As hurricanes improve in frequency and depth, Puerto Rico’s panorama architects have options for managing rivers, stormwater, erosion, and coastal growth—if solely the federal government would ask.
By Laurie A. Shuster
In 2017, back-to-back hurricanes Irma and Maria devastated Puerto Rico, inflicting tons of of billions of {dollars} in harm and taking roughly 3,000 lives. The territory was nonetheless recovering when Hurricane Fiona struck in September 2022, bringing as much as 30 inches of rain in some areas, killing 25 folks, knocking out energy to the whole island, and inflicting some $10 billion in extra harm.
In early October, three panorama designers and educators in Puerto Rico met on Zoom to debate the position panorama structure has performed—and might play sooner or later—in defending the island from more and more ferocious and frequent storms.
The dialog included Olga E. Angueira, ASLA, the director of educational affairs for structure and panorama structure at Universidad Politécnica de Puerto Rico; Yanick Lay Fumero, a professor of panorama structure at Universidad Ana G. Méndez and a self-employed panorama designer; and Cecile M. Molina-Machargo, the director of design applications within the Division of Design and Structure at Universidad Ana G. Méndez.
This dialogue has been edited and condensed for readability.
Do you assume there was any enchancment since Hurricane Maria and even simply the previous 20 years in understanding by the general public and by public entities of how panorama architects can contribute to the resilience of the island?
Yanick Lay Fumero: Puerto Rico is in a really delicate infrastructural state, and that will get exacerbated each time now we have a persistent or typical [storm]. [It’s] very regular for the geographical scenario the place we dwell to have hurricanes chronically, proper? It’s a matter of, as all the time, the place folks dwell after which how they dwell in relation to pure assets.
Hurricane Fiona was a heavy rainwater occasion, [and] folks don’t understand how huge rivers can get. Folks don’t understand how a lot water [hurricanes] can begin to deliver, after which you will have housing and other people constructing with out permits shut to those our bodies of water, after which you will have a giant downside. I feel that’s what we’re seeing in Puerto Rico proper now.
Socially and politically, there’s a battle between the way in which planning occurs in Puerto Rico and the way huge developments are allowed near delicate pure assets. There’s miscommunication, or there’s a scarcity of presence, when it comes to understanding how this impacts the landscapes. It occurred when it comes to erosion on the coast, and it additionally occurs when it comes to erosion within the upland, or larger up within the mountains the place soil is extra what they name arcilla, or extra claylike. It has a weaker capability of dealing with water, so it tends to slip extra simply.
There’s additionally a chance for panorama architects to [work] with the scientific neighborhood, and likewise in tandem with engineers, to begin creating higher options for these kinds of issues. It’s getting to a degree the place I’m seeing, at the very least in our establishment, numerous curiosity from youthful generations to review the occupation and to be taught extra in regards to the relation[ship] of constructed structure [and] growth to nature or to vegetation or to public areas.
Cecile M. Molina-Machargo: One of many main issues now we have in Puerto Rico, when it comes to our participation in these tasks on the shoreline, for instance, [is] there isn’t any junta or a board of panorama architects that responds to the federal government when these permits are being handed away to assemble proper there in areas which can be completely weak to the flows of the ocean.
I do know that there are a lot of nations on the planet [where the] authorities has boards of panorama architects that work with them to make sound and correct selections for the event of cities, as to what must be constructed and [where and] why, you understand? They don’t take [our] viewpoint into consideration when this stuff occur in Puerto Rico.
What will be carried out about that difficulty?
Olga E. Angueira, ASLA: We should be extra vocal. We’re getting a brand new era of panorama architects, however [they are] traditionally not very—how can I say?—vocal.
We’re a small group, and typically the work depends on the identical 5, six of us, and we [have] so much in our palms. Proper now, I’m on the college, I’m additionally the president of the Institute of Panorama Architects of Puerto Rico, I do lessons, I do non-public tasks at any time when I get an opportunity. [It] will get to a degree the place I can’t do every thing, and I do know Yanick and Cecile would possibly really feel the identical, as a result of it’s only a handful of us [who] are prepared to speak about it. However we don’t have sufficient time.
Fumero: As a professor, there are targets that you just tackle. I create numerous tasks and expose [students] to conflicts in tasks which can be very associated to the issues that now we have right here on the island. In several studios, we cope with issues associated to infrastructure. We [might] discuss army occupation on the island and what that does and the marks that that leaves in [the] panorama.
Within the particular person sense, [consider] what’s inside your scope that you would be able to begin pursuing to assist or to contribute to bettering the scenario. I feel, as educators, we first have to begin with the scholars—with serving to them develop, or having them develop alongside us, these subjects which can be essential to the island. That’s one of many most important focuses that I feel I take individually, when it comes to addressing that downside, as a result of it’s exponential, proper? Let’s say now we have 30 college students, then they exit available in the market or they exit to the office and people are the concepts that [they] try to work round. These are the basics, I feel, that they begin pursuing.
I all the time say Puerto Rico could be very small, so all the issues appear very huge, however these are issues that we see in [the] states; these are issues that we see in several nations. It’s only a matter of assets, and likewise training, and being very energetic to find inventive options. Every time you will have restricted assets, you must be much more inventive, much more energetic to find these inventive options that at instances don’t rely [on] extra [funds].
Angueira: We’re all the time [at a] drawback when it comes to the design and building business. You recognize, we’re barely, I don’t know, 50, 100 perhaps, in comparison with hundreds of architects and an even bigger variety of engineers who’ve been the leaders in building all through a long time.
It’s sophisticated to vary the methods through which they’ve been skilled and labored for therefore lengthy. So now we have to be very strategic, as a result of clearly, the collaborations with the scientific neighborhood [are] crucial, however then I feel it’s simpler with them as a result of we each perceive the affect. However we additionally need to be very strategic in how we create these collaborations and connections with architects and engineers, [because] not all of them see issues the identical manner. It’s a matter of training them and making them perceive that bringing us with them within the tasks from the start, it’s a win–win for everyone.
What panorama interventions have occurred because the final couple storms, and the way did they have an effect on this storm?
Fumero: I used to be part of the event for the El Portal Customer Middle at El Yunque Nationwide Park. I used to be working privately with one other structure agency. That undertaking was fully designed round storms and stormwater administration, so we designed it to accommodate all of the water masses. We made a collection of rain gardens and totally different plazas and landscaping preventions that had been meant to cope with stormwater.
That’s a federal undertaking. It was very nicely funded. It was a big workforce. We had panorama architects, architects, engineers. It was a kind of tasks the place you get to see each single element that must be within the [design]. Executing the work after which seeing [that] it labored now with Fiona and having been there just lately, it’s a pleasure to have the ability to see how that labored at that exact second.
Angueira: I needed so as to add a few tasks that I feel have been profitable. Considered one of them was carried out manner earlier than Hurricane Maria—the linear park in Bayamón. Bayamón River begins up within the mountains and goes all through the north. It meets the ocean [on] the north aspect of the island, and that river, a very long time in the past it used to flood. And it flooded a few of the city areas. A undertaking was developed on the linear park that runs by, perhaps six, seven miles alongside the river.
With the final couple of storms which have introduced numerous water, that undertaking has proved that it really works. And it’s inexperienced infrastructure, as a result of you will have this actually lengthy park that permits folks to train. Folks run, they stroll, they bike—they’ve separate lanes. There’s a few kiosks alongside the way in which. And when the river begins going up, the park was designed in a manner that, topographically, it goes larger so it protects the urbanizations, the residents close to the river, from getting flooded. And it labored in Maria, and it labored in Fiona as nicely.
Moreover that undertaking, there’s additionally what is known as the City Hub. It’s a personal undertaking right here in Hato Rey in downtown [San Juan], and it’s a undertaking that was sponsored by Banco Common, [one of the] greatest banks right here in Puerto Rico. And the late panorama architect Vilma Blanco [worked on] that undertaking. It’s an city park and plaza and it has numerous city areas, however it works with a system of rain gardens, and it captures rainwater. And I imagine that undertaking additionally helped with the stormwater administration in that zone, which used to get very flooded as nicely.
There [are] additionally two inexperienced roofs right here in Puerto Rico. The primary one was carried out by Vilma Blanco as nicely, within the music conservatory in Miramar. The roof backyard was carried out on high of the roof of a car parking zone when the college was being renovated and prolonged.
It’s a giant plaza, and it has bushes and type of an amphitheater, as a result of the scholars can play and provides concert events on the market, and it overlooks the Condado Seashore, so it’s a very nice space. And it was proposed with many concepts, to offer that view of the bay, make that roof of the car parking zone look good as a result of now we have numerous parking heaps. And likewise [there was] the thought of accumulating a few of the rainwater by that most important roof, and I imagine they’ve a cistern system that recycles water. And that was additionally carried out earlier than Maria.
After which Edmundo Colón Izquierdo, ASLA, labored on the inexperienced roof on the Cuartel de Ballajá constructing, a historic constructing in Outdated San Juan. He designed this inexperienced roof that has photo voltaic panels so that they acquire vitality for the constructing, however in addition they have the inexperienced roof as a manner of coping with not solely the temperatures of the constructing but in addition the impermeability of the roof. There’s a complete ecosystem created and a complete habitat created upstairs. You will have birds and bees, and there are ponds with fish, after which the folks [who] work there are the custodians of the backyard, they usually have a vegetable backyard upstairs.
Tasks like these are ones that we have to maintain displaying and selling so folks know what they’re; they aren’t simply there to make issues fairly, however they’ve these different capabilities which can be so essential.
Broadly talking, what interventions would deliver essentially the most worth at this level to Puerto Rico?
Molina-Machargo: We’ve so many tasks we might do in Puerto Rico, significantly in panorama structure, to reinforce and to make higher the standard of life and the standard of environmental well-being right here with our landfills. We’ve been notified [that] now we have to shut this landfill, then now we have to shut this different landfill as a result of it’s as much as the highest of capability. However we haven’t carried out something particularly to sort out all these closed landfills to make an financial system out of it, as they’ve carried out in different places world wide—to have the ability to use that downside [to] our profit.
Angueira: I feel that working with the rivers is essential as a result of this final occasion, Fiona, made us actually conscious of what number of rivers now we have and the issue that comes once you construct close to the river or once you change the course of the river for building. And it’s going to maintain on taking place. The river, it’s all the time going to wish to return to its unique form and type and route. That’s what occurred with Fiona. The rivers simply went their manner, and we had been of their manner, you understand? People had been of their manner; the development was of their manner. Proper now, once you discuss to folks, it’s, ‘The rivers are the enemy.’ No, they’re not the enemy; we’re the enemy. We’re those that modified their course.
And in type of a smaller scale, I feel that parking heaps are one other factor that must be redesigned, as a result of although there’s a code right here that requires you to have so many bushes for therefore many parking areas, it’s not taking place. They don’t have any bushes, or if they’ve bushes, they’re actually small ones, and it doesn’t work. After which we’ve been having numerous warmth waves. Effectively, in fact now we have warmth waves—we don’t have bushes to guard us! So, [on] a smaller scale, I feel that if we return to all these parking heaps and begin working and including bushes and dealing with bioswales and rain gardens inside the parking heaps, little by little, that can make a giant distinction. And it’s not that sophisticated.
What else would you need different panorama architects to know?
Molina-Machargo: One of many main issues now we have proper now could be our electrical grid. We used to have tasks that functioned earlier than we had been born, just like the hydroelectric vegetation that we used to have that they let slide, and now we want them. We’ve the water; why can’t we simply activate these tasks once more so we are able to transfer ahead in how we’re coping with our electrical energy? That is ongoing; each day the facility is out in your home, the facility is out at my home. And we’re going by that each day; it’s loopy.
Fumero: I feel it’s essential for panorama architects who aren’t from Puerto Rico to get in contact and to analysis and study Puerto Rico’s present political [situation] with america. I feel that’s the very first thing, as a result of numerous the subjects that we’re overlaying right this moment, they actually [are] tied to the way in which we [are] associated, or the autonomy that now we have or the autonomy that we don’t have. We’re nonetheless form of [in a] colonial relationship with america. [In] the historical past of Puerto Rico, now we have all the time had hurricanes. For instance, in El Yunque, the nationwide tropical rain forest, we don’t get sequoia[-sized] trunks, we get extra skinny, secondary developments, and I feel it developed that manner to be able to adapt shortly and regrow shortly, proper? All the issues that we’re seeing are associated to how infrastructure has been developed on the island and the way now we have been working from that time on.
Molina-Machargo: Our situation is colonial, and I’ll simply converse for myself: I hate that situation. I don’t like being colonial. On the identical time, as a result of we’re in a colonial situation state, as an island to the USA, we get federal funds for training, this and that, and I feel that a kind of funds must be directed to tasks for panorama structure so [we] can repair a complete bunch of issues that need to be mounted on the island. If we’d obtain a federal fund that may be only for panorama architects to have the ability to suggest totally different tasks after which that [would] be adopted by and constructed, then we [could] transfer ahead.
