Watershed Protection as Functional Art

I was strolling past exhibits yesterday at Maker Faire when a table full of design prototypes caught my eye. There was a range of designs represented, from tablet PC cases made from plastic, wood and foam, to handbags made from pressed, recycled felt that a drycleaner could unzip and lay flat for periodic cleaning. Most of the pieces were thoughtful, functional and often pleasing to the eye and to touch. (I ignored a few of the ‘do not touch’ signs).

What grabbed my attention, though, was a prototype of an erosion control installation that was the work of Daniel McCormick, a sculpture artist who uses native materials to construct watershed restoration installations. His work is beautiful—even inspiring—because his art blends in with the environment while serving an important engineering function.

His work got me thinking about how many ways we conduct massive civil engineering projects with little regard for how materials blend or even aesthetically compliment the installation environment. (McCormick—on a small scale—instead designs his art to disappear altogether after vegetation has had a chance to reestablish itself.)

Designers of commercial systems are creating products that minimally satisfy environmental and building code requirements. Most often the purchasers of these products are trying to come in as the lowest bidder among a choice of contractors.

McCormick is by profession an artist who creates functional installations that don’t necessarily satisfy construction requirements, but his work provokes an interesting design framework for better erosion control products:

• Does the design hold, divert, interrupt, or manage water flow in a way that reduces or eliminates damage to the watershed?
• Does it protect wildlife species and water quality? Can it enhance them?
• Does it blend with the natural environment in an aesthetically pleasing way?
• Does it involve or include materials native to the environment? Do native materials represent a high percentage of the product’s makeup?
• Can these native materials be produced or grown sustainably?
• Does it disappear or disintegrate (if appropriate) in a time-predictable fashion?
• Can it be reproduced at a scale appropriate for commercial application?
• Does that scale reduce price that would attract purchasers who are trying to compete on overall project cost?
• Are the products easy to install by skilled or non-skilled laborers?

Here are the kinds of "ditch brakes" we usually see:

...compared to McCormick’s approach:

Here are some commercially available gabions (big, stackable rock baskets)

...and a design alternative (not McCormick’s…and not stackable)

Here’s a question to physicalinterface’s community: Are there design alternatives to the following devices that also satisfy the requirements outlined above?

Steep regrades:

Culverts and canals with varying water levels throughout the year:

Massive grading projects:

About McCormick (From Green Museum’s Website):

A former student of James Turrell with a degree in environmental design from UC Berkeley, Daniel McCormick specializes in erosion control and watershed restoration sculpture. Often with the help of volunteers and schoolchildren, McCormick weaves elegant basket forms using green willow and materials he finds on site and places them directly into eroded gullies and riverbanks.

The sculptures are strategic interventions designed to "fit into the curves of the streams and gullies where they fill with leaves and twigs, collecting sediment that would otherwise suffocate the salmon and steelhead eggs in their spawning areas." McCormick works mostly in in Marin County, California with students, the National Park Service, and the County.

His sculptures and sketches are exhibited in galleries and museums, yet the pieces themselves are created to live outside where they eventually take root, collect sediment and "gradually disintegrate, returning to the earth." In the process, they contribute to stabilizing riverbanks, restoring water quality and enhancing fish spawning grounds. McCormick’s inspiring eco-art is the result of effective collaboration with watersheds, the local community, and public land managers.