Karl Kullmann
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  • Home
  • BIO
  • PUBLICATIONS
    • Peer Reviewed Articles >
      • Landscape of Things
      • Design with (Human) Nature
      • Reconceptualizing Suburban Terracing
      • The Drone's Eye
      • Dis/orientation Machines
      • Mirage of the Metropolis
      • The Garden of Entangled Paths
      • Topographic Urban Innovations
      • Concave Worlds, Artificial Horizons
      • Disciplinary Convergence
      • The Usefulness of Uselessness
      • Hyper-Realism / Loose-Reality
      • Emergence of Suburban Terracing
      • Red Loops / Green Links
      • Topographically Sensitive Urbanism
      • Design for Decline
      • Green Networks
      • De/framed Visions
      • Thin Parks / Thick Edges
    • Professional Articles >
      • Things that Matter
      • The Shape of Things
      • Aerial Reconnaissance
      • Fields of Decline
      • Fluid Geographies
      • High Fidelity
      • Hong Kong, Grounded
      • Design Liquidity
      • Satellites' Progeny
      • Route Fittko
      • Ecologies of Spectacle
      • Grounding Urbanism
      • Garden of Resistance
      • De/framed Gardens
      • Leaping Bridges, Forking Paths
      • The Paradox of Place
      • Is Landscape...? Book Review
    • Book Chapters >
      • Cultivating the City
      • Aerial Visions / Ground Control
  • PRAXIS
    • Public Gardens >
      • The Garden of the Forking Paths
      • Imprint Garden
    • Urban Parks >
      • Fremantle Esplanade
      • Park Rabet Leipzig
      • Centennial Park Sydney
      • Father Collins Park Dublin
    • Urban Design >
      • Kings Square Fremantle
      • Bahnhofsvorplatz Wiesbaden
      • Claremont Oval Perth
      • Fremantle Entry Strategy
    • Linear Parks >
      • Green Line Toronto
      • Rails to Kale San Francisco Bay
      • Emscher River Ruhrgebiet
      • Grünzug Leinefelde
    • Architectural Landscapes >
      • White Lakes Baldivis
      • The Peninsula Perth
      • CBD Courts Perth
      • Freiheit Zentrum Bern
      • Bavaria Hamburg
      • Red Bluff Quobba Station
    • Memorials >
      • Reconciliation Place Canberra
      • Gallipoli Peace Park
    • Speculative Infrastructures >
      • The Living Wall Esperance
      • The Galehouse Fremantle
      • The Darkhouse Cockatoo Island
      • Primate Enclosure Kings Park
    • Datascapes >
      • Urban Growth Scenarios 2050 Perth
      • Mapping Perth Metropolitan area
  • Teaching
    • Design Theses
    • Urban Design Studio
    • Project Design Studio 3
    • Project Design Studio 2
    • Project Design Studio 1
    • Case Study Studio
    • Ecological Design Studio
    • Suburban Studio
    • Detail Studio
    • Rural Studio
    • Bioregional Studio
    • Foundation Studio
    • Digital Visualization Course
    • Ground Up Journal
  • Contact

Ecological Design Studio
Re-imagining Walnut Creek, California

​Repairing Walnut Creek
Survival experts tell us that if we become lost in a dendritic landscape we should simply follow the water and head down hill – soon our rivulet will merge with a creek, then a brook, a river, and finally an estuarine or oceanic coast.  Humans build their settlements by water, so at some point in one’s fluvial tracking journey one will stumble upon a settlement and safety.  And yet in cities and towns all over the US, if we were to attempt to orient ourselves within the familiar structure of a riparian system, we would most likely become lost further still; such is the degree of modification and obfuscation of urban hydrological systems – often in the name of flood control efficiency, rationalized land use practices and a prevailing culture of detachment from natural systems.
 
This is no truer than for the Walnut Creek hydrological system in Contra Costa County.  Here, suburban developments aligned to abstract Cartesian coordinates and strong impulses for flood control, make the present ‘Walnut Creek’ virtually impossible to follow in an intuitive sense.  But along the lower reaches of Walnut Creek, a Contra Costa County initiative aims to unwind the restrictive mechanics of Army Corps engineering and recalibrate the brackish and silted levee system to a new set of more inclusive rules.  Within this emerging atmosphere of change, this design studio explored new languages for rebalancing urban rivers.
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Kenjiro Kito
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Daniela Pena Corvillion
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Michal Kapitulnik
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Catherine McDonald