Understanding The
Urban Landscape-
The Urban Habitat Project at
the Central Terminal
Published in ArtVoice 7/18/13 http://artvoice.com/issues/v12n29/news_briefs/urban_habitat
By Jay Burney
One of the most profoundly important projects in the city of
Buffalo in 2013 is not on the waterfront, not downtown, not affiliated with UB,
and probably is not even on your radar screen. It is a big part of the Central Terminal Restoration Project
(CTRP). Although the actual
restoration of that magnificent building, imprinted richly with the fabric of
WNY history is very significant in how our city thinks about itself and our
future, it is how they are dealing with the property outside and adjacent to
that building that is new, innovative, and exciting. It is transforming how we
look at urban landscaping.
It is called the Urban Habitat Project (UHP). David Majewski began several years ago
to look at ecosystem services and habitat restoration strategies in an urban
setting and engaged the not for profit board of the CTRP and the City of
Buffalo in this reclamation project.
Majewski, who runs his own landscaping and construction business
Premescape, began earnestly thinking about Buffalo’s urban landscape from a
more naturalistic perspective in the aftermath of the October 2006 Arborgedden
snowstorm. This expensive disaster
proved an opportunity to rethink how we use and develop urban spaces with an
emphasis on RED (Regenerative and Ecological Design) Principles. “We need to
work with nature, protect nature, nurture nature, and learn from nature,”
Majewski told us. We can take
urban spaces, make them beautiful, and at the same time help with storm water
runoff, protect pollinators and other valuable urban wildlife.”
Essentially RED principles encourage finding ways to engage
natural strategies to promote ecological services. These include composting, storm
water runoff, and the promotion of biodiversity. Majewski calls this “low
impact development” in that you don’t create expensive high maintenance
landscaping that resists the way nature works and looks. We can help nature to
help us.
This promotes a fundamental approach to climate change in
that we restore soils and services though composting, create a biodiverse
environment that supports ecosystem services such as air and water filtration,
is low maintenance, creates a green urban zone that helps to sequester carbon
and moderates heat and cold in the middle of an intense urban place.
Majewski and the CTRC together have created a beautiful
natural landscape at one of our most important urban sites. The UHP landscape
includes plantings of native species that encourage pollinators and a diversity
of other wildlife species including dragonflies, butterflies, and songbirds.
The space has designed ecosystems including a small cattail marsh (used for storm
water runoff), meadow and upland, and a growing canopy of native trees and
shrubs.
Majewski uses the project as a classroom and as a
demonstration project to show that important “green” landscaping techniques can
be created cost effectively and can create functional, educational, and
beautiful places. This year the National Garden Festival and the Garden Walk Buffalo
will include the UHP as a stop on the “Beyond Flowers Tour.”
Majewski and the CTRC collaboration have been tireless in
the pursuit of making the Urban Habitat Project work. Today, a couple of years
after the first shovel turned earth, the promise of this site is becoming
profoundly evident.
If you get a chance, go and take a look at its summer beauty
and magnificence, in the setting of one of Buffalo’s most important sites, the
Central Terminal.
