Introduction
The Cyan is a mixed-use residential building located in downtown Portland, Oregon. Sixteen stories tall, it includes 350 residential units and ground floor retail. The Cyan has just been certified LEED Gold. Landscape design is a defining element of the project, as over half of the building footprint is either vegetated ecoroof or pedestrian-oriented open space. This landscape is a case study in how both thoughtful design and a guiding agenda of sustainability can receive equal attention in one project, and how this process can lead to expressions of sustainability as high design features in themselves.

Aerial view of the project

The developer, Gerding Edlen Development Company, has a record of building projects that incorporate both sustainability and high quality urban design. For the Cyan, the building’s program and goals  were tailored to appeal to a specific, sustainability-minded resident - an urban, modern city-dweller who seeks to minimize their carbon and waste footprints by intentionally choosing a living space with high environmental standards, but who also appreciates cutting-edge design. Social activities programmed by the building management and opportunities for multi-modal transportation in the district also support the sustainable lifestyle concept.

This niche program helped to bring sustainability to the foreground of the design process. In the context of the Cyan’s intended community, sustainable design features are allowed to be expressed as high design and as defining qualities of the experience at the site. The owner’s commitment to sustainability also meant that major elements were not value engineered out of the project.

Landscape Design: Integrating Sustainability
The building footprint occupies nearly the entire site, with only a 6 foot building setback. As a result, almost all of the landscape for the project is on-structure. The property is bordered on three sides by pedestrian malls closed to automobile traffic. These are part of an historic landscape, including a string of parks and fountains designed by Lawrence Halprin in the 1970s.

The pedestrian amenities and stormwater facilities at the perimeter of the site are designed to respect the adjacent historic landscape but update its execution. The vocabulary of benches, trees, and low evergreen groundcover is carried forward, but instead of the ubiquitous English ivy, (now a major problem in Oregon natural areas) the ground plane is covered by native ferns and grasses.

A 7,200 sf ecoroof is planted on the 4-story podium level of the building. It is visible from units in the tower and surrounding buildings, and is laid out in a pattern that complements the plaza below.  It is planted with a broad variety of sedums, perennials, and low grasses. These plants, many of them native to the Pacific Northwest, require minimal irrigation, and will provide food and habitat for a variety of insects and birds. The ecoroof will also provide stormwater retention during the rainy months, and help with heating and cooling needs for the building year round.

The 7,200 sq ft ecoroof

The centerpiece of the landscape design is a private street level plaza and garden that is built over the parking structure and serves as a back yard and community space for the residents.  Designed to accommodate a variety of passive and active uses, it transitions from a contemplative tree grove seating area near the building entrance to more active open lawn and patio area closer to the street.  This space includes a wood pellet barbeque grill and a shade structure to accommodate gatherings and to encourage residents to congregate outside. The design as a whole maintains straight lines and simple textures, incorporating the grid projected by the façade, and expressed with materials such as ipe, stained concrete, and stainless steel.

Street level plaza

The planting design provides a rich, yet restrained backdrop to the garden, emphasizing regional character through a combination of plants that are either native to, or adapted to, the northern Willamette Valley region. Portland area natives are combined with species from ecologically similar regions of the world to create a diverse palette of plants that have low maintenance and fertility needs and that will enhance habitat for urban birds, insects, and terrestrial organisms. Select areas of more naturalistic plantings are balanced by simple gestures of a single plant or plant texture that add elegance to the final execution. These foundation planting areas provide the framework of the plaza and blend with focal plantings such as edible gardens and stormwater planters.

An edible demonstration garden is located near the barbeque and trellis at the active end of the site.  Its backbone is a series of fruit-bearing shrubs and trees, such as figs and blueberries, which lend structure to the garden year round. These are interspersed with interesting perennials and grasses, including a variety of culinary herbs that are likely to be used on the grills. Specific pockets of open soil are designated for a rotation of annual vegetables. The food is available to residents, but the garden is maintained by the building staff. The inclusion of an edible garden provides the opportunity for people unfamiliar with gardening to get a little closer to food production while living in the dense, urban environment. It also introduces additional seasonality into the landscape: the tangibility of blueberries or tomatoes ripening through the growing season. It allows the residents more involvement with their immediate environment and encourages participation in their surroundings.

Trellis at end of site

Stormwater Management
A structuring element of the landscape design is the stormwater management system. The City of Portland requires that all stormwater landing on new impervious surfaces be retained and filtered before it enters the storm system. In addition to meeting the city code, the commitment was made to provide an on-site cistern for the landscape irrigation. To satisfy these two requirements, the design team created an integrated stormwater catchment system that contributes substantially to the human experience of the site. All water that falls on the building is directed to a series of planted infiltration basins at the southern perimeter of the building structure. These are viewed from above by people on the plaza, and they also contribute to the experience from the pedestrian mall.  Through the plaza, this water flows through a runnel that runs the length of the space, trickling through a series of steel stone-filled pans before it enters the planted basin.

The water from these basins is collected by a perforated pipe beneath the soil and directed to the 30’ deep cistern built into a corner of the parking structure. The inclusion of a cistern adds considerable cost to the building budget, and each gallon of storage counts, so the onus was on the designers to make the system as efficient as possible. Detailed coordination between the landscape architect, the civil engineer, and the plumbing engineer occurred to ensure that irrigation needs were met and the system would function as a whole. The landscape architect used a water use calculator involving multiple parameters to project average irrigation needs for each month of the year. The civil engineer used this information, combined with expectations of monthly supply from additional precipitation, to calculate the needed storage capacity. At 95,000 gallons, the final tank size is far smaller than the total 150,000 gallons projected to be used through the year.

A water-conserving irrigation system and a palette of low water use plants both help to minimize the required storage capacity. The majority of the site uses either drip irrigation or high efficiency rotary nozzles. The system controller includes daily evapotransporation monitoring and an automatic rain shut-off device. The plants are either native to or adapted to the climate of the Pacific Northwest, and require considerably less irrigation than a palette of plants accustomed to more regular summer rainfall.

Through elements such as its sophisticated water catchment system and regional plant palette, the Cyan landscape demonstrates how sustainable design can become high design. Neither the environmental goals of the project nor the desire for high quality urban design trumps the other. Rather, sustainable design functions are embraced as opportunities to create architectural site details that contribute to the urban character of the district, express the building’s function, and respond to the environment. By gearing the building to a highly specific audience- the environmentally- minded, 21st-century urbanite – the sustainability and design programs become one.

Project Information
The Cyan Mixed-Use Residential Building
Opened 2009
2010 ASLA Merit Award for Residential Design
Client: Gerding Edlen Development

Team:
Walker Macy – Landscape Architecture
GBD and THA ARCHITECTURE - Architecture
KPFF Consulting Engineers – Civil and Structural Engineering
McKinstry – Electrical and Plumbing Engineering
Fiddlehead – Edible Garden Design
Candela – Lighting Design
Brightworks – LEED Consulting
Hoffman Construction - Contractor

About the Author
Caitilin Pope-Daum is a landscape designer at Walker Macy, a landscape architecture, planning, and urban design firm in Portland, Oregon. She received a Masters of Landscape Architecture from the University of California, Berkeley, and has traveled the world studying the integration of natural and cultural landscapes. Caitilin’s skills combine design and ecology, giving special attention to celebrating sense of place.  She has broad experience in the technical aspects of site design and construction, with a strong background in sustainable design and stormwater management and special expertise in planting design.