CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

In many ways the environmental crisis is a design crisis. It is a consequence of how things are made, buildings are constructed, and landscapes are used. Design manifests culture and culture rests firmly on the foundation of what we believe to be true about the world. Our present forms of agriculture, architecture, engineering and industry are derived from design epistemologies incompatible with nature's own. It is clear that we have not given design a rich enough context. We have used design cleverly in the service of narrowly defined human interests but have neglected its relationship with our fellow creatures. Such myopic design cannot fail to degrade the living world, and by extension, our own health. (Van der Ryn, 1996, p. 9)

This statement by Sim Van der Ryn recognizes the role of design in helping to create our current environmental crisis and in helping to solve the crisis, if it serves nature's as well as human's interests. It suggests that a cultural understanding of natural processes will lead to design that reflects an understanding of our dependence on natural systems and the need to preserve and restore our natural environment.

Sustainability in the City

Where once environmentalists were the strongest voice urging us to protect nature, now those who promote the concept of sustainability for our cities have joined the chorus. Sustainability is more inclusive -- it recognizes a reality that includes culture and nature, and addresses our dependence on healthy social and natural environments.

A few years ago I began working with Sustainable Seattle, a local group of individuals interested in promoting sustainability in the Puget Sound region. In numerous meetings we discussed how to describe Seattle's current state of health in the social, economic and natural environments. It seemed to me that we were overlooking something important and I began to realize that the built environment is not usually included when we talk about the environment. But the built environment's elements and arrangement have greatly impacted our cultural behavior, individual decisions and interactions with each other and the natural environment.

The large scale decisions that have been made in the past have surely alleviated the problems caused by development, e.g., capturing rainwater in underground infrastructure to relieve problems of extreme storm runoff. But the wastewater infrastructure also took away the experience of nature that was gained from watching the flow of water over land into lakes and the knowledge that we are still a part of nature even though we live in the city, e.g., we can no longer see the difference in magnitude of storms. In Seattle, the city of rain, where so much of the regional identity comes from the lakes, Puget Sound and nearby rainforests, our local built environment regards rain water as a problem, better moved out-of-sight and out-of-mind. Hiding it also protects us from realizing the negative impacts our individual decisions have inflicted on the local natural environment. We do not actually see the soil eroding or the effects of heavy metals and petroleum byproducts that are deposited by cars onto streets and then washed away into the sewers. Are we aware that much of skeet and stormwater runoff flows directly into lakes without any treatment? Do we know that the rest of it is directed to our sewage keatment plants, which are not particularly efficient at removing the stormwater pollutants? Do we know that we are not addressing nor solving the problems we are creating?

There are many opportunities in urban areas to reestablish our physical and cognitive links to the immediate environment that supports our life. New development is already required to retain stormwater on site and release it slowly. Why not bring that retention function to the surface and let it inform us of the strength of a storm?

My work with the Cascade neighborhood began during an architecture studio in the Fall of 1994. As the only landscape architecture student in the class I chose to examine the opportunities for celebrating an expression of water in open space and as a part of the streetscapes throughout Cascade. The word cascade refers to a series of stepped waterfalls, and views of Lake Union from the neighborhood are a reminder of the physical connection between land and lake. These images were the inspiration for my focus on the movement of water on the surface of the neighborhood. Two years later, in the fall of 1996, the Cascade Neighborhood Council (CNC) wanted to take a closer look at water within a context of the neighborhood as an ecosystem, and then draft design guidelines that could affect a more sustainable use of water. My involvement with CNC's Cascade Waterflow Vision and Guidelines workshop series was comprehensive, as I helped organize the workshops and participated as an advisory committee member; presented general background information about watershed function, and specific information about the Cascade neighborhood and the South Lake Union watershed's past and current conditions; served on the subcommittees that clarified issues and goals, and wrote the first draft of the design guidelines.

Research Questions and Methods

This thesis attempts to answer three questions by examining the Cascade neighborhood's planning process.

1) Is "neighborhood as ecosystem" a useful framework for neighborhood planning -- does it allow us to assess our current condition and define a different future?

2) Are design guidelines a useful tool for neighborhoods to use if they want future development to incorporate principles of sustainability?

3) How does the social environment support physical environmental planning and design?

The thesis includes a literature review that looks for current applications of sustainable, ecological planning and design that has been or can be applied at city and site scales. The case study illustrates how one urban neighborhood applied an ecological framework to both define their local issues and respond to the need for a more sustainable built environment.

Scope of Thesis

This thesis is limited to the examination of one neighborhood planning study, in an urban neighborhood in Seattle that is currently fully developed but anticipates significant new development within the next ten to twenty years. The focus of the neighborhood planning effort was the flow of drinking water and stormwater through the neighborhood; however this thesis addresses only the stormwater component, and not drinking water.

Thesis Organization

Chapter 2 is comprised of a literature review of theory and frameworks for designing according to principles of sustainability and an ecological perspective.

Chapter 3 gives a description of the Cascade Waterflow Vision and Guidelines case study. It describes how the collaborators came to know each other, the structure and findings of the watershed study and the resulting guidelines that recommend design features to promote Cascade's neighborhood values.

Chapter 4 discusses the usefulness of the ecological framework and the design guidelines for Cascade and other neighborhood planning efforts, proposes areas for further study, and suggests future roles for landscape architects.