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Present: Bill Barry, Tom Berentes, David Bliss, Susan Brauner, Matthew Bronski, Dennis Collins, Shane Crowe, Margaret Dyson, Cathy Baker-Eclipse, Marilyn Fenollosa, David Hart, John Hecker, David Kelman, Ryan Kennedy, David King, Maciej Konieczny, Liza Meyer, Henry Moss, Pat Morrissey, Deane Rykerson, Ian Schmellick, Susan Schur, Malcolm Smiley, R. Drew Sondles, Eric Ward, Tim Withers 1. NESEA Conference 2009: This year's NESEA Conference showed the countercultural impetus of the Whole Earth Catalog finally blossoming into new engineering applications and policy directions, one example being new attention placed on the energy performance of historic structures. Henry Moss noted that Gov. Patrick's Net Zero Energy Task Force report recommends that when large additions are made to existing structures, the "host" building meet the new energy code. [The report cites the Arlington house that Sally Zimmerman discussed at the Feb. HRC meeting as an exemplary residential application of a "deep retrofit" of exterior insulation, Getting to Zero at www.mass.gov/eea Note: the word "historic" never appears in the 48-page report; nevertheless, it contains many very sensible suggestions.] 2. Traditional Building Conference: The conference began the day before the HRC meeting. 3. Recent Cambridge Historical Commission Documents: Peter Trudeau of the CHC staff recently completed guidelines for homeowners who may be confused about the advantages and disadvantages of retaining their old wood windows. In April, MIT Press will release Fresh Pond, the History of a Cambridge Landscape. Author Jill Sinclair did extensive research at CHC, using their records. The narrative and photographs, maps, drawings and other visual records contribute equally to the unfolding of her story. 4. Conversion of Historic Industrial Landscapes: New England's rivers continue to flow past underutilized and vacant 19th and early 20th century mills. Henry Moss led the committee through a discussion of landscape architecture responses to the sites when their buildings are adapted for new uses. Dour black and white images of working industrial sites showed smokestacks, slag heaps, and precipitous piles of coal; these emphasize the distance between their original characters and the gentler expectations of today's office users or condominium owners. The first thesis was that we have yet to develop a convincing visual language that can relate the past lives of these sites to modern nonindustrial uses. The second level of discussion engaged the special engineering difficulties of managing storm water run-off, floodwater detention, and potential mobilization of soil pollutants on these extended river banks and filled flood plains. Henry presented historic images of an early 20th century electricity generating plant now operated for steam production by Harvard University at Blackstone St. and Western Ave. in Cambridge, the Boott Cotton Mills in Lowell, and the Waltham Watch Factory on Crescent St. in Waltham. Historic landscape treatments often included small ceremonial or symbolic flower beds or lawn in front of the administrative offices. Typically, these designs had a municipal flavor, with late 19th c. plant materials arrayed with rigid formality. Elsewhere on the site, puddles, ramps, stacks of materials waiting to be used or discarded, unpaved patches of waste ground, outbreaks of wild flowers, and heaps of fuel provided the outdoor framework. Storm water management became the central idea in the designs developed at the Waltham Watch Factory by Richard Burck Assoc. and at Harvard's Blackstone St. project by Landworks/studio. At Waltham, the Charles River Watershed Association collaborated with the design team on conceptual design. Pollutants include high temperatures gained from hot streets and parking lots, phosphorous, nitrogen and other nutrients, hydrocarbons, and chloride ions from road salts. These pavement-related sources of pollution are rigorously separated from roof-top run-off, which is much cleaner. Infiltration through deep trenches filled with coarse crushed stone removes pollutants, except for chloride, and diverts water from municipal storm drains. At Harvard's Blackstone St. complex, run-off from paved areas flows into a bioswale, where graded sand and a specialized soil profile filters the water while bacteria remove nutrients and pollutants. The bioswale is planted naturalistically with large shrubs, grasses and small trees. Rain water that runs off of roof tops is cleaner, because it is free of oil and gas pollution. An unfertilized and unirrigated "no-mow lawn" is drastically contoured to capture, retain, and direct this clean water to the Charles River. In Waltham, circumstances were different. Soil contaminants there that were byproducts of metalworking and degreasing were benign when buried and dry, but less so when mobilized by storm water introduced by infiltration trenches. Infiltration trenches now interrupt parking areas and line the down-slope boundaries to intercept and cleanse storm water passively while diverting it from storm sewers. The crushed stone fill also traps and removes suspended solids. Vines are planted along the north sides of the trenches and will grow to cover the crushed stone. Elsewhere in the site, a parking lot will be paved with porous asphalt with a fast-draining substrate - an extensive, planar infiltration mechanism. Run off from roofs is captured in gutters, and downspouts drop it into a series of runnels - some made of granite cobbles, some long precast concrete U-sections. These channel water into long membrane-lined rain gardens planted with grasses. The rain gardens allow water to pass horizontally through soil until it cools sufficiently to release into the Charles River. Rain gardens (outside of Seattle) are typically dry, but they flood periodically. At the Watch Factory rain gardens are constructed of weak concrete, lined with EPDM, filled with soil, and function as basins. They are separated from building faces to avoid undermining rubble stone foundations. The rain gardens run long distances in parallel to equally long beds planted with native ferns. These long horizontal architectural gestures are further reinforced by long paths and walkways in courtyards that parallel the 110' lengths of building walls. While the scale and simplicity of these elements complement the scale of the industrial buildings, they do not evoke the dangerous, crazy mess that the factory sites had been. The Low Impact Design approach to landscape solutions for storm water required an unusual level of coordination among team members: civil engineer BSC Group; soils specialist Pine & Swallow; geotechnical engineer Haley and Aldrich; landscape architect Richard Burck Associates; Bruner/Cott; and Columbia Construction with site sub-contractor DRL. Cathy Baker-Eclipse of Boston Parks noted that rapid groundwater recharge is a design and management objective for their parks: they believe it is important to get water back into the ground as quickly as possible. Henry had said that he knew of no effective passive method for removal of chloride ions. Dennis Collins of Mount Auburn Cemetery cited studies about road salts by Washington State U. that showed how chlorides contribute to soil compaction and can kill the hyphae of beneficial fungi. Many fungi can also remove toxins from polluted soil by breaking down their chemical compounds. [Do other BSA committees refer to chemistry as frequently and superficially as we do?] 5. Construction History Group: Sara Wermiel and Matthew Bronski are planning to form a group to pursue topics in construction history. E-mail Sara at swermiel@verizon.net if you want to take part.
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