-swale running through it. During much of the year, the creek is pretty much dry. When it rains, water from streets runs into the park. Vegetation in the creekbed slows down flowing rainwater. This helps settle pollutants carried by the stormwater. The pollutants settle into the soil and are broken down by microorganisms. In addition, some of the rainwater infiltrates into the soil, recharging our groundwater.

In addition to providing recreation and relief for the community, the park provides multiple watershed management benefits. It improves water quality (and air quality), increases water supply, provides habitat, and reduces risk of flooding. I like to say that we need thousands of parks like this spread throughout our communities, then we will have restored more healthy watershed functions, then we can more easily remove much of the concrete from our rivers and creeks… and daylight many of the creeks that we’ve buried underground.

Forage

 (image from Forage LA.  All rights reserved)

Interesting restaurant initiative out in Silverlake - urban foraging to create a meal. Forage LA is taking things beyond fresh ingredients from a local farmer's market to add in some urban agriculture.  Not only do they offer a number of different goodies everyday for consumption, Forage also puts out a call for backyard produce / urban agriculture to create changing menu items.  Recent Forage calls include: Oranges, Avocados, Herbs, Lemons and Limes.  You might even get your name on the menu, like Sonya's Silver Lake Lemonade. Images of the Lemonade being made are here.