Leaders with a Chicago and Philadelphia-based architectural firm told a local audience Thursday that they had hoped the seeds of wildflowers and wild grasses they planted in the spring around Mill Race Center would allow the center’s extensive activities to fully flower beyond the confines of the building.
But audience member and local resident Curt DeClue saw far more in PORT’s “The Plot Project.” He said that the Exhibit Columbus Miller Prize landscape architecture firm’s planting effort added transformation in a segment of Columbus that, in his childhood, was commonly known as Death Valley.
“What you folks and others have done here (in the park) is a testament to the vision and energy of Columbus and people like Richard McCoy,” DeClue said, passing praise to Exhibit Columbus leaders in general for their vision and for the overall impact of the architectural exhibition that runs through Nov. 26.
DeClue was among about 40 people at Mill Race Center attending the third panel discussion in a series of four Miller Prize Conversations of Exhibit Columbus, the privately funded “exploration of community, architecture, art, and design that activates the modern legacy of Columbus,” according to its mission statement.
PORT’s “The Plot Project,” begun this spring, includes a wide variety of blooming wildflowers, ranging from Indian blankets to Prairie Blazing Stars and a mix of wild grasses, plus several brightly colored pavilions for enjoying the surrounding nature. The project forms an artistic arc around the center’s curved front.
Christopher Marcinkoski and Andrew Moddrell, co-founders of PORT, worked on the installation which they said early on was an experiment using native plants. They spoke Thursday alongside Dan Mustard, executive director of Mill Race Center for 50-plus adults, and Thaisa Way. She serves as director of garden and landscape studies at Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection and professor emerita, Landscape Architecture/College of Built Environments, University of Washington.
Landscape architect Chris Merritt, an Exhibit Columbus curatorial partner, served as moderator. A Duke Energy Foundation grant made the event possible.
Marcinkoski pointed out that, though architectural exhibitions are temporary, he and his partner in the firm wanted something more.
“One of the things that we started with was whatever we do, we want it to have some legacy to it,” he said. “We don’t want to produce waste. We want to produce value in this project. And so, you know, I think the rewilding, the over-seeding, and the planting was sort of one piece of that.”
Moddrell acknowledged that the project got off to a scary start after Exhibit Columbus’ Jamie Goldsborough sent PORT the first images of the 1,250-foot area in the spring.
“It was all dirt and crabgrass,” Moddrell said.
But that gradually changed. And it changed even wihout supplemental watering, which is the way PORT wanted it — completely natural.
In fact, Mustard mentioned, “what’s been really cool is that we’ve had a drought, pretty much this whole area, and have been way down on average rainfall, ” he said.
“And while the invasive species that make up most of this lawn, and probably most of the lawns in Columbus, they all died. But the native grasses that were part of this project have been thriving.
“I mean, they’re nice and tall and green and happy. Even when we had no rain at all, all the flowers were blooming, and the grass was green.”
The last conversation
Here are details about the upcoming final Miller Prize Conversation:
When: 10 a.m. to noon Nov. 10.
Where: The Commons, 300 Washington St.
Who: Sara Zewde (Studio Zewde); landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh; Columbus native and former community leader Will Miller; Mark Jones of the Columbus Parks and Recreation Department.
