Architecture Commons^™

Using Phytotechnology To Redesign Abandoned Gas Stations, Matt Hisle

Landscape Architecture & Regional Planning Masters Projects

Hazardous pollutants that exist in contaminated soils represent a threat to human, animal, and environmental health if left unmanaged. Phytoremediation in the U.S. was generally named and formally established in the 1980s and applied as an alternative method using plants to cleanse contaminated soils on site in a more economically and environmentally friendly way than removing contaminated soils off site. High expectations and mixed performances with failures outnumbering successes led to a crash of phytoremediation with a decline in environmental research funding by the early 2000s. “Phyto”, a book by landscape architects Kennen and Kirkwood (2015) recently reintroduces the subject …