Regenerative Hubs; Liminal Landscapes
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Date
2021-06-13
Authors
Gardiner, Sierra
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Abstract
Portland, Oregon does not have an urban climate change mitigation program to protect ecology, capture carbon, build
resilience, and develop social equity in a single strategy. Local programs are siloed into one or two aspects of climate
change mitigation and rarely overlap with broader initiatives. Meanwhile Portland has an array of liminal public lands
that have no future use. This Masters Project aims to transpose the principles of regenerative design onto undevelopable
liminal landscapes in urban Portland to test if these sites can contribute to climate change mitigation and if climate
change mitigation is the highest and best use of interstitial public land.
Using a Research-by-Design methodology, eight experimental designs were developed to meet four regenerative designbased
mitigation goals: 1) Enhance Social Equity, 2) Reduce Atmospheric Carbon/ Urban Heat Island, 3) Increase Ecosystem
Services, and 4) Encourage Resilience. Then, using three site typologies across all eight experimental sites—Right of Ways,
Underpasses, and Ghost Ramps—the design experiments were tested against case studies of similar design scope as well
as existing city programs to determine each sites’ aptitude for climate change mitigation using a regenerative design
hub framework and calculator. Following the design experiment phase, each site received a regenerative hub score and
was accompanied by an experimental design. The project concludes with projected climate change mitigation findings
based on discoveries from the eight experimental designs and an analysis of how existing city programs can be unified to
mitigate climate change on undevelopable public land.
Description
102 pages. Committee chair: Michael Geffel