UWAC is rolling…

By UWAC | Published: March 17, 2010
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Spaces of chaotic and evolving life amongst the architecture of the city.

By Rachel Ruckstuhl-Mann">Rachel Ruckstuhl-Mann | Published: March 11, 2010

Auckland / New Zealand

What is Urban Wilderness and how do you envision it? : I envision it as the living spaces that allow a city and its inhabitants (human and non-human) to breath, that connect it to a sense of ecology and biology outside of our spaces of enclosure.

What type of interventions would love to see to help shape Urban Wilderness? We’re interested in both the practical and the fantastically impractical.: Urban treks, taking in the sights and natural wonders of the Urban Wilderness.

Planting orchards and vegetable gardens on the verges of roads, creating networks and corridors of plant life.

Creating treehouses and huts, using indigenous and modern methods of building structures that take account of context and place.

How would you practically teach and perform such an intervention? (and Would you be interested in leading it?): Facebook groups, tap into local community groups who are already doing community planting or interventions….

This post was submitted by Rachel Ruckstuhl-Mann.

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Wild in the City

By RC | Published: March 11, 2010

Portland, OR USA

What is Urban Wilderness and how do you envision it? : wildlands within the city
I envision this as a way to bolster fragile native ecosystems

What type of interventions would love to see to help shape Urban Wilderness? We’re interested in both the practical and the fantastically impractical.: long strips of open space that cross states and countries, planted with native, animal-friendly vegetation.
ways for birds to land and nest atop skyscrapers
the invention of pet collars that radically prevent attacks on wild animals
Less above ground parking lots

How would you practically teach and perform such an intervention? (and Would you be interested in leading it?): NOt interested in leading

This post was submitted by RC.

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moss on my nuts

By Eric Saline">Eric Saline | Published: March 5, 2010

gothenburg, sweden

What is Urban Wilderness and how do you envision it? : concrete, steel, glass grows everyday all around us; they seem to be a type of human-generated vegetation in an urban landscape? I personally can’t imagine what urban wilderness is supposed to mean, some kind of brain-fuck juxtaposition? Am I a nincompoop, probably, but this is an esoteric notion that seems too forced to me (sorry!). Nature, healthy ecosystems, with mosses, lichens, bugs, birds, animals, etc, need separation from the meddling efforts of human beings, the type of thing not possible in an urban setting because of the dense concentration of humans. Its nice to see plants in the city, but a proper “wilderness” has no place in the city as far as I am concerned.

What type of interventions would love to see to help shape Urban Wilderness? We’re interested in both the practical and the fantastically impractical.: I dunno, move to Detroit and help people reclaim that wasteland as a starter?

How would you practically teach and perform such an intervention? (and Would you be interested in leading it?): Public gardens as primary and secondary school projects?

This post was submitted by Eric Saline.

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living environments in industrialized Places

By marga">marga | Published: March 4, 2010

NY, NY USA

What is Urban Wilderness and how do you envision it? : To me, I see urban wilderness as living environments in industrialized settings. Whether it’s a community garden on a city block, a remediated vacant lot, a forest at the edge of town, a fountain in an office plaza, a cluster of container plants on someone’s desk, or a green roof on a building-these are all good examples of urban wilderness.. Its about juxtaposing organic things (like water, plants, soil) with inanimate (like buildings and roads) in order to enhance and/ or restore one’s environment.

What type of interventions would love to see to help shape Urban Wilderness? We’re interested in both the practical and the fantastically impractical.: I would love to be able to heal toxic places and toxic people. Plants are great at doing this. I would love to see vacant, toxic lots turned into wildlife and nature sanctuaries, and/ or centers. I would love to see community gardens preserved and waterways cleaned up so we could create oyster beds. I love the idea of living art. Nature telling a story in a thought provoking way. Maybe we could create a beecam in our community garden and dig up the blacktop to uncover underwater streams. Why not have a nature center in the East Village where people can learn about Manhattan from long ago. We could even have a geodesic dome greenhouse that grows native plants… Love to see one of those in every neighborhood…

How would you practically teach and perform such an intervention? (and Would you be interested in leading it?): I am a community gardener in the East Village. We love to share the history of our garden with the public. Plants tell stories about the history of the place. We have talked about creating a nature center that would teach the history of the area and allow for native plants and animals to return. We could use the plants we grow to create living art in low energy environments like subways, classrooms hospitals and homeless shelters.

This post was submitted by marga.

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for sale

By isellitwild | Published: March 4, 2010

San Francisco, California, USA

What is Urban Wilderness and how do you envision it? : there are lots of people in urban places. that’s what makes them urban. the wilderness is where there are few or no people, and therefore nature instead. Urban places are awash with commercial messaging, and wilderness areas are devoid of commercial messaging. Urban places have civilization and human-ordered structure, wilderness spaces have organic chaos.

What type of interventions would love to see to help shape Urban Wilderness? We’re interested in both the practical and the fantastically impractical.: To bridge the two seeming opposites, all you have to do is scale down: very small parcels of land in an urban area (such as a crack in a sidewalk that’s growing weeds), is still ‘undeveloped’ and ‘uninabited’ and therfore essentially wild. Such spaces only need a little help to reach their potential for recognizable “wilderness” appeal.

To create a form of ‘urban wilderness’ readily accessible to a truly urbanized population, communication about ‘urban wilderness’ spaces should be commercially messaged.

there should be urban wilderness real-estate agents selling off super small plots of what is generally regarded as negligeable public space to well-meaning urbanites interested in gardening projects, and who don’t want a big commitement of time or money but still want to experience “urban wilderness”. Parcels could be sold affordably as undeveloped land with property improvement provisions included: seeds/seedlings and gardening tools suitable to the super small parcels – like forks and spoons. Sellers would post for sale signs, and have buyers sign sale contracts.

You could even give people like plastic tie-collars (like the ones dogs use) so that then they could just put their face up close to their parcel, block out everything around them, and be “in” their new wilderness.

How would you practically teach and perform such an intervention? (and Would you be interested in leading it?): i would find a crack in the sidewalk, put a lawn chair next to it + a beer, put up a for sale sign, probably plant a plant in it while i wait for it to sell, then sell it, help them plant a plant maybe, then give the new owner my plastic dog collar hoop, and also ask to check out the view with them.

This post was submitted by isellitwild.

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The preservation, restoration, or natural succession of wild places in the city

By Liz N">Liz N | Published: February 24, 2010

Brooklyn NY

What is Urban Wilderness and how do you envision it? : Wilderness is all around us though we’ve paved over much of it. It fights the asphalt, struggling to succeed. Finds its way through crack and crevice, planting itself in abandoned buildings, untended sidewalks and parking lots. Nature thrives in the edge. In the gravel live tiny microbes, under sidewalks in compacted street tree beds, mycorrhizae are at work on the roots of isolated trees.

Most immediately, there are fragmented patches of remnants of wilderness in the parks in which we find refuge from the urban hardscape. On a rare occasion, alone in Prospect Park on a trail in ‘the woods,’ I am no longer in the city, or not the city of 2010.

Wilderness is where we feel an unnameable pull, a call to our heritage, to the billion-year evolution of our inner flora. Where we feel more human and more part of the planet from which we’ve sprung. It can happen while crossing the street, maybe catching the flight of a bird or its song. Or we can try to make it happen, seeking a piece of earth to claim for an afternoon of reflection.

What type of interventions would love to see to help shape Urban Wilderness? We’re interested in both the practical and the fantastically impractical.: Reclaim riparian buffer zones. Take over the paved over. Dig up the pavement and concrete and build urbanite moss gardens in shady alleys and backyards. Plant trees, shrubs, wetland grasses where the pavement was.

Reconnect the urban forest. Have a ’stream’ of trees continuing from Wave Hill down to Central Park, down Park Avenue. A line of trees connecting all of the city’s parks, relinking the mycelial network that allows them to thrive. Migrating birds will find more sanctuary. Maybe we’ll begin to get a sense of the thickness of birds described by early settlers. The air will be a bit cleaner. A newfound sense of calm will fall upon even the most trafficked city neighborhoods.

How would you practically teach and perform such an intervention? (and Would you be interested in leading it?): To start: Hold public demonstrations of what was once present, before it was paved over, using data from the Mannahatta Project. Create giant posters covering the fronts of buildings with recreations of forest stands. Hang flocks of birds from wires between buildings.

Secondarily, convince city planning and officials that street trees should have continuous tree beds extending the length of city blocks. Dig away the sidewalk between trees and plant low-maintenance grasses and plants.

Optimistically, obtain parcels of land and get to replanting forests and riparian buffer zones. I know there would be many willing participants to dig in. There’s just the small matter of procuring the land. Maybe we could start with the 12,000 acres of vacant land in the city first.

I would love to lead this kind of intervention.

This post was submitted by Liz N.

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A space where there is no control

By Christopher Rawlinson">Christopher Rawlinson | Published: February 23, 2010

Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

What is Urban Wilderness and how do you envision it? : I see Urban Wilderness as a place where natives are perfectly at home and confident in their environment. A place where the inhabitants have created an indemic system that self-regulates like an organism, so that it becomes productive, net positive and easily adaptable ensure it’s survival.
Urban Wilderness will always be under incursion by those who wish to TAME it, and HARNESS it for reason other than to ensure it’s continued existance. This is in direct conflict with the urban wilderness’ ego-centric nature. The Urban Wilderness seeks to only serve itself, and although it will adapt and change to ensure it’s evolution and survival, it will not adapt and change to meet the expectations of others. Certainly not without disproportionate expendatures of energy output versus production.

I see the Urban Wilderness as a place where visitors are simultaneously in awe, and self-conscious…

What type of interventions would love to see to help shape Urban Wilderness? We’re interested in both the practical and the fantastically impractical.: (WILD AND DANGEROUS FANATASY)
A complete ignorance of zoning regulations, whereby only productive and adaptive species (including edible and manipulable weeds) are planted and allowed to take ecological control.

(PERFECTLY REASONABLE)
An temporary instantaneous ignorance of zoning, events and property rights is observed, with sacrifical surfaces for the installation of mass community interventions, greens space, and events (block party!!!).. with the complete removal of all traces by the end of the intervention. This would create in the minds of particpants the memory of such a “wild” condition… that it might be documented and called upon when development of this concept is needed to be taken further and more permanent. Testing of evolutionary and adaptable characteristics of the Urban Wilderness could be tested through the concentrated and accelerated development of the space, prior to it’s prompt removal. Further analyis would be required to suggest which elements survived as a result of the resultant intensity as a substitute for time and it’s alternative effects upon the longevity of the phenomenon.

How would you practically teach and perform such an intervention? (and Would you be interested in leading it?): (WILD AND DANGEROUS FANATASY)
Mobilise existing Guerilla Gardening infrastructure coupled with an aggressive GG recruiting campaign preceding the planned launch of the intervention.

(PERFECTLY REASONABLE)
mobilise existing local sub-culture movements with the inticing prospect of being able to fully express themselves within the given temporary space. Let these groups work over and against each other and see what survives… known artists and writers, food guru’s, nearby bottleshops, mass-participatory music event, temporary provision of grazing plants (probably potted for easy removal).

I’m In Brisbane…. and in the first week of my FT Master;s Degree and working… I probably could not spare the time to participate in NYC. Brisbane would pose different political and social constraints on this project not engaged with in the above ramblings.

This post was submitted by Christopher Rawlinson.

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Mapping urban wilderness

By nora | Published: February 18, 2010

NYC, ny

What is Urban Wilderness and how do you envision it? : i guess you could define UW in many ways…most obvious are the green references, urban farm, gardens, etc..

Maybe this is going off the rails but…
What if you look at UW as a kind of map, tracing products from there roots (no pun intended) to the end user–like restaurants that use only or mostly locally grown foods, fig trees in Williamsburg –used for jams at the 14th st. farmers market,

Maybe the products are non consumables–a hand papermaker growing fibrous plants for inclusion in their paper…wool

What type of interventions would love to see to help shape Urban Wilderness? We’re interested in both the practical and the fantastically impractical.: n/a

How would you practically teach and perform such an intervention? (and Would you be interested in leading it?): n/a

This post was submitted by nora.

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Urban wilderness is unbounded growth in bound space.

By Chris Hamby">Chris Hamby | Published: February 18, 2010

Brooklyn / NY, United States

What is Urban Wilderness and how do you envision it? : Urban Wilderness at its best is natural growth and beautification in claimed or unclaimed space. It can be moss in cracks or a hawk in a city park.

This pioneering (or well established)growth reminds of the tenuous control of artificial structures over nature. Ideally it encourages thoughts of coexistence and appreciation of the natural world.

What type of interventions would love to see to help shape Urban Wilderness? We’re interested in both the practical and the fantastically impractical.: We need more plant and animal life in our cities, and I’d like to see more gardening on every level. From guerrilla artists replanting vacant lots to landlords establishing rooftop gardens to city officials greening parks, planters, and city land.

I would appreciate “billboard plants” – tracked in an online database that not only greened the space but inspired others to follow suit. Pop-up stores giving away seed bombs and bulbs. Wander the city with bag of thistles – attach to pant cuffs and bags of passersby.

How would you practically teach and perform such an intervention? (and Would you be interested in leading it?): Small groups or loose online teams could organize to accomplish these public awareness campaigns

This post was submitted by Chris Hamby.

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