With the completion of the Big Pipe in 2011, water quality in the Willamette has improved by leaps and bounds. In the wake of this achievement, Will Levenson, head of the non-profit Human Access Project, is leading an effort to change people’s perceptions of the river and encourage recreation in the water and along the waterfront. Mr. Levenson started The Big Float, an annual inner tube float across the Willamette River in downtown Portland to bring awareness to the improved water quality. He has also organized several volunteer clean up days that have uncovered the beach at the base of Tom McCall Bowl and removed 75 yards of concrete from Hawthorne Cove on the east side of Hawthorne Bridge.

Greenworks became involved in the Human Access Project in November 2012, bringing our extensive experience designing places for people within sensitive natural environments, which focus on balancing access with habitat conservation.

This balance is certainly a key consideration as the Human Access Project gains momentum through additional community outreach and scaled interventions along the Willamette’s shores. Greenworks is honored to be contributing to this worthy cause and looks forward to witnessing the transformation of Portland’s largest public open space in the years to come.

A UO Design Studio Charrette

At the University of Oregon, Irene Curulli, visiting assistant professor from The Netherlands (TU/e-EIndhoven University of Technology), kicked off her winter studio with a design charrette in Portland at the White Stag on UO’s Portland Campus. The intensive three day workshop included a site visit, two lectures from local landscape architecture professionals Claire Maulhardt (GreenWorks) and Elaine Kearney (Lango Hansen), a modeling assignment, and an in-depth analysis of existing site conditions. At the conclusion of the workshop, four groups presented their findings and design goals to the two the reviewers, Claire and Elaine, and the rest of the class. The group used four different lenses through which to look at the site: Water, Patches and Preserves, Site Acoustics, and Edges/Borders. The lenses helped them define characteristics of the site like the “water spine,” “bowl-shaped configuration,” and “shopping the edge.”

This studio will push the students to think about how to design a landscape that lends to the evolution of an industrial site. How can the site be “constructed” to expand and contract as industries come and go? What green infrastructure strategies can be proposed to protect the land from the type of activities industry imposes?

Claire will participate as a reviewer throughout the extent of this studio and encourage students to see new potential in developing industrial areas from the perspective of a landscape architect.

The studio will continue down in Eugene at the main University of Oregon campus for the rest of the term.