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  • 标题:Revealing campus nature: the lessons of the native landscape for campus heritage planning: campus landscapes should be restorative, giving back to the environment more than they consume.
  • 作者:Bruce, Jeffrey L.
  • 期刊名称:Planning for Higher Education
  • 印刷版ISSN:0736-0983
  • 出版年度:2011
  • 期号:April
  • 语种:English
  • 出版社:Society for College and University Planning
  • 摘要:Yet, for all the rapidly emerging knowledge about green infrastructure, integrated water management (where water reuse is optimized), and other green technologies, I've come to believe that campus planning needs to go back to basics to achieve more than just sustainability. Campus landscapes should be restorative, giving back more to the environment than they consume. As a landscape architect, I believe every campus should study, explore, celebrate, and teach about the native landscape and the ecological systems of its site and region, with a focus on incorporating natural systems into the campus infrastructure. This ecological grounding is as much a part of campus heritage as the designed landscape of quads, drives, and plantings.
  • 关键词:College facilities;Landscape protection;School plant management;Sports facilities;Universities and colleges

Revealing campus nature: the lessons of the native landscape for campus heritage planning: campus landscapes should be restorative, giving back to the environment more than they consume.


Bruce, Jeffrey L.


As American settlement spread to the Midwest, college and university campuses came to symbolize some of the greatest achievements of public policy and private philanthropy. However, the expansion westward often ignored the cultural precedents of Native Americans and the diversity of the varied native landscapes. Today, campus planners and historic preservation advocates can learn much from the pre-settlement landscapes of prairies, streams, ridgelines, and wetlands that Native Americans appreciated for their utility and beauty. Over the last 30 years, my landscape architectural practice has touched on campus landscapes in a variety of program areas, ranging from high-performance sports fields to campus heritage master plans. Most recently, we were involved with the Getty Foundation-funded campus heritage plan at the University of Kansas (KU). Our office now works extensively with "green" infrastructure tools because of their energy and water conservation and climactic benefits.

Yet, for all the rapidly emerging knowledge about green infrastructure, integrated water management (where water reuse is optimized), and other green technologies, I've come to believe that campus planning needs to go back to basics to achieve more than just sustainability. Campus landscapes should be restorative, giving back more to the environment than they consume. As a landscape architect, I believe every campus should study, explore, celebrate, and teach about the native landscape and the ecological systems of its site and region, with a focus on incorporating natural systems into the campus infrastructure. This ecological grounding is as much a part of campus heritage as the designed landscape of quads, drives, and plantings.

Understanding Where You Are

In the profession of landscape architecture, there is currently considerable debate regarding the definition of "native landscape," which makes it an elusive concept to achieve in our projects. Does the native landscape represent the landscape of pre-human contact, before native cultures burned it to improve hunting or engaged in rudimentary agricultural practices? Certainly, post-European settlement introduced many invasive plants and animals that continue to plague our natural systems as the human manipulation of the natural environment accelerates.

Rather than attempt to pinpoint a moment in time that defines native ecology, I prefer to frame the discussion around a concept of ecological systems in which energy, water, nutrients, and biological diversity are balanced and healthy. Such a condition has happened at many different times in history, including today.

This function-based definition implies that systems are self-healing and self-regulating with minimal human intervention. In today's highly altered environment, this definition leads to a practical approach for establishing realistic goals for campus landscapes that complements the stewardship of designed and historic buildings and sites.

It is well understood in higher education that the quality of the campus environment is an important factor in recruiting students. Every location on earth is a truly unique combination of climate, geology, flora, and fauna. These natural systems can be a foundation that a college or university can promote as part of its "sense of place"--its unique qualities and seasonal atmospherics that are unlike those of any other place. Generally speaking,

campus building expansion, parking, sports facilities, and other needs have subordinated nature, eventually cloaking an institution's rich ecological heritage. Yet, the cultural landscapes of campuses often reflect their ecological origins. If one digs deeply enough, most of the locations of built elements are in reaction to the natural environment. Buildings were sited to prevent damage from streams and waterways or, before the rise of air conditioning, to accept summer breezes. Paths were located to easily circumnavigate slopes or natural obstacles. The historic remnants of a site's original ecology, such as rock outcrops, streams, and river bluffs, are exceptionally relevant to campus heritage today. Nature's remnants should not only be preserved for their beauty and role in shaping campus history, but also managed and restored to function as green campus infrastructure that mitigates the natural and human impacts of stormwater, air pollution, and noise.

Learning from the Complexity of Nature

On many campuses, natural systems have become so disrupted or altered that they no longer continue to function. Natural drainage patterns have been erased and subjugated to placement in pipes below ground. Productive soils that once supported native vegetation have been removed, buried, or degraded. Rich plant ecosystems have been replaced with monocultures of turf grass. All of these modernizing "improvements" have removed the power of natural campus landscape systems to function in a beneficial way. As the health of campus landscapes has historically deteriorated with new buildings, roads, and parking, the input of water and chemical treatments required to maintain some acceptable level of function has increased exponentially, along with threats of erosion from wind and water.

The message is that we cannot think about ecological and design precedents separately. Full preservation of campus designed landscape features such as historic hedges and lawns cannot easily occur without bringing the energy flows of water back into balance through such strategies as green roofs, integrated water management, and the reduction of hard surfaces. In other words, green infrastructure precedents and natural history balances can be powerful tools in the stewardship of designed landscapes.

One way we can understand designed campus landscapes as integrated systems of water, soils, vegetation, and topography is to peer back in time to reveal that campus's nature. At KU, 19th-century campus development occurred along the top of Hogback Ridge, later called Mount Oread (see figure 1). This linear sharp hill fostered exceptional views extending to the horizon (see figure 2), and, more importantly, it determined drainage patterns and how surface water was to move on campus. This ridge, visible for miles, was one of the first major topographic landmarks for pioneers on the Oregon Trail after they crossed the Wakarusa River Valley. With its spreading wing-like hillsides, Mount Oread is the single most distinguishing feature of KU's landscape.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

During the landscape master planning process, we looked at historic campus photos to identify early landscape treatments that would reduce maintenance requirements but not impact aesthetic qualities. We discovered that the steep slopes surrounding the ridge were once forested with a rich diversity of plants and trees. Restoration of those plant communities not only returned a historic element to the campus, but also mitigated stormwater, improved biodiversity, stabilized erodible soils, and significantly reduced landscape maintenance costs.

At the University of Iowa (UIowa), the single most distinguishing landscape feature is the Iowa River, which bisects the campus. Once again, topography directly shaped early campus development. This melding of natural and human history created a strong framework for the campus urban forest plan that our office developed for the university. We were able to identify the seven original natural plant communities associated with slope, aspect, and elevation as a defining organizational approach for management today. Although the natural plant associations no longer existed on campus, they could be restored. This created a distinctive district banding of visual interest as one ascends from the vegetation of the river floodplain up the hillside to the oak hickory savanna of the Pentacrest, the campus's historic core (see figures 3 and 4). The return to native plant communities not only provides a visual order based on sound ecological principles, but also hearkens a return to a campus forest that is healthier, more biodiverse, less susceptible to disease, and, as long ago, less needful of maintenance inputs.

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

Stewarding Regional Character on Campus

Pre-settlement ecology is a guide to understanding the opportunities that exist on every campus, but the key to managing legacy campus forests is water. To rebuild the ecological function of campus woodlands, we must also restore the original water and energy balance that determined original species communities. Natural site hydrology is, in essence, energy that is in equilibrium over long periods of time. As development occurs, vegetation is removed, soil is compacted, and roofs and parking lots eventually cover land surfaces. All of these forces add the energy of more water flowing into the site hydrology, thereby creating imbalances. Such imbalances lead to soil and stream bank erosion, changes in plant populations, and a reduction in the groundwater that nourishes the forest canopy. By understanding the natural history of water on a campus, we can use new green infrastructure tools such as pervious pavements, green roofs, and bioswales to intercept or reduce development-driven energy impacts. By helping original natural features to remain stable and functional, we can restore natural cycles as sustainable campus assets.

[FIGURE 3 OMITTED]

[FIGURE 4 OMITTED]

Our work at Baker University in Baldwin City, Kansas, offers a rare example of finding a historic stream course in the center of campus that somehow escaped channelization by engineers for over 150 years. The drainage course, although neglected, deteriorated, and somewhat of an eyesore, was still functioning. Instead of piping this natural artifact, we celebrated its existence, using it as the main feature of the central campus redevelopment by better defining its edges and recreating a small lake that was removed in the 1870s (see figure 5). By preserving and re-creating this historic water system, we were able to strengthen pedestrian circulation, improve the campus's stormwater capacity and quality, and develop a historically significant signature campus feature. As a professional, I am amazed at how rarely such defining natural assets are utilized or considered in campus plans. Working with original ecology provides a great opportunity to preserve the past and celebrate an institution's origins.

Sustainability and Historic Landscape Preservation Work Together

Whether native or highly designed, the single most character-defining feature of most campuses is the landscape. While the connection between campus landscape and natural ecology is undeniable, its importance to the experience of generations, both past and future, is more subtle. Planning and preservation "treatments" demand sensitivity and extraordinary care in balancing the needs of historic preservation, ecology, and the demands of a functioning institution. Historic campus landscapes are usually a complex overlay of many functions both natural and cultural, some of which appear on the surface to be in conflict.

[FIGURE 5 OMITTED]

These historic landscapes are cherished partially because they are living environments. They grow, age, are damaged by changing water tables, and are prone to species invasion and succession. Unlike buildings, clear periods of significance are much harder to pin down. Yet, we found at KU that landscape periods could be determined if we identified the landscape architects who worked on campus, recognized the species palettes available to them at the time, and knew how they understood the ecological process.

Understanding Ecology and Historic Periods of Significance at the University of Kansas

In most of the Getty Foundation-funded campus preservation studies, investment priorities are geared to restoring or rehabilitating sites (or "resources" in the preservationist's lingo) tied to "periods of significance"--namely, the historic era or multiple periods that the preservation planners deem significant. At KU, we examined three major "high periods" of campus development (see figure 6). These were defined by the university's remarkable landscape history and included the work of noted landscape architect George Kessler in defining the early campus arrangement of buildings and features in 1900 (see figures 7 and 8); the rapid expansion of the campus by Hare & Hare in 1928 (see figure 9); and the horticultural legacy of campus landscape architect Alton Thomas in 1955 (see figure 10). Each of these planners responded in different ways to underlying ecologies. Moreover, each of these periods are points in time when the campus reached an apex of completion, moments when the visions and work of a previous generation came to fruition before the advent of the next wave of social and institutional change.

Looking at the campus through the lens of these high periods helped us understand the contributions of campus leaders, architects, and landscape architects from each distinct time. By examining the periods from KU's founding in 1865 to 1900, from 1901 to 1928, and from 1929 to 1955, we were able to evaluate the relative intactness and significance for preservation of vestiges from each chapter of campus development.

[FIGURE 6 OMITTED]

Just as historic preservation planners consider periods of historic significance, at KU and at historic estates and parks our practice takes a spatial approach to understanding how one designer, period of time, or ecological microclimate may have shaped small pieces of larger sites. For the KU campus heritage plan, we applied the term "spheres of influence" to locate the greatest design concentrations from the landscape architects who shaped the campus at three different times.

For each of these periods and planners, we developed appropriate palette plantings at all scales along with suggested palettes for building materials, sidewalks, walls, and paving. These palettes, in tandem with guidelines for character-defining topography, spatial patterns, and circulation, grounded a comprehensive approach to preservation treatments tailored to preserve distinctive precinct character. The result is a variegated collection of quads, drives, and hillsides that tell different stories from different times in KU's evolution over the last 150 years. For KU, our study provides a toolkit of options for making daily decisions and guidelines for planning major new building and infrastructure projects.

[FIGURE 7 OMITTED]

[FIGURE 8 OMITTED]

Understanding the contributing elements of these periods of significance allows us to determine when it is not appropriate to apply native planting palettes on a historic campus site. In this way, we can use native ecology and design history together to shape campus precincts. At KU, native landscape ecologies were used to provide contrast and define the boundaries of historic designed landscapes. For landscape architects working with historic landscapes, the scale and spatial sense of such outdoor campus rooms are as much a product of the buildings that frame them as of the vegetation and site details.

To be effective in the 21st century, campus landscape preservation must be integrated with architectural massing, the scale of roads, and long-term stormwater management and utilities planning. We are trying to bring expertise in both historic landscape preservation and ecological understanding to our work. Thanks to the Getty Foundation's funding of the campus heritage plan at KU, we were able to create a planning model for integrating pre-settlement ecology, historic buildings, utilities, infrastructure, and landscapes as a whole. In our practice, the next frontier in preservation planning is to bring the basic functions and evolved sustainability of native landscapes back into historic designed areas without compromising the intentions of designers from key campus periods.

[FIGURE 9 OMITTED]

[FIGURE 10 OMITTED]

Jeffrey L. Bruce, FASLA, LEED, ASIC, GRP is owner of Jeffrey L. Bruce & Company (JBC), a national landscape architectural firm. Founded in 1986, JBC provides highly specialized technical support to many of the nation's leading architectural and landscape architectural firms on a wide variety of project profiles including campus planning, engineered soils, green roof technologies, urban agronomy, green infrastructure, performance sports turf, water harvesting, and irrigation engineering.
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