by 
By Ray Willard, Landscape Architect at WSDOT
At the recent DERT fundraising auction I offered my services as a landscape architect as part of the live auction. The auctioneer for the evening was Washington State Representative Beth Doglio, one of our state legislators helping support the estuary restoration project. She admitted up front that she was an amateur auctioneer but with the help of Department of Enterprise Services estuary project administrator Ann Larson, did an amazing job with props and humor to help us upsell the live auction items, very entertaining! When it came to my item, I came up to explain what the winner of the bid could expect from my “landscaping” help. I mentioned that I was a licensed landscape architect and she asked me what that meant. I tried to explain, but being on the spot, in front of all those people, I didn’t do a very good job. The auction ended up being a success but I missed an opportunity, so after some thought here is my explanation.
Landscape architecture is design and construction that blends our human experience with the natural world. It can be applied at any scale, from a potted plant on your window sill, to a home garden, to a park, a city, or to a watershed. The best landscape design solutions allow our lives to fit comfortably within our natural surroundings, and here in the Pacific Northwest we have some the best natural surroundings in the world. Any time we design with nature, the approach we take can range from total human control to completely embracing the natural systems around us. The challenge is in finding the balance in any situation. Our natural human tendency is to want everything neat and orderly, yet nature is messy and unpredictable. With the creation of Capitol Lake seventy years ago we were trying to control nature. With the estuary restoration project, we are trying to find a sustainable balance between our ongoing human needs and the course of nature.
What we have before us with the removal of the 5th Avenue Dam in Olympia is the chance to show the world the vision of a highly functional city built to embrace it’s natural setting. At the southern tip of the Salish Sea, this reimagining of the capitol of the Evergreen State provides a beautiful opportunity to bring people, history, and nature together in time. Historically, since the area was “resettled” over the last couple hundred years, our city’s planning and design has been more about controlling nature than embracing it. Now is our chance to start to change that.
The work of the Deschutes Estuary Restoration Team is all about helping people think about the way we feel about and experience the place we live. It’s about helping us all find that balance between our personal safety and security, and letting nature do it’s thing. This is our chance to show that our generation at the start of the twenty-first century, despite all the chaos and trouble in the world, understands how to get along with each other by appreciating the beauty and power of nature, and preserving the long and ongoing story of the people living this place we call home.
