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Landscape as Infrastructure
Published in Spiro N. Pollalis, Planning Sustainable Cities, 2016
Around the world, pressing issues continue to drive innovation and implementation of landscape as infrastructure. The city of Chicago is harnessing the potential of trees to reduce the impact of heat waves by developing and implementing a strategic management plan for its urban forest. The need to reduce stormwater runoff in Chicago’s alleys led to the Green Alley program, which introduced wide-ranging environmental improvements to neglected spaces. The Green Streets project in Portland, Oregon, “features attractive curbside planters that absorb flash flood water runoff—essential in a city with nearly a meter of rainfall each year.”5 At Bristol Business Park in Bristol, UK, a sustainable urban drainage system (SUDS) prevents the possibility of water runoff flooding areas such as the nearby village of Hambrook. Seonyudo Park in Seoul, South Korea, is an award-winning ecological park, created by the conversion of a former water treatment plant. At the East London Green Grid in London, a strong planning framework and area-based structures have helped develop new and existing green infrastructure to tackle quality-of-life issues in the Thames Gateway growth area. The Manor and Castle Green Estate in Sheffield, UK, is a public-sector/social enterprise partnership using multifunctional green infrastructure to tackle multiple deprivation at the neighborhood scale. “Environmental improvements have transformed Augustenborg in Malmö, Sweden, from a neighborhood in decline to an exemplar of an environmentally adapted urban area, making it once again an attractive place to live and work.”6
Soil: Earth’s Lifeline
Published in Stanley Manahan, Environmental Chemistry, 2017
Covering soil with impermeable paving can prevent water infiltration to groundwater and increase the extent and rate of runoff. To help alleviate that problem, Chicago and some other major cities in the United States have started an innovative “Green Alley” program in which alleys are paved with a porous concrete and other paving materials that allow water infiltration and eventual percolation into groundwater. This helps maintain groundwater levels and serves to reduce the burden on the stormwater collection system. Microorganisms that become embedded in the porous concrete serve to degrade organic matter including petroleum products that are carried by the infiltrating water.
Soil
Published in Stanley E. Manahan, Environmental Chemistry, 2022
Covering soil with impermeable paving can prevent water infiltration to groundwater and increase the extent and rate of runoff. To help alleviate that problem, Chicago and some other major cities in the United States have started an innovative “Green Alley” program in which alleys are paved with a porous concrete and other paving materials that allow water infiltration and eventual percolation into groundwater. This helps maintain groundwater levels and serves to reduce the burden on the stormwater collection system. Microorganisms that become embedded in the porous concrete serve to degrade organic matter, including petroleum products that are carried by the infiltrating water.
Typological index of alleyways: mapping the pattern of a forgotten urban form element
Published in Journal of Urban Design, 2023
Khaled Alawadi, Asim Khanal, Rawan Sohdy Abdelfattah
Findings reinforce New Urbanism’s call to reclaim, landscape, and reactivate alleys. Alleys can offer a range of benefits to fulfill social, environmental, and economic needs. For instance, alleys can counter the loss of social life and community spirit in suburban neighbourhoods, a problem highlighted by social theorists (Talen 1999). There is a potential for alleys to be used as flexible and dynamic spaces that can be adapted to different uses and users (Machado-Leon, Giron-Valderrama, and Goodchild 2020). Alleys can provide valuable social and ecosystem services if they are developed as green infrastructure in the form of pedestrian thoroughfares, intermittent playgrounds, and islands of native vegetation (Wolch et al. 2010). Alleys have also been used to reduce the urban heat island effect, promote biodiversity, and assist in climate change adaption (Bryant 2006).
Climate-adaptive Design of Historic Villages and Dwellings in a Typhoon-prone Region in Southernmost Mainland China
Published in International Journal of Architectural Heritage, 2022
Jin Tao, Dawei Xiao, Qiaohua Qin, Xiaolan Zhuo, Jiayu Wang, Huashuai Chen, Qing Wang
The dense-alley village layout results in good drainage, which is another aspect of village adaptation to the typhoon climate. In terms of site selection, villages tend to build in high areas, along a hillside or a platform with a gentle slope. This approach avoids flooding while draining off water by gravity with minimum artificial correction. In terms of design, the alleys in the villages are organized by utilizing the topographic elevation. Alleys are lower in the front and higher in the back, forming a height difference in the vertical direction. In Figure 8c, the solid lines represent open ditches, and the dotted lines represent underground culverts. We can see that the rainwater collected by each house enters the open ditches in the alleys, is drained by gravity through the underground culverts of the front square, and is then discharged quickly into the pond in front of the village. More importantly, the dense and numerous longitudinal alleys increase the number of instantaneous drainage channels, which can break down the large flood peak into a number of smaller streams, thus effectively reducing the possibility of damage caused by flood scouring and ensuring the safety of the village in a rainstorm environment (Figure 8).