Arboreal Infrastructure

Providence, RI | 2004

Collaborators Ron Henderson, Trevor Lee, John Campanini, Providence City Forester, Rhode Island Tree Council, US Forest Service, Providence Parks Department, Department of Planning and Development, The Providence Plan, Rhode Island School of Design Department of Landscape Architecture, Roger Williams University School of Architecture, Art and Historic Preservation

Recognition Merit Award for Planning and Analysis, Rhode Island ASLA. Exhibition, Partly Sunny: Designs to Change the Forecast. Denver, CO, Charlie Canon: Curator

Trees (30,000)

Lirio was advisor and contributing author on the inaugural tree ordinance for Providence, RI - one of the first in the United States to be based on USDA environmental criteria. Over the course of the next decades, the ordinance will be the mechanism for the city to increase its tree canopy cover from 18% a 30%. The ordinance also provided protection and conservation of legacy and venerable trees.

Providence must plant 37,000 trees to achieve a 30% canopy coverage - a threshold at which significant ecological and economic benefits are achieved. This quantity was determined from an academic study at Rhode Island School of Design led by LIRIO. Contributions to the study and ordinance included the Providence City Forester, Rhode Island Tree Council, National Forest Service, Providence Department of Parks, Providence Department of Planning and Development, and the Providence Plan.