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Ross Island Vision Team: Envisioning Ross Island
The Institute has produced, with its partners at the Willamette Riverkeeper, Audubon Society of Portland, Greenworks landscape architecture, architects, and landscape architects a plan for Ross Island, Envisioning Ross Island (.pdf), which lays out scenarios for how Ross and its sister islands Hardtack, East and Toe, might be managed as a unit with the Holgate Channel and the 160-acre city-owned Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge as an urban wildlife refuge complex, public natural area park, and place to contemplate nature in the heart of downtown Portland.

Bi-State Trail Plan Unveiled The long awaited Bi-State Trail Plan was released at a meeting of The Intertwine Alliance on April 9th in downtown Vancouver, Washington. The plan contains information regarding the values of a regional trail network and displays 37 regional trail elements of the proposed regional system. The plan was created by the Urban Greenspaces Institute, National Park Service's Rivers and Trails Conservation Assistance Program, Metro Sustainability Center and Vancouver-Clark Parks and Recreation. To read the plan click here.

Oregon Public Broadcasting features Portland Memorial Mausoleum mural project. On April 15th OPB's Art Beat Program ran a 10 minute special feature on the 50,000 square foot wetland mural that the Urban Greenspaces Institute collaborated with ArtFX Murals to produce on the Portland Memorial Mausoleum overlooking 160-acre Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge. Click here to view OPBs video.

Urban Greenspaces Institute participates in creating an agricultural and natural resources map for Metro's Urban and Rural Reserves planning.

October 2nd and 3rd Dedication of Portland Memorial Mausoleum and Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge Mural, the nation's largest hand painted mural
[See photo]
[Download invitation]

UGI National Advisory Board member, Jon Kulser , honored by the Association of Wetland Scientists with Lifetime Achievement Award

Institute Director Mike Houck receives The Garden Club of America Club Conservation Commendation from the Portland Garden Club, Wednesday, June 11, 2009

Memorial Mausoleum Mural Completed!

Quiet, No Wake Zone For Holgate Channel and Ross Island

Wild in the City Field Trips - Exploring Regional Greenspaces by Kayak, Bike and Foot

Urban Green, A Radio Documentary on Green Planning in Portland.

Green Urban Design

The Institute participated in development of a Metro sponsored Greenstreets Handbook which provides transportation planners with design guidelines that will reduce the negative impacts of stormwater on wetlands, streams and rivers; improve the aesthetics of the transportation system; and assist in recharging the water table.

The Institute works with architects, landscape architects, parks and greenspace planners, and stormwater management agencies to promote better integration of the built and natural environments in Portland and the metropolitan region. The Institute is represented on advisory committees at the local and regional levels where policies related to green urban design are established. We also co-lead field tours with the Audubon Society of Portland’s Wild in the City field trip series, and conduct workshops to bring together design professionals and the public to promote green urban design.

Retrofit infiltration cells such as these on SW 12th Avenue on the west side of the Portland State University campus take stormwater that would otherwise wind up in the city’s stormwater system and, instead, infiltrates significant amounts of urban runoff into the ground, thereby relieving the stormwater system of potentially billions of gallons of stormwater capacity and recharging the water table

Curb extensions such as this one on NE Siskiyou Street allow for infiltration of stormwater that would otherwise end up in pipes, while also provide traffic calming and small greenspaces to the neighborhood.

"Fifth Principle of Urban Design: Build lighter, greener, smarter, cheaper. Every dollar spent on pavement creates one dollar's worth of damage to the environment."

-- Patrick Condon, University of British Columbia
Chair, Landscape and Livable Environments

Click here for contact information for the Institute.