Don River Restoration  

Toronto

• Bringing Back the Don was a comprehensive, long-term and interdisciplinary initiative to return health and vitality to this post-industrial, inaccessible urban river valley that runs through the heart of Toronto. Spearheaded by the grass-roots Task Force to Bring Back the Don (motto: “Clean, Green and Accessible“), it inspired huge support across political and social spectrums through the 1990s. It still stands as Canada's largest urban ecological regeneration and, as each phase is realized, continues as an exemplar of urban environmental regeneration nationally and internationally.

• Role: Associate/Project Manager, HSWL; Co-Lead on overall concept and restoration strategy with Michael Hough and hydrologist Dr. Robert Newbury

• Clients: Task Force to Bring Back the Don; City of Toronto; Toronto Waterfront Regeneration Trust

• Won the Canadian Institute of Planners' highest honor for 1993, the Award for Planning Excellence.

• Cited “Most significant and influential landscape architectural project, decade 1988-1998” by Ontario Association of Landscape Architects, Ground, vol. 43, 2018 (one of 4 total)

Nine Mile Run  Pittsburgh

• Article:  Hope for the Hyperstressed: Regenerating Pittsburgh’s Post-industrial Ecosystems (PDF)

• A groundbreaking inquiry into a post-industrial urban valley and stream corridor and degraded 6.5 sq. mile watershed. 

• Initiated by artists at CMU's STUDIO for Creative Inquiry;  evolved into Pittsburgh's most important post-industrial regeneration precedent—a novel-but-effective merging of art, ecological design, and applied science.

• Role: CMU/STUDIO Faculty Fellow; landscape analysis and collaborator with Tim Collins (PI) and CMU team on valley regenerative strategies.

• Led to creation of NMR Watershed Association and +$8 million restoration program by Army Corps, U.S. EPA, and local water authorities - the largest urban ecosystems restoration project in the U.S.               

• Funding: Pittsburgh's City Planning office, Heinz Endowments, PA Dept. of Conservation and Natural Resources, ALCOSAN.

• Three Rivers Environmental Award, 1998.

• Governor's Award for Environmental Stewardship, 2001.

• Featured in Malcolm Miles' The Uses of Decoration: Essays in the Architectural Everyday (Wiley, 2000, chapter 6)

ALCCAR  Ghana and Tanzania

• In early 2009 we embarked on a 3.5 year National Science Foundation-funded study titled Anticipatory Learning for Climate Change Adaptation and Reslience (ALCCAR).

• Project overview articles are available here, here and here. 

•  Working in close collaboration with regional partners in Ghana and Tanzania, we explored approaches to community-based adaptation to anthropogenic climate change in sub-Sahara Africa. We hypothesized that cyclical (loop) learning strengthens people's anticipatory capacity in decision-making with respect to climatic and other livelihood stressors. Climate scientists predicted temperature increases, less reliable rains during the growing season, and increased short-term extreme events such as floods and droughts. These trends are likely to pose a burden for subsistence farming and fishing communities in west and east Africa.

• ALCCAR's action research approach sought to bolster the capacity of at-risk rural communities to anticipate and creatively respond to climate change, particularly as played out in local socio-ecological systems. We emphasized iterative ways of analyzing, learning about, and proactively responding to environmental uncertainty.  

• Our core team traveled to field sites regularly from 2009 - 2012 to meet with African collaborators, pilot test field activities, engage village participants, and collect data in eight villages—four in north-eastern Tanzania, and four in Ghana's south-central Volta region. Activities included a series of participatory workshops, elder-led walks, and community-based environmental monitoring. 

• Our approach was strongly reciprocal: our regional partners brokered local community invitations, and learning was a two-way street. The partnership generated an anticipatory creativity that peaked in years 2 and 3. A key exercise was locally-led visioning of short- and medium-term scenarios that ranged from maladaptive to more hopeful and adaptive outcomes. Other activities included community plan-making (a first for our partner villages!), place-based theater (used to enliven the scenarios), and a collective re-thinking of potential resiliencies and livelihoods inherent in each community's working landscape.

• Role: Co-principal investigator, applied ecology and design of ecosystems walks and community planning tools. Dr. Petra Tschakert was PI.

• African partners: University of Ghana / Afram Plains Development Organization, Ghana / University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania / Red Cross-Red Crescent, Tanzania

• Funding: National Science Foundation, $750,000. 

...on City Streets 

various locations

Beginning with basic streetscape design in the mid-80s (including our award-winning Hurontario Streetscape Enhancement), I've long been interested in the life and ecologies of urban streets. 

• Spatial Indices for Convivial Greenstreets (2023, PDF)

• Interweaving Computational and Tacit Knowledge to Design Nature-Based Play Networks in Underserved Communities (2022, PDF) (kid's play on city streets)

•  On Sustainable | Sustaining City Streets - editorial (2021, PDF)

• Sustainable | Sustaining City Streets - book (2021, PDF)

• A Vision for Urban Micromobility: From Current Streetscape to City of the Future (2020, PDF)

• A Vision for Urban Micromobility (conference video presentation) (2020, PDF)

• Convivial Greenstreets: A Concept for Climate-Responsive Urban Design (2020, PDF)

• Sustainable | Sustaining City Streets, special issue Sustainability, vol. 11 (2019, PDF)

• Green Infrastructure in Liminal Streetside Spaces: Cases from European City Cores (2017, PDF)

• Convivial Greenstreets as Force and Context for Urban Sustainability (2014, PDF)

The Mountain Project  

north India & south-central Nepal

• Project overview article is available here. 

• The Mountain Project was an action research initiative situated in the mid-Himalayas of north India, south-central Nepal, and Bhutan. It fostered technology-supported environmental education and sustainable living, and drew on scientific and traditional local knowledges. It employed a technology-assisted knowledge-building community model, including intensive participatory video, in which learners decide on questions of adaptive capacity and resilience, and then create and evaluate the knowledge that's generated.

• Role: Co-Principal Investigator with Drs. Chris Hoadley and Sameer Honwad (both now at SUNY-Buffalo); focused on activities addressing working ecosystems in and around partner villages aided by appropriate technology.

• Projects were completed in rural communities near Almora, India, and Kathmandu, Nepal, and are ongoing in Thimpu, Bhutan. Collaborations targeted local solutions to the growing impacts of climate change and the effects of unsustainable globalization. School collaborations and participatory video exchanges were initiated between our school-based partners in India and Nepal.

• Web of cause-and-effect: globalization / pan-Himalayan militarization / legacies of colonialism / deforestation / climate change and glacial melting / disrupted hydrological cycles / lack of potable water / landslides  and topsoil erosion / declining biodiversity / declining soil fertility and crop yields / biomass fuel and fodder scarcities / poor air quality, especially indoors / employment out-migration of youth / dwindling indigenous knowledge

• Partners: Uttarakhand Seva Nidhi Paryavaran Shiksha Sansthan (UEEC), north India; Environmental Camps for Conservation Awareness (ECCA), south-central Nepal; (later: Bhutan's Royal Thimpu College and University of Bhutan)

• Funding : Penn State University's Children, Youth & Families Consortium;  Colleges of Education and IST; College of Arts & Architecture; Fulbright Scholar Program (Hoadley)

MG2V Greenway

State College, PA 

• The Musser Gap-to-Valleyland (M2GV) Greenway project was initiated by Penn State President Eric Barron in 2018 to explore sustainable alternatives to development of 356 acres of highly vulnerable university-owned karst landscape situated between the southerly edge of State College and the north slope of Tussey Ridge. Our goal was to provide "a scientific and comprehensive basis, both in terms of analytical conclusions and recommended principles and best practices, for transition to ecosystems-based conservation and restoration of the subject lands."

• Role: Lead Faculty; in collaboration with colleagues Andy Cole and Tom Yahner and a cross-college group of students from landscape architecture, ecology, and forest management. 

• Our MG2V – Musser Gap to Valleylands report was accepted by the Penn State President and served as the foundation for public input and follow-up work by Andropogon Associates. Land conservation, ecological restoration and access projects are ongoing.  

• Report PDF here (124 MB). 

Hewlett-Packard 

Canadian Headquarters

Toronto

• The Canadian head office of Hewlett-Packard is located near the Toronto International Airport on a 30-acre partially wooded (sugar maple-beech) property overlooking Etobicoke Creek. A vernacular theme was expressed through old field re-establishment, rigorous woodlot preservation, meadows, successional hedgerows, 6th floor green terrace, and extensive use of regional stone. On-site topsoil was carefully salvaged to re-establish the forb-rich seed bank in meadows. The dual interior atrium was planted with a bosque of eighteen 30' tall black olive trees that I hand-selected at a Florida nursery.

• Client: Hewlett-Packard Corporation

• Role: Associate/Project Manager, HSWL; master planning, client interaction, design research & development, interior planting design, contract admin. STHIP was prime consultant.

• Urban Design Award, City of Mississauga, 1993

TevereEterno? 

Prospects for Regenerating 

Rome's Tiber River

• My 2008 sabbatical activated my emerging ideas on riparian urbanism (defined above) by exploring regenerative possibilities for the Tiber River in Rome, Italy. This was an extension of prior work on urban rivers, and a great opportunity to study the 'eternal' Tiber in its geophysical, historical, and socio-cultural contexts.  My sabbatical above, beside, and on the Tiber reaffirmed the notion that the urban river does, indeed, reflect the values of the civil society through which it flows. Like the Ganges, the Tiber is at once sacred and profane.

• I also developed and tested a Tiber module for our Sede di Roma curriculum for fourth-year BLA students. We examined four meanders through old Rome, from just upstream of Ponte Margherita downstream to Ponte dell’Industria. My charge to the group was to blend ecological, hydrological and urban realism with creativity—seeing, documenting, responding to, and reflecting on what was there. Inquiries were guided by this question: What physical interventions may serve to regenerate the Tiber and its environs while enhancing the quality of life of Romans and their visitors?

• Role: Initiator, Lead Faculty

• Funding and Support: Penn State President's Fund for Research; Department of Landscape Architecture; Prof. Romolo Martemucci generously provided lodging in Trastevere

• American Academy in Rome Visiting Scholar Readership in the Ross Library

Urban Micromobility  

Washington DC

• Our research suggests that traditional urban road design and public infrastructure are struggling to accommodate electric-assisted personal transportation, or micromobility (MM). Can the increased presence of MM be part of a mixed streaming approach to urban streets? How can existing infrastructure and spatial allocations be more accommodating of MM, while not unduly disadvantaging other transport forms—particularly walking and cycling? Using a case study from the core of Washington, DC, we model the possibilities for adaptable road features that might be implemented for MM based on different traffic loads and green infrastructure configurations.

• Role: Initiator and thesis advisor, in collaboration with Shengwei Tan (MLA 2020)

• Published in:  Tan, S. and K. Tamminga. 2021. A vision for urban micromobility: From current streetscape to city of the future. Advances in Mobility-as-a-Service Systems, E.Nathanail et al,., Eds. Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature, 1278: 158-167. (PDF)

Green Play Infrastructure  

Philadelphia, PA

• Access to nature-based playscapes in underserved neighborhoods in most cities is extremely limited, impacted by disparities of race, class, and gender. In these contexts, neglected vacant lots and streets and related interstitial spaces can be redesigned as playscapes that support active, engaged, meaningful, and socially interactive play. Our study addressed the ample opportunity to re-engage kids and city nature in underserved neighborhoods in Philadelphia, PA. We employed systemic GIS spatial data approaches with informal and experiential/site-based analyses to identify local patterns of insecurity, children’s circulation, and natural resource possibilities. Our inquiry filled a gap in children’s play literature and illustrated how green play infrastructure can help improve children’s lives in disadvantaged neighborhoods.

• Role:  thesis advisor and collaborator with Yiru Zhang (MLA 2021)

• Published in:  Zhang, Y., K. Tamminga and H. Wu. 2022. Interweaving computational and tacit knowledges to design nature-based play networks in underserved communities. Land 11(3), 19. (PDF)

Lime Lakes Brownfield Phytoremedition   

Barberton, OH

• The Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co. (now PPG Industries) plant in Barberton, Ohio was built in 1899 to produce soda ash for the manufacture of plate glass. For the next 70 years the main byproduct, a high-pH lime-salt slurry, was pumped onto drying plateaus called Lime Lakes, covering 600 acres. For the past few decades PPG has been working with EPA Region 5 on a Corrective Action Agreement in addressing offsite leachate migration containing dissolved solids, volatile organic compounds and metals. 

• Role: Consulting landscape ecologist in collaboration with Key Environmental, Inc.

• I was involved on 2 project trials: design and assessment of phytoremedial plantings and soil remediation on an 8-acre field trial for Lime Lake 5 using EQ (exceptional quality) biosolids and native grasses and forbs, in lieu of conventional lined retainment; assessment of in-progress test plots (n=180) for Lime Lakes 1 and 2 bracketing a range of native herbs, soil amendments and mulching types. Overall, the best results in terms of cover, root penetration (and thus leachate cessation) were associated with several warm-season grass species and EQ biosolids as a buffer to the +10.5 pH substrate. 

Brunot Island 

Novel Ecosystem 

Ohio River, Pittsburgh, PA

• A speculative study for a proposed Brunot Island Center for Urban River Ecology (CURE). The 52-hectare island is home to the Brunot Island Generating Station, an underutilized 244 MW peak demand natural gas power plant. The island's strategic location within site of downtown Pittsburgh, dwindling power mandate, moderate industrial infrastructure, re-development pressure, and immense ecological potential present a now-or-never chance for ecosystematic recovery.

• Role: Initiator, Concept Leader, in collaboration with students in my 2013 LArch 414 Pittsburgh Studio

• Presented at the 2016 Society for Ecological Restoration | Mid-Atlantic Conference 

• Invited paper, 2016 Novel Ecosystems Research Symposium at Penn State (PDF)

Toronto Outer Harbour Marina   

• Master planning and feasibility research for what at the time (late 80s) was the largest marina on Lake Ontario at 625 slips (expandable to 1,100); included a lake-fill addition to the environmentally sensitive Leslie St. spit.  

• Role: Senior Landscape Architect/Project Manager, TSH Ltd.; analysis, concept alternatives, master planning, pro-forma analysis, and client engagement; in collaboration with Larry Ball, TSH marine engineer.

• Client: Toronto Harbour Commission (now Ports Toronto)