Q&A: Kate Orff

Kate Orff is the founder of SCAPE, the landscape architecture firm involved in the design of the Hudson Highlands Fjord Trail. She is the first landscape architect to receive a MacArthur “Genius” Grant and earlier this year was named by Time as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

What was your initial reaction to the Fjord Trail project?
Linear connective landscapes like the Fjord Trail, which link communities to each other and to the natural resources around them, are the projects of the future. Perhaps that’s an overstatement, but in a way, they are like next-century infrastructure. We spent the previous century building five-lane highways and concretizing our river edges, and now we need to radically retrofit that built environment to get people connected back to the environment that sustains us.

That’s what I was thinking about when I first heard about the Fjord Trail, because SCAPE is also doing projects like this around the U.S. We completed a project in Lexington, Kentucky, called the Town Branch Commons that is a missing link to a downtown and regional trails. The portion we did, the Town Branch Trail, weaves through Lexington and connects to the Legacy Trail and points beyond. Now people are walking and jogging along, they’re riding their bikes into work and into downtown. It’s a linear system that cleans and filters stormwater. It’s a safe way to get around without being in a car. It’s the kind of greenway that people feel excited to live next to. We’re also doing the Chattahoochee River Lands in Atlanta, and we’re doing a section of the South Bay Trail in California.

These kinds of trail systems become beloved and are used in ways that people don’t predict initially. They hear about the trail and say, “Oh, I’ll use that to go jogging.” Then, all of a sudden, students are finding a new way to commute and people walk on the weekends, where before they didn’t.

You’ve called SCAPE’s work an opportunity to “mend landscapes.” Does that apply to the proposed Fjord Trail?
As a landscape architect, you can see patterns in the land. When I see the edge of the Hudson River, I know that 50 years ago it was filled with debris and flattened and straightened, and a rocky abatement was thrown on there to make Route 9D and the rail alignment. I don’t feel like, “Oh my gosh, I’m destroying nature,” because I know that those elements are filled with invasive species that have come up out of the neglect of that edge.

The other thing that’s unique about this shoreline trail segment is that, wherever possible, we have the chance to repair the water’s edge, plant native grasses and restore a bit more of the intertidal gradient. It’s not until you go to Breakneck on a July afternoon and see the amount of people who are all trying to experience this place that you realize that this can be a great, safe way of bringing people to experience the Hudson River, but also making sure that the edge is not further eroded or trampled.

What were some of the challenges in designing the shoreline section?
There’s a narrow spatial window that the trail can weave through to comply with all the regulations. For instance, we have to maintain a 25-foot offset from the Metro-North tracks and comply with all sorts of shoreline regulations. Other portions of the trail are in forested upland where it’s fairly easy to find the path of least resistance. Here we needed to find a miracle sweet spot in between all of these zones. That’s also why it’s slightly narrower here.

Have you worked on other projects that have had opposition?
There is no project without opposition. Even when you site schools, people say, “We don’t want the school because it’ll bring traffic and there’s not enough parking.” But obviously, children need to be educated. Even with Town Branch Commons in Lexington, there were empty parking lots and garages, but three individuals came to every public meeting to argue that the road should be wider and there needed to be more parking. OK, well, I understand that, but we did an analysis and there were 2,200 unused spaces within a 10-minute walk.

There’s always a dialogue and it needs to be open and respectful. That is a hallmark of a great process, and projects get better for that. In this case, I feel the Fjord Trail has incredible civic and ecological benefits, so I hope we can have more of a constructive dialogue. I’m interested in what the comments are, if people feel like it should be more like this or less like this.

The Fjord Trail has been under discussion for 17 years. Is there anything you feel hasn’t been discussed enough?
I would want people to imagine what being on the trail would feel like. I feel some of the discussions have removed it from the enriching experience of being able to be in nature and being able to be safe. Imagine yourself using the trail and making it a part of your life.