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Inside / Outside

What is INSIDE of us, whether ‘us’ as defined as humanity, or biologically speaking, as an individual human being, is indelibly connected to what is OUTSIDE of us. On this planet, all living things originate from the same dust. And, we are all shaped by the world around us – people, nature, belief systems. That very simple truth is a grounding force at iO Studio. We embrace difference, knowing that in the end, we are all more alike than not. INSIDE / OUTSIDE is the place where we share what we individually and collectively have inside of us. A place where we catalog our thoughts, our explorations, our contributions to thought leadership, and the observations we make of the world around us, however small they may be.

Table of Contents

A Powerful Story of Perseverance:

The Proud Legacy of the Geechee People of Sapelo Island

In 2021, the studio had the opportunity to work on the Sagewood masterplan, a project spanning some 700 acres in Putnam county Georgia. Given the client’s African American roots and his generational ties to Georgia, a core tenet of the effort early on was to explore ways in which Black history and culture might be embedded within the plan and the design of its various features in as authentic a way as possible. Shape, form, materiality were all obvious considerations  as the conceptualization of architecture and site elements came into focus. However, it was the integration of two key programmatic elements geared toward building the revenue generating capacity of the plan which offered the most tangible, and valuable opportunity for the integration of black history and culture – 

The Pecan Orchard – conceived as an opportunity for research and collaboration with UGA, touches on the little known fact that the proliferation of the pecan industry began at the hands of a Louisiana slave named Antoine. 

And the Distillery – envisioned to develop Rum flavored with locally sourced pecans, and sugarcane syrup imported from the cane crops of Sapelo Island off of the Georgia coast. Home of the Geechee people – a small group of African Americans who, as their ancestors before them, still work the land there to this day. READ ABOUT THEM HERE:

It was and continues to be an honor to work on a  project with such profound ties to the proud traditions of African Americans and their contributions they made and continue to make to this country. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/08/dining/sapelo-island-sugar-cane-syrup.html

The Other ‘iO’ in iO Studio

In 2018, I had an opportunity to speak at Penn State University on the topic of race and open space. The subject is one that is never far from mind as a designer- the challenge of creating equal access to quality built and natural environments. The presentation was centered around the importance of providing opportunity to children to experience beautiful environments as often as possible, and to do so with intention. Working in Baltimore city, where poverty, disinvested neighborhoods and a dilapidated and under funded school system conspire to rob children of a chance to achieve much in life, providing ANY glimmer of reality outside of the impoverished, derelict shells of neighborhoods they come from is a desperate need. Common sense says so. Published science confirms it. Yet how many children never get to see the beauty of our world, or in cities like Baltimore, even experience the new park that may be just across town.

And so, in this space, i was moved to reflect on those caring individuals in my life who provided me the opportunity in my formative years to embrace the world and realize its beauty, and marvel at its possibility. A simple walk down a tree lined street, or through a park. A chance to see spring flowers in bloom and watch silently autumn leaves float gently to the ground. Simple, yet profound experiences that planted in me seeds of calm and curiosity. Curiosity that led me to search out a future in landscape architecture before i was even aware that such a profession existed. The person who so often brought me so many of those moments was my aunt, Irmgard Otte. 

On my drives through Baltimore City, or really any city or town where the fingerprints of inequity cloud so many views, I wonder to myself how many of the children that i see, made to play in yards of glass covered asphalt WOULD see hope beyond the despair in the environments in which they are forced to play; How many might not bend under the weight of the oppressive visual neglect they are made to consume each day, if they had the opportunity to experience something better.  Not just SEE it, but touch it. And not just touch it, but dream of one day creating spaces of beauty themselves, or simply know that a more beautiful world exists, and that it is as much there’s as it is anyone elses’s.  How many more landscape architects, environmental scientists, preservationists, might there be if there were more Irmgard Otte’s- or simply people who cared to give of themselves the time to open a child’s eyes to see that there can be a better future than the present they have been given.

I am not so naive to believe that the enormity the challenge that poverty and inequity presents in this country can be overcome by simple acts of caring. But ‘hope’ must begin somewhere. A seed cannot become a tree if it is never planted. 

And so in this space, I’d like to thank Irmgard Otte for the seeds she planted in my life. Though the love she poured into me went well beyond the moments spent in the parks of my hometown, Ansbach, Germany, those moments created an enormous impact on how i perceived the world around me. So much so, that I am proud to say that as much as the iO in IO Studio represents the belief that ultimately what is inside of us as human beings, is all around us, the naming of the studio (for me) is a nod to her selfless acts of giving. Thank you to my aunt, and to all of those who take the time to plant seeds when they can.

Project Birdland

Project Birdland was a product of the SOCIAL IMPACT STUDIO, a self initiated think-tank started at Mahan Rykiel Associates under Richard Jones’s leadership. The project sprung from a commitment to finding ways in which a design studio might create impact beyond the scope of the typical ‘for profit’ project. Click here for a link to the video at Dave Cooper Films.

A New Generation of Memorials Can Help Reset Our Understanding of Racism

Contemporary memorials can be powerful tools for resetting historical narratives around racism in our country. Embracing our true past — the horrors and the triumphs — will give us the space to accurately frame the American story, so that we might accept a more accurate accounting of where we really are on the path to equality.

Americans must create new memorials that are deep and resonate and omit the hyper-simplified token gestures of the past. Let us show the world, through new places of honor and memory, the maturity of a nation that has taken ownership of its past and is resolved in stamping out inequality. Only then can our nation’s core value — that all men are created equal — be held in truth in the hearts of all of its citizens.

Denying the truth enslaves us. Accepting it sets us free.

It might be said that the problem of addressing issues of racial equality in America in 2020 is as much a matter of refusing to take responsibility for one’s actions and changing them as it is racism itself. We struggle to move past our own legacy of hatred and discrimination because we have never fully accepted the truth of it.

Instead, we have rewritten the most vile, the most evil chapters of our past, carefully molding them into neat packages that one could argue resemble scary bedtime stories rather than the graphic and horrible truth. We know the narrative: slavery to freedom, oppression and inequality to the civil rights movement. Civil liberty and voting rights to President Barack Obama and the myth of a free and just America that we live in today; and along the way, Abraham Lincoln, Harriet Tubman, Fredrick Douglass, maybe John Brown, then Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Kennedy brothers. This may be an oversimplification, but it is far less than our chosen selective collection of right-sized stories portrays.

Most everyone will know the names above. They have been memorialized countless times across our nation, revered (and in some cases reviled) for their contributions in the fight for equality. But how many of us know Daniel Hale Williams, Garret Morgan, or Anne Lowe? How many of us know the horror beset upon the slaves known only as Anarcha, Lucy, and Betsy?

Similarly, we know the stories of Selma, Alabama. We know of Birmingham, Alabama, and pride ourselves in being able to recount the significance of all that occurred in those now hallowed places. But how many know of the massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma or Ocoee, Florida? How many know the outright treasonous coup that saw a legally-elected American government overthrown in Wilmington, North Carolina?

Some of us might know the name of Emmett Till. But how many know Jesse Washington or the unimaginable horror visited upon the thousands of blacks that were lynched from the late 19th century to the 1960s? I’d wager that comparatively, very few of us do. And that is by design.

This is because the stories of these people and places were never meant to be examined. The events were never meant to be revealed. The names, like so many other notable Black figures who gave of their lives and talents either willingly or by violent force snuffed out, remain all but omitted from our nation’s history. Their stories are erased, so the favored narrative might prevail.

Read More »

Less is More – Smart Strategies in Maintaining Urban Green Areas

It may take a little while to recalibrate one’s idea of what ‘beauty’ is in the context of urban green spaces (it certainly did for me) to appreciate the strategy some German cities have deployed in restoring natural habitat. I spent much of my youth in Germany and before establishing a base of operations here in Nuremberg in 2023 would visit at least once a year to see family. If there was one constant over the last 20 plus years, it was the high priority the local governments placed on the  development and maintenance of green spaces. So it was noticeable, when in 2022, I observed boulevards and park edges overgrown, and once meticulously manicured festival lawns now knee high in native growth. However, upon closer inspection and research into the WHY of what i was seeing, I discovered the beautiful method behind the seeming ‘madness’. 

Nuremberg operates its own infrastructure management company called SÖR. It serves as the single point of contact for all services relating to public space, i.e. streets, paths, squares and green spaces, playgrounds and much more. Since 2018 they’ve transitioned to mowing and planting strategies developed to balance the functional requirements of open spaces against the need for increased biodiversity and habitat for critical plant, animal and pollinator species.

How often SÖR mows an area depends on various factors:

How is the space used? A lawn needs to be mowed more often than the grass verge on the side of the road.

How close is the area to road traffic? To increase road safety, verges are mown three times a year.

Can the area be used as a special biodiversity area? A flower meadow serves as a home for bees, butterflies and other insects. It is mowed as rarely as possible.

SÖR’s urban areas are mown between one to ten times.

  1. Once or twice: natural areas as a home for insects, meadows on the outskirts of town and median strips.
  2. Three times: central and shoulder strips on roads
  3. Four to six times: sunbathing lawns, barbecue and sports areas or areas for events.
  4. Eight to ten times: historical facilities and football fields

A couple of facts

  1. SÖR mows 4 million m² of lawns and meadows.
  2. A quarter is mown less often than twice a year to ensure biodiversity.
  3. Many areas are mulched, which means the grass clippings are left lying around. This not only saves time and money, but also fertilizes the area straight away.
  4. The timing of mowing for semi-natural meadows depends on the flowering period of the flowers between April and October.

The above data is provided courtesy of the city of Nuremberg’s online portal. For more information read the full article here.

The Beauty and Brilliance of Neglect:

Duisburg Nord . Landschaft Park

Duisburg Landschaft Park is one of those places that you quickly realize is that rare instance when the experience in person is more impressive than the  grandest images you conjure up in your mind after seeing it on-line or in print. The site,  a re-purposed coal refinery, boasts a dizzying array of programmatic offerings, from rock climbing, to diving, playgrounds, to performance venues. The majority of the industrial infrastructure remains for visitors to climb up, walk along and through. Although there are zones that are access restricted, its remarkable to see how much of the facility has been re-purposed for active or passive use.

In addition to the program nestled immediately within the plant, there are open lawns, a flower garden and fountains as well as dine-in and grab and go food offerings. It truly is the type of experience you repeat; for a show, a picnic, lunch,  to stroll the grounds, learn how to dive, rock climb, or just spend the day letting your kids play in play areas. 

The park also boasts and impressive rainwater harvesting system, fed by a wind turbine that pumps water from the restored Old Emscher basin and makes it available for irrigation during dry spells. The planting displays are as beautiful as they are functional, with areas planted expressly for the purpose of soil remediation.

Visit the park’s site here »

Pool deck or propagation Table?

Can a shift in the American diet and the offerings of American developers help cool our warning planet?

The standard answer to that question is obvious – If there’s a demand for such a thing, the market will respond. But is it wise to wait for a market driven response when year over year, global temperatures are on the rise (along with sea levels), forests are ever dwindling, and the challenge of lack of fresh drinking water has jumped the curb of ‘third world’ problem and is squarely set to become an issue few nations wont have to deal with. One would think that with recent research predicting that we will see the collapse of the amazon rain forest in our life time, or that coastal cities like Manhattan, Miami and Copenhagen will be submerged by 2050, that humanity would be devoting all of its resources and brain power to literally trying to save ourselves from destruction… One would think. Yet, the challenge of addressing these issues is most often passed along from the everyday citizen to governments, the innovation sector, and global initiatives to address.

And yet, as dire as the situation is, whats needed isn’t altogether a Bruce Willis, ‘Armageddon’ type, high tech solution, or for everyone to just buy a Tesla to significantly slow the runaway train we’ve placed ourselves on. We could all just eat less meat, and depend less on farm grown fruits and vegetables. If you want to know what you can do everyday to help save the planet in a real, tangible way, that’s it. Of course, thats not REALLY it, but its a huge slice of the pie.

Most folks are familiar with the stats around the amount of methane a singe cow belches, but overall methane emission from ‘cow breath’ isn’t the only problem. Its compounded by the fact that natural, oxygen emitting, habitat sustaining environments are wiped clear to the tune of millions of acres per year to provide for land for livestock grazing and for the sustaining of that livestock. As global temperatures rise as a result, methane that has been locked in the earth under permafrost is also released, compounding the issue. Crops like rice also contribute heavily to methane emissions, but lets forget about cars, coal, and dirty energy and just focus on cows for a minute.

One simple, eye opening stat to capture the magnitude of the problem and the affect everyday citizens can have on it:

Cutting the world’s methane emissions by 30% over the next decade would have the same effect on global warming by mid-century as immediately shifting the global transport sector to net zero CO2 emissions.

And, meat based agg accounts for a signifacant percentage of overall methane emissions.

So, what would a world that is less reliant on meat consumption look like on the every day?

https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets

In the context of residential development? – One where we might prioritize food production and sustainable living as an ‘amenity’ over the allure of the flashy pool deck and intensive green roofs that make us FEEL like we are doing more good than we actually are. Enter the new ‘old’ urban garden.

We aren’t talking Agrihoods, here, which for all of there benefits, have a point of entry cost that many people wont be able to reach. Tricky valuations and innovative business models also make these ventures challenging. The gap that these type of developments dont address and that will increasingly need to be filled is for the middle to lower middle class citizen or family who may be renting their homes.

Enter the ‘allotment garden’.

Sometimes the high tech future we seek is rooted in the low tech past we as a society have either abandoned or forgotten. Spend any amount of time in Germany and you have likely come across the private garden plot, garden areas, or developments like the one pictured above in Nuremberg, centered around urban gardening. This is a tradition in Germany that goes back to the early 1900’s when municipalities, businesses, and charitable organizations created what were called ‘gardens for the poor’ – parceled green area allotments for the use of the working class and impoverished citizens. Later, a Leipzig doctor by the name of Daniel Moritz Gotlob Schreber promoted the development of green areas in urban development as a necessary benefit for urban youths. Thereafter, the Schrebergarten or Armengarten was born. Now referred to more commonly as the ‘allotment garden’ (english translation), the practice is entrenched in German culture.

What are they? Essentially communities built in (or literally around) parcelized parks / gardens where citizens can rent small, postage stamp sized areas for the purpose of retreating to nature. These areas are frequently used to grow flowers, fruits and vegetables, but sometimes serve simply as a needed retreat where urban dwellers can immerse themselves in nature and working with it to the degree they desire. The spaces themselves are leased on a monthly or annual basis and can be shared between owners or families.

Lots often have a modest, shed styled structure on them to provide area for tool storage or shelter for owners to retreat from the elements. Some include kitchens and a small sitting room.

Estimates vary, but many indicate an area of anywhere between 3000sf and 10000sf (depending on where in the world you are) can feed a family of four for 9 months if used for fruit and vegetable production alone. Keep in mind, this isn’t standard crop row farming, but rather, intensive, maximum useable area type farming.

https://djarchitects.co.uk/journal/10-05-21-at-11-13

In the context of traditional US multifamily mid and high rise developments, at grade and rooftop amenity spaces might provide an opportunity for a similar model to take root.

The project pictured above provides roughly 175,000 SF of internal courtyard area within the context of the development. In addition to this area, there exists 142,000SF of parceled garden area just west of the development. Although this additional area is not likely part of the residential community, incorporating the area into a simple calculation reveals that the two areas could yield enough food to feed between 100 and 150 people for most of a year on an entirely plant based diet. We’d have to inquire about how much food is actually produced in the development as its unlikely the plots were created to maximize food production, but the area dedicated to gardening is certain. Is this a silver bullet in the fight against global warming? Nope. But if the sensibility of urban agriculture practices like the 200 year old Allotment Garden were embraced and adopted in the US as a way of living (and developing), it could go a long way to providing the framework for common citizens to meanfingfully engage in the fight to save our planet and do so in a way that is grounded in sustainability, community building and personal enrichment and healthy living.