With perhaps the exception of skating rings and sledding hills, urban parks are rarely thought of as a destination during Milwaukee winters. The design constructs an artificial microclimate as a maintenance strategy to sustain vegetation in winter and make the park active year-round.
Erie Street Plaza sits at the confluence of Milwaukee’s three rivers and the channel to Lake Michigan. “Far beyond the reaches of downtown” this abandoned post-industrial site is what StoSS describes as “a long and cold walk from anywhere”. The design advocates the utilization of available on-site water resources to create an unconventional seasonal program.
The park features the Radiant Grove, a series of bamboo planting beds that are integrated with a network of steam pits structured beneath the ground surface. Each steam pit includes a low-energy pump that draws groundwater up from the river below. Immersion heaters in the pits heat up the water to 150 F (65.6 C) and emit hot steam, which creates a warm microclimate within the cold surroundings. This microclimate is intended to sustain the growth of the bamboo during the winter months.
StoSS’s illuminated bamboo grove aims to “create a welcome respite from cold winter winds, to warm the hands and bodies of those out for a winter run”. The thermal and visual effects at very cold temperatures are envisioned to be impressive, while at warmer temperatures, up to 50 F (10 C), the steam effect is “visible but more ethereal”. Visitors are envisioned to stroll through the “otherworldliness of this artificial ecology”. As winter fades and spring temperatures rise above 50 F (10 C) the system shuts off until next winter.
Images copyright StoSS Landscape Urbanism(First in a series of excerpts from Living Systems: Innovative Technologies and Materials in Landscape Architecture)
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