October 2020: Brian Davis was a team member for the project Seeding Specificity, an extension of the HMI Geoglyph. The project was awarded a National Honor Award in the Research Category by the American Society of Landscape Architects for its research into germination rates for seed mixes designed for dewatered harbor sediment at Hart Miller Island.
[From the ASLA submission]
Hart-Miller Island (HMI) is a 1,140 acre island located in the upper Chesapeake Bay in Baltimore County, Maryland. It is a novel ecosystem, built from the remnants of Hart Island and Miller Island using 100 million cubic yards of sediment dredged from Baltimore Harbor shipping channels between 1984 and 2009. Since its closure in 2009, state agencies have worked to restore the island habitat with the intent of providing public access recreation and natural resource enjoyment to the citizens of the state. However, restoration efforts in the 800 acre North Cell have been complicated by dynamic site conditions including a fractured hydrological regime, acid sulfate soils, and pressure from invasive species – notably Phragmites. This study details the field research, restoration strategy, and experimentally derived seedling emergence rates used by the team to develop a custom seed mix and seeding rate calibrated to the design intent, targeted outcomes, and existing conditions of the project site.
For more information, read here. Images below by Mahan Rykiel.
Location: Baltimore, Maryland, United States
Project Team Lead:Mahan Rykiel Associates
Client: Maryland DOT and Maryland Port Administration
PROOF Projects 