introduction

■ Grooming

In the followIng projects, groomIng transcends the ubIquItous notIon of maIntenance as the preservatIon of a fIxed state, and Instead artIculates It as a responsIve pattern of cultIvatIon that advances a more phenomenologIcal readIng of the landscape.

Maintenance is often considered a line of defense within landscape architecture: a set of generic operations that defends a singular design intent from the dynamism of the medium. However, it is this inherent dynamism of the medium, its insistent temporality, that makes the potential relationship of a project and its grooming one of the most interesting and largely overlooked relationships.

In this chapter, Grooming suggests two main objectives. The first is to impart a visible language and experiential form to maintenance operations. The second is to redefine maintenance beyond post-construction management: to broaden its scope to include site preparation, construction process, and post-construction practices as a continuum of actions within an overall design intent.

In the following projects, Grooming transcends the ubiquitous notion of maintenance as the preservation of a fixed state, and instead articulates it as a responsive pattern of cultivation that advances a more phenomenological reading of the landscape. The operations of Grooming dissolve the bias towards a final, designed object, and opt instead for emergence as the design objective.

Grooming recognizes the temporal dynamism of landscape systems and requires that maintenance unfolds as a series of choreographed performances throughout the lifecycle of a landscape site. These operations may be chronologically synchronized, or they may be implemented as parallel and separate systems to be launched simultaneously and combined strategically, but both approaches consider site preparation decisions for ongoing management issues. Grooming itself is seen here as an abstraction, a life-support technology that corresponds to a set of given or imposed constraints. Within this definition, the materialization of Grooming seeks to blur the concepts of the natural and the artificial. In the Bamboo Garden at Erie Street Plaza, for example, groundwater is converted into steam to create an artificial microclimate in order to sustain a bamboo grove in winter and offer respite for winter joggers.

In the case of the Riem Landscape Park, intensity suppression is exemplified by a strategy of excluding certain vegetal/ecological types, and by rigorous control of quantity and arrangement. Here, Grooming lies primarily within site preparation, controlling the launch of the system during the moment of greatest site manipulation. Paradoxically, the success predicated on the techniques that are used to inhibit dynamism creates a dramatic show of seasonality and mimicry of a pristine system. Anticipating these effects early on in the design process achieves the elimination of excessive post-construction management.

This living system challenges the conventional notions of control versus resilience, of who or what is in control; instead, it posits whether a landscape can be designed to self-propagate, or self-prune. The plasticity of landscape systems is hence defined within the concepts of control of intensity and frequency, as in the function of a sound equalizer. The projects presented are gathered under the guise of adjusting amplification and suppression.

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■ groomIng recognIzes the temporal dynamIsm of landscape systems and requIres that maIntenance unfolds as a serIes of choreographed performances throughout the lIfecycle of a landscape sIte.

Another example of controlled growth is the design for the Elsässertor office building. In order to recreate the contextual railway site within its interior courtyard, and achieve the typical stunted growth pattern of volunteer Beech and Birch trees, 20,000 Beech seedlings were planted in a base of shallow soil and railway gravel. Such an amount of trees would normally suffice for the growth of a two-hectare woodland, yet planted so densely, the trees will attain a purposefully stunted, miniature form.

In the East River Ferry Landings Marsh Planters, plant control of invasive species is integrated into the design. Frequent applications of sprayed saltwater act as an herbicide. The system pumps and disperses surrounding river water, and adjusts to assess the ideal level of frequency and intensity of saltwater application.

Preparation for Grooming can also anticipate and control the quality and physical investment of future maintenance operations. Like a good haircut, a landscape is not merely designed for one defining moment, but is anticipated to grow out in a particular way. The Lurie Garden hedge-trimming armature anticipates the future form of the hedge, synchronizing its growth with its future “haircuts”. Freshly planted, the armature acts as the ghost of the future hedge, revealing its intended form before its maturation.

The design for Utrecht University’s Library Courtyard Garden employs an apparatus to affect future onsite Grooming as a means to a particular, evolving design vision. In this case, the process of tree-binding creates a “tortured” effect, which points to a cultural potential that an abstraction, or perversion, of grooming can create; the apparatus emerges as a visual reminder of landscape’s pliability.

Grooming suggests an approach in which a site’s context and resources, such as wind, bird migration, hydrology, or topography, are reconfigured and harnessed to achieve a controlled and prescriptive emergence. As an example, in Parque de Diagonal Mar, featured in the Launch chapter, the climate-control misting and irrigation system is coordinated with a strategy that utilizes groundwater to prevent the flood-ing of a nearby subway station.

The Products section of the book features several materials that relate to issues of growth control. Rubber mulch is used as a surface treatment, but can also control growth of weeds. Biobarrier® is a subsoil root control geotextile that control-releases a growth-control herbicide. Super-absorbent polymers, also known as Hydrogel, can be used for slow-release irrigation and fertilizer application. The process of Controlled Burning is commonly used in forest management, farming, and prairie restoration to prevent violent fires and to maintain and renew targeted ecosystems by controlling competing vegetation, controlling plant diseases, and perpetuating fire-dependent species.

Grooming // 77 ■