ethnographic landscapes.

From my home town of NYC I can hop on a bus that departs the NYC Chinatown going off to the Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington DC Chinatowns. This is a pretty unique way to link similar cultural landscapes together while conquering a topographic distance.
While I realize that in most towns and cities there are other Chinatowns, "Little Italy's", and strong Irish pride districts, I am not aware of any other ethnographic landscape that is linked together by a bus. Returning from Boston I have a new appreciation for the various Chinatown heritage interpretations there are along the Eastern seaboard.
I will be going on a studio field trip, at the end of the week, to Toronto Canada and I have been told that there is a Chinatown there as well. I am hoping if time permits it, to view the Toronto Chinatown landscape with the intention of comparing and contrasting the Chinatowns in Boston and NYC.

edit-
The trip out to Toronto, while very informative, was on too rigid a time schedule to have any daylight hours to sight see. So, I guess this thought will have to be put on the back shelf for now!

d.i.y street art.

Some structured procrastination courtesy of my amazing facts.
what other holes can we fill?

reading a landscape.

Now that I have had time to synthesize some thoughts on my excursion to Boston allow me to introduce the term cultural geography and then use sites in Boston as examples. Where psycho-geography is the locals tool to be released from the monotony of society; cultural geography is a scope that anyone has access to, to read the landscape.
One of these terms is cultural landscape. A cultural landscape is defined by the National Park Service as "a geographic area, including both cultural and natural resources and the wildlife or domestic animals therein, associated with a historic event, activity, or person, or that exhibit other cultural or aesthetic values." If every landscape can be read see: cultural landschaft pt.two, then every landscape you enter has some sort of cultural significance making it a cultural landscape. Essentially this goes along with the situationist theories for breaking up the monotony for the every day citizen, but a visitor applies the lens of cultural geography to a place.
After this article I would implore all who read it to step outside and use psycho-geography to view the cultural landscapes that make up your neighborhoods. The four categories of cultural landscapes are described below.

• The historic site type is a place that has a historic significance associated with it, Gettysburg, Pa. or the State House of the Province of Pennsylvania otherwise known as Independence Hall in Philadelphia Pa. 
• The next type is a historic designed landscape, this is a property that had a notable landscape designer or even a home owner who design the exterior. Spaces designed by Lancelot 'Capability' Brown, Garett Eckbo, and the homes in Dyssekilde, Denmark are some examples. 
• The historic vernacular landscape are places and spaces that the locals have designed themselves using the information passed on through the generations. Information such as climate and local resources reflect certain land use patterns. An example of this is the vernacular homes of Norway, or terraced agriculture in China, or any of the US National Parks. 
• The final type is an ethnographic landscape which is a place that has traditional cultural values  reflected through design to meet the wants of the a demographic in the area. These are areas where the citizens that make up the majority of the demographic imprint on the landscape the heritage they collectively celebrate. Examples of this can be restaurants and landscape/architectural details features, monuments. In Syracuse, NY- Lodi Street is a district that is known for its strong Italian population and it reflects this through Italian markets and bakeries.

Using the visit I recently made to Boston the examples to graphically represent the four types were not hard to find. After all, a lot of our American history occurred in spaces that are being used by a new population of people. A lot of the sites in Boston have undergone an adaptive reuse to fit the needs of decades gone by and, as the beat goes on, people will continue to add layers to the city.

The above graphic is my situationist map unbeknownst to me at the time I walked in a spiral direction, as I recorded
 the experience of being in a place. Below is my analysis of the various areas I walked through. 

• Government Center Station -- Number One-Historic site/Designed 

This graphic represents the first place I entered when I exited the Government Center train station. My mind began to frenzy as I marveled at the Escher-esque government institution, City Hall. As for my interpretation: the architecture has successive jutting angles that make up the floor plans for the interior rooms this represents the laws and regulations that provides order. The reason why this building reminds me of work by Escher similar to this one, is because the inverted architectural details represent that the rules, laws and regulations, under certain circumstances, can be manipulated in favor for the citizen.

• Union Street -- Number Two-Historic site/Ethnographic 

This represents what I walked into next as I left Gov't Cntr and entered the Union Street district. I would interpret this space as a lively sanctuary for memories of the past. American History, memorials, and Presidential happenings are a few of the features that make up this culture-storical landscape. The area is also notable for a few more reasons: the first is that this is the site of the oldest restaurant in the United States, the Union Oyster House- a site on the National Register of Historic Places.  The area is also home to the beginning of the Boston Big Dig, a project that involved re-routing a major thru-way  underground. The project was constructed during the course of 30 years. At street level a series of parks reflect the current users' needs reflected through designed using heritage and palimpsest as design precedent. A final facet of this area is that the day I walked through it an open air market was going on, full of fresh fruit, vegetables and the quintessential Boston seafood. 

• Skyline -- Number Three-The Cultural Landscape 

This is the view of North Boston from across the waterway. Its awe inspiring to look at a sky line and imagine all the stories people can recall from being inside the areas hidden behind the urban wall. Another aspect to think about is that while you are viewing the city from the distance there are current events that are going on where you could have possibly added to the layers.

• Street Art -- Number Four-Ethnographic 

Number four is a compilation of street art I encountered as I walked from North Boston to South Station. Street art is an amazing story anyone can read and gain an understanding of what a minority of people want the rest of us to know. While I find that well done street art is a wonderful addition to the public realm not everyone would share this opinion about any type of street art, well done or otherwise. 

• South Street -- Number Five-Historic site 

The South Street station is a regional transportation hub in Boston, the building is also on the NRHP for among other reasons; in 1910 it had the most ridership of any other train station in the United States.

• Chinatown walk -- Number Six-Ethnographic/Vernacular 

More street art I walked past as I left South Street and head into the Historic Leather District- shortly there after into Chinatown. 

• Fenway -- Number Seven-Ethnographic/Historic site 

This final area is focusing on the Fenway ball park district, I was in a rush to visit a buddy who worked in the approximate area so I took the T. The first thing I saw were the allotments at the Fenway Garden Society- the first Victory Garden in the US, an American version of the Dansk allotment garden. Then as I walked further into this district you begin to lose sight of the Citgo sign, a unique landmark in Boston. Finally I entered the district that flanks the Fenway ball park. This is an interesting district because it is not so much a celebration of cultural heritage, rather it is a mosaic of buildings that centers around our National past time. 

buffering.

 To get to the point right away, creating the content for my trip to Boston is taking longer than I expected; I will be with you readers within the day.

not leaving on a jet plane.

For the next four days or so I will be in the Boston, Massachusetts area. My original reason to visit the city was to see a buddy who recently graduated. The trip out there has since then evolved into a cacophony of chance happenings, additions, and overall excitement.
I really don't know how else to describe it without getting into a unnecessarily long blog post.
Basically what I am saying is that the normal pace at which I have been blogging might be slower than normal.

best waste principle.

It dawned on me today that there are only eight weeks of school left. Not surprising is that this next phase of studio is also our last. The class was broken down into three groups urban agriculture, the regional food hub and the regional food shed. The first and second use Syracuse and begin to step out into the CNY as their focus for design. The regional food shed, the group I am part of, is looking at what the food shed boundaries are considered, what type of existing network is in NYS, finally the potentials of the NYS food shed.

While I am a pragmatist, I think it would be ideal for NYS to become food secure. Meaning that all facets of the food shed production, distribution, marketing, consuming, and waste be taken care of in state. Looking at the definition of food shed that I found on here, according to the 110th Congress local food is either produced within the state boundary or for where it may apply 400 miles from the origin of production. As represented with the graphic to the right there is a huge difference in one from the other, NYS is nowhere near 400 miles across at any point in its geography, for one and for another maybe it would not be so bad to have a better cooperative agreement with the surrounding states. If we continue with the 2008 Congress definition of local food, a NYC resident would be eating local food if it was imported from Ottawa and a Syracuse resident would be eating local food from  around the middle of Ohio. If we take it a step further and consider geography and past glacial activity the soils a crop is grown in in Ottawa or Ohio are similar to the soils of NYS.

A portion of my part of the food shed project is looking at various commodities agriculture, aquaculture, livestock, dairy, wine, beer- and seeing how NYS, as well as outside precedent uses best waste principles through these sheds.  Industry standards put out by the Hiwwasee River Watershed Coalition, out in North Carolina, are rotational grazing. Which is having livestock graze one portion of the field as you let another recover and repeat the process. If done correctly this can have benefits to all involved- the land, the livestock, and the farmer.  HRWC also suggest having a buffer zone between grazing lands and general water sources. To take this standard to another level sites for grazing can should be sloped and well drained to collect runoff.

home.

So as the campus declines into Spring Break I discovered an article, here,  on the blog the Responsibility Project.
Hailing from Staten Island I have always kept in the back of my mind that my home town is notorious for being home to the Freshkills landfill. That was what initially sparked my interest in finding out about landscape architecture. Within the last ten years there has been serious progress in changing the use of Freshkill.
For those not in the know the landscape architect in charge is James Corner, whose firm Field Operations also designed High Line park in New York City. The parks design, phased into a 30 year construction plan, offers users opportunities that at one time were difficult to find in the five borough area. The massive 2,200 acre park is only 45 percent brown field while the majority are wetland, creek and swamp. The design balances the present habitats found on the site while discussion with the community developed roadway circulation patterns and program elements such as a boat launch and promenade. The history of the re-design involved an international design competition which began in 2001. The winning design, by Field Operations, utilized the concept of lifescape. Which uses the ecological setting in the urban sphere as the stage for residents to experience and share life. (courtesy of the NYC Department of City Planning)
The park when completed will host five areas the Creek Landing welcomes visitors into the park as well as being the staging point for canoe and boat launching, the Point is the area for sports fields and event spaces. Also important to the Point is the waterfront promenade hosting restaurants and an open air market. North Park will have trails for nature walking and bicycling. South Park is adjacent to Arden Heights, and can host large scale sport events as well as hosting equestrian facilities. East Park is part home to the Staten Island Express Way whose path will be revitalized into an improved scenic drive. The final West park will host a wild flower meadow and an earthwork sculpture for the remembrance of September 11th. The five parks provide views looking out onto sweeping vistas not normally associated with living in a city. (courtesy of the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation)