As an outgrowth of the Nine Mile Run Greenway Project, John Buck, a soil scientist of Civil & Environmental Consultants, Inc., invited my advanced sculpture students to collaborate on the slag site. Since the slope in question had a very public face across the Monongahela River in Homestead, Buck proposed a collaboration with the class to treat the slope as a canvas for aesthetic assistance on vegetating the site. The support of state funds from a Growing Greener grant culminated in creating five 30’ triangular plantings, using a reconfigured plastic confinement system anchored to the acute slope with guy wires.

In the next course offering, the students chose to soften the previous geometric design. With support from Carnegie Mellon’s interdisciplinary course fund, straw bales were reincarnated into a tributary design running up from the base of the slope, where students had carved out a 30’ diameter shaded garden, to the previous triangular plantings and a natural plateau of wetland. Filled burlap coffee bags were alternated with bales strapped and nailed down to the slope to shore up and contain seeded soil.