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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.

Symposia and Workshops

The Urban Greenspaces Institute took a lead role in planning and carrying out the 2003 Olmsted centennial symposium at Portland State University.
In his 1903 Portland Park Masterplan, which John Charles Olmsted, presented to the citizen park board, he advocated for a comprehensive, interconnected park system.

John Charles Olmsted’s 1903 Portland park master plan, which called for the creation of a comprehensive system of parks, trails, natural areas, boulevards, and parkways remains the inspiration for our modern day regional parks, Greenspaces, and trails planning.

Urban Ecology and Conservation Symposium

The Institute is a co-founder of the Urban Ecosystem Research Consortium (UERC), which annually hosts an Urban Ecology and Conservation Symposium that brings together people from the academic, nonprofit, and agency communities to share their research on the urban ecosystem, with an emphasis on research in the Portland-Vancouver metropolitan region.

2008 Keynote Speaker, Dr. Stan Ghert, Ohio State University, describes his research on urban coyotes in Chicago, IL

Monday, January 25, 2010 will be the eighth annual symposium, which will be hosted at Portland State University. The Institute works with multiple partners to plan and conduct conferences, symposia, workshops and other public forums to bring urban park and greenspace experts from around the world to share information with the Portland-Vancouver metropolitan region and to share our experiences with others.

The Institute works with multiple partners to plan and conduct conferences, symposia, workshops and other public forums to bring urban park and greenspace experts from around the world to share information with the Portland-Vancouver metropolitan region and to share our experiences with others.

Olmsted Symposium
In 2003 the Urban Greenspaces Institute, working with Portland Parks and Recreation, the Portland Park Board, Portland State University’s Geography Department, American Society of Landscape Architects, Seattle’s Friends of Seattle’s Olmsted Parks, hosted the Olmsted Landscape Legacy, 1903 to 2003 symposium at Portland State University. More than 300 park and trail advocates came together in Portland and Seattle to celebrate the centennial of John Charles Olmsted’s park master plans for Portland and Seattle.

John Charles Olmsted, adopted son of Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr., was invited to Portland by the citizen park board. Olmsted's visionary plan for a comprehensive, interconnected park system remains an inspiration to modern park planners, In his report Olmsted noted, "Marked economy in municipal development may also be effected by laying out parkways and park, while land is cheap, so as to embrace streams that carry at times more water than can be taken care of by drain pipes of ordinary size. Thus brooks or little rivers which would otherwise become nuisances that would some day have to be put in large underground conduits at enormous expense, may be made the occasion for delightful local pleasure grounds or attractive parkways."

Click here for contact information for the Institute.