Kate Orff :振興紐約的河流--牡蠣

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http://dotsub.com/view/063abc1e-b740-44e3-ae91-5652c2328f4e
Kate Orff :振興紐約的河流--牡蠣
我热爱美国的山河 也热爱我们的地貌 从加州的中央山谷... 到曼哈顿地底基岩 地貌塑造了我们的历史与品性 但很明显 就在过去百年内 我们…这是美国城市扩张图... 我们有计划地改造自然 地表削平，多样性消失 结果我们忘记了... 与周围动植物的关系 也忘记了... 与脚下土地的关系 我工作的意义在于 尝试重新构想这些关系 并将其重新建立 此图表示这个人工环境... 为我们带来了哪些问题 问题确实很多 城市人口增长 生物多样性丧失 当然还有海平面上升 以及气候变化
所以我考虑设计方案时 就会去思考 如何发挥创意 改变这些曲线 改善这些问题 图上的箭头 代表现在这个时间点 城市化与生态学... 可以说泾渭分明 我试着将二者合而为一 以崭新的方式融合到一起 大搞基建的时代结束了 这种大工程由政府牵头 功能单一，耗资巨大 实在解决不了问题 我们需要新工具、新方法 建筑理念也是如此 就像这种东西 根本不考虑周围景观 绝对无法... 不好意思 这东西太扎眼了... 我们不需要这种东西 因此我们要构建新理念 引入新角色，采用新工具
下面我就给大家介绍 帮我们对抗气候变化的英雄 它就是美东牡蛎 别看它个儿小 一点也不起眼 本事可是十分惊人 因为牡蛎能聚到一起 形成巨大的礁状结构 能够增殖，所以可以养殖 忘了说了，它味道也挺好 我在纽约港做了一个项目 算是宣示我的城市设计理念 这个项目就以牡蛎为基础 叫做“蛎之理” “蛎之理”的核心理念在于 借助贻贝、鳗草、牡蛎 即各种港口水生生物的力量 与此同时 也借助当地居民的力量 共同努力 改变现在的环境
这是我家乡纽约市的地图 红色区域被水淹没 圈住的部分是我要讲的... 郭瓦纳斯运河和总督岛 请看这张地图 蓝色的部分... 都属于水域 黄色的部分是陆地 凭直觉大家就能看出 纽约港本来多样而立体 疏浚平整后却成了烂泥一堆 这都是在短短几年内发生的 再看几张运河的实景图 我得承认，现在运河臭得很 污水过度排放 水体污染 但是我也得说 几乎每个城市都有这种情况 大家都面临这个问题 此图反映的就是这个问题 黄色绿色代表污染物 由于风暴潮、海水上升 污染更加恶化 所以说我们问题确实很多
我们开始做这个项目时 一个核心理念就是回顾历史 了解过去发生了什么 这是1770年的地图 大自然的鬼斧神工 在图上清晰可见 既有港外的一连串岛屿 又有纵横交错的盐沼滩涂 对于陆上居民来说 盐沼滩涂是天然防波堤 我们还了解到 当时运河产的牡蛎 足有餐碟那么大 因此我们的理念是“回到未来” 汲取前人建筑方面的智慧 这一理念要分两步走 第一要发展人工生态学 港外要有礁石 这样可以保护运河 保护内陆新建居民区 如果水质改善，水流减缓 人与水就能以全新方式共存
我们想创造性解决三个核心问题 水质、风暴潮、海水上升 现在回到环保英雄牡蛎身上 这种动物真是不可思议 从一端吸入藻类腐屑 再经过它神奇的消化器官 最后从另一端排除的... 却是净化了的水 一只牡蛎一天能过滤189升水 纽约港的¼... 都有牡蛎礁覆盖 几天就能滤好全港的水 我们的文化和经济都离不开牡蛎 基本上纽约的缔造者 就是采牡蛎的人 街道都铺在牡蛎壳上 这张图呢 是卖牡蛎的小车 现在跟热狗摊一样到处都有 本来是好好的东西 我们却只拿来填饱肚子 最后，牡蛎可以将身体... 变得稀薄，互相粘合 形成这些惊人的天然礁石 它是大自然的防波堤 而对所有港口而言 它又是生态系统的基石 许许多多物种都依存于牡蛎
牡蛎启发了我们的项目 但其生命周期也给了我新灵感 几个星期之内 牡蛎就能从受精卵变成... 到处漂游的幼体 再变成成年的雌雄个体 这就可以互相粘合了 我们以人类的视野范围 重新解读其生命周期 整条郭瓦纳斯运河 可看成巨型牡蛎育儿所 牡蛎在运河里长大 幼年阶段循流而下 然后再在湾脊礁繁殖 因此我们的核心概念 就是从头开始 逐渐重建生态系统 创造清洁可再生... 又生机勃勃的环境
那么牡蛎礁的原理是什么呢？ 非常非常简单 其中一个核心概念就是 要想解决气候变化问题 就不能等着天上掉馅饼 与其花200亿美元 不如利用现有资源 从现在做起，从眼前做起 这是一大片防波桩 连接桩子的是 这种毛绒绒的编织绳 你可能会问这是什么绳 其实是很平常的东西 一般五金店就能买到，很便宜 试想一下 我们自个儿烤些蛋糕卖 卖了的钱就够我们开项目了 （笑声） 我们在工作室里不画图纸 而是学怎么编绳子 把绳子编好 就可以为牡蛎的生长 提供崭新柔软的温床 这幅图大家可以看到 这项工程如何渐渐演变为 全新的城市公共空间 它可以因应气候变化 不断发展变化
同时这项工程也孕育了... 这个跨水陆的新型公共空间 这样人们的工作休闲 都会以全新方式进行 我们最后发觉这项工程... 其实是新型的“蓝绿”水上公园 专为下一个水世纪打造 可以叫做“两栖公园” 穿好凉鞋来这儿享受吧！ 想象一下你可以在这里潜水 这是一群高中生，准备潜水 这项工程他们也参与其中 大家可以想象一种全新生活方式 人与水之间建立全新的关系 同时一举两得 把休闲娱乐和科研监测结合起来
在这个美丽的新世界里 还有个新玩意——上飘器 这是“上涌飘浮器”的简称 这种装置很棒很简易 基本就是个飘浮的筏子 牡蛎在底下生长 海水搅动，流过筏子 边上有八个箱子养殖牡蛎 并强行给它们喂食 这样我们牡蛎的数量 不是十个八个，而是上万 然后牡蛎又可以繁殖 运河的未来是这样的 河岸有这种筏子 用我们的话说 就是“上飘化” 当地居民可以在河边看到 牡蛎的养殖过程 想想看，到时候 满河尽是木筏荡漾 小牡蛎沿河而下去筑礁 我们在岸上欢呼，多好玩啊！
有人问过我两个问题 一是何时能看到你们的成果 二是什么时候能吃上牡蛎 我的回答是，耐心地等一等 但我们计算过 可能到了2050年 大家就能享用牡蛎了
总而言之，我所讲到的 只是一座城市的一个剖面 而我的梦想与希望在于 大家回到各自家乡以后 我们能携起手来 同心协力 改造重建城市景观 打造一个更符合可持续发展观... 更宜居、还有美味可以享用的未来！
谢谢大家
（掌声）

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Kate Orff :Reviving New York's rivers -- with oysters!
I am passionate about the American landscape and how the physical form of the land, from the great Central Valley of California to the bedrock of Manhattan, has really shaped our history and our character. But one thing is clear. In the last 100 years alone, our country -- and this is a sprawl map of America -- our country has systematically flattened and homogenized the landscape to the point where we've forgotten our relationship with the plants and animals that live alongside us and the dirt beneath our feet. And so how I see my work contributing is sort of trying to literally re-imagine these connections and physically rebuild them. This graph represents what we're dealing with now in the built environment. And it's really a conflux of urban population rising, biodiversity plummeting and also, of course, sea levels rising and climate changing.

So when I also think about design, I think about trying to rework and reengage the lines on this graph in a more productive way. And you can see from the arrow here indicating you are here, I'm trying to sort of blend and meld these two very divergent fields of urbanism and ecology, and sort of bring them together in an exciting new way. So the era of big infrastructure is over. I mean, these sort of top-down, mono-functional, capital-intensive solutions are really not going to cut it. We need new tools and new approaches. Similarly, the idea of architecture as this sort of object in the field, devoid of context, is really not the -- excuse me, it's fairly blatant -- is really not the approach that we need to take. So we need new stories, new heroes and new tools.

So now I want to introduce you to my new hero in the global climate change war, and that is the eastern oyster. So, albeit a very small creature and very modest, this creature is incredible, because it can agglomerate into these mega-reef structures, it can grow, you can grow it, and, did I mention, it's quite tasty. So the oyster was the basis for a manifesto-like urban design project that I did about the New York Harbor called "oyster-tecture." And the core idea of oyster-tecture is to harness the biological power of mussels, eel grass and oysters -- species that live in the harbor -- and at the same time, harness the power of people who live in the community towards making change now.

Here's a map of my city, New York City, with showing inundation in red. And what's circled is the site that I'm going to talk about, the Gowanus Canal and Governors Island. If you look here at this map, showing everything in blue is out in the water, and everything in yellow is upland. But you can see, even just intuit from this map, that the harbor has dredged and flattened, and went from a rich, three-dimensional mosaic to flat muck in really a matter of years. Another set of views of actually the Gowanus Canal itself. Now the Gowanus is particularly smelly -- I will admit it. There are problems of sewage overflow and contamination, but I would also argue that almost every city has this exact condition, and it's a condition that we're all facing. And here's a map of that condition, showing the contaminants in yellow and green, exacerbated by this new flow storm surge and sea level rise. So we really had a lot to deal with.

When we started this project, one of the core ideas was to look back in history and try to understand what was there. And you can see from this map, there's this incredible geographical signature of a series of islands that were out in the harbor and a matrix of salt marshes and beaches that served as natural wave attenuation for the upland settlement. We also learned at this time that you could eat an oyster about the size of a dinner plate in the Gowanus Canal itself. So our concept is really this back-to-the-future concept, harnessing the intelligence of that land settlement pattern. And the idea has two core stages. One is to develop a new artificial ecology, a reef out in the harbor, that would then protect new settlement patterns inland and the Gowanus. Because if you have cleaner water and slower water, you can imagine a new way of living with that water.

So the project really addresses these three core issues in a new and exciting way, I think. Here we are, back to our hero the oyster. And again, it's this incredibly exciting animal. It accepts algae and detritus in one end, and through this beautiful, glamorous set of stomach organs, out the other end comes cleaner water. And one oyster can filter up to 50 gallons of water a day. Oyster reefs also covered about a quarter of our harbor and were capable of filtering the water in the harbor in a matter of days. They were key in our culture and our economy. Basically, New York was built on the backs of oystermen, and our streets were literally built over oyster shells. This image is an image of an oyster cart, which is now as ubiquitous as the hotdog cart is today. So again, we got the short end of the deal there. (Laughter) Finally, oysters can attenuate and agglomerate onto each other and form these amazing natural reef structures. They really become nature's wave attenuators. And they become the bedrock of any harbor ecosystem. Many, many species depend on them.

So we were inspired by the oyster, but I was also inspired by they life cycle of the oyster. It can move from a fertilized egg to a spat, which is when they're floating through the water, and when they're ready to attach onto another oyster, to an adult male oyster or female oyster in a number of weeks. We reinterpreted this life cycle on the scale of our sight and took the Gowanus as a giant oyster nursery where oysters would be grown up in the Gowanus, then paraded down in their spat stage and seeded out on the Bayridge Reef. And so the core idea here was to hit the reset button and regenerate an ecology over time that was regenerative and cleaning and productive.

How does the reef work? Well, it's very, very simple. A core concept here is that climate change isn't something that -- the answers won't land down from the Moon. And with a 20 billion dollar price tag, we should simply start and get to work with what we have now and what's in front of us. So this image is simply showing, it's a field of marine piles interconnected with this woven fuzzy rope. What is fuzzy rope, you ask? It's just that; it's this very inexpensive thing, available practically at your hardware store, and it's very cheap. So we imagine that we would actually potentially even host a bake sale to start our new project. (Laughter) So in the studio, rather than drawing, we began to learn how to knit. The concept was to really knit this rope together and develop this new soft infrastructure for the oysters to grow on. You can see in the diagram how it grows over time from an infrastructural space into a new public urban space. And that grows over time dynamically with the threat of climate change.

It also creates this incredibly interesting, I think, new amphibious public space, where you can imagine working, you can imagine recreating in a new way. In the end, what we realized we were making was a new blue-green watery park for the next watery century -- an amphibious park, if you will. So get your Tevas on. So you can imagine scuba diving here. This is an image of high school students, scuba divers that we worked with on our team. So you can imagine a sort of new manner of living with a new relationship with the water, and also a hybridizing of recreational and science programs in terms of monitoring.

Another new vocabulary word for the brave new world: This is the word flupsy. It's short for floating upwelling system. And this glorious, readily available device is basically a floating raft with an oyster nursery below. So the water is churned through this raft. You can see the eight chambers on the side host little baby oysters and essentially force-feed them. So rather than having 10 oysters, you have 10,000 oysters. And then those spat are then seeded. Here's the Gowanus future with the oyster rafts on the shorelines -- the flupsification of the Gowanus. New word. And also showing oyster gardening for the community along its edges. And finally, how much fun it would be to watch the flupsy parade and cheer on the oyster spats as they go down to the reef.

I get asked two questions about this project. One is, why isn't it happening now? And the second one is, when can we eat the oysters? And the answer is, not yet, they're working. But we imagine, with our calculations, that by 2050, you might be able to sink your teeth into a Gowanus oyster.

To conclude, this is just one cross-section of one piece of city, but my dream is, my hope is, that when you all go back to your own cities that we can start to work together and collaborate on remaking and reforming a new urban landscape towards a more sustainable, a more livable and a more delicious future.

Thank you.

(Applause)