Author: Jason King

  • The Wilderness Downtown

    I have in the past alluded to the ‘Soundtrack of Spaces‘ linking music to our physical environment.  I know most people have amused themselves with this video experiment, but I finally found myself engaging with the Arcade Fire’s interactive video ‘The Wilderness Downtown‘ – perhaps a literal interpretation of the space/music connection.  The narrative film,…

  • Landscape Performance Series

    Interesting link to the Landscape Architecture Foundation‘s new resource – the Landscape Performance Series – which is sort of an adjust to the Sustainable Sites Initiative which is “…designed to fill a critical gap in the marketplace and make the concept of “Landscape Performance” and its contribution to sustainability as well known as “Building Performance” is…

  • Patch, Mosaic, Corridor

    While urbanization and sprawl into every nook and cranny of the ecosystem has left large habitat patches in North American relatively difficult to attain, a post by Treehugger shows that the less dense South American continent has the potential to provide a large mosaic of territory for the native Panther – Jaguar onca – (aka…

  • Landscape+Urbanism: Large Print Edition

    Apologies for the random post:  Through some unknown glitch, the formatting of some recent posts has been defaulting to both large print and strange spacing.  I have not been doing anything different, but it is making me suspect that the AARP has hacked into my code and removed the default font size giving me a Goldilocks dilemma…

  • Know Thy Annotations…

    I’m really pleased to be able to present a snapshot of the bibliographical evidence related to the existing literature.  While not a complete and total view, this gives hints into some of the theoretical unpinnings of the theory of Landscape Urbanism, which could aid many of the discussions and dispel (or reinforce) some of the…

  • Reading List: Small Spaces

    A new release that arrived from Princeton Architectural Press ‘Small Scale’ advertises ‘Creative Solutions for Better City Living’ which is a lofty goal.  It immediately made me think of niche DIY magazines like Ready-Made  for people with pent up creativity just bursting with ideas if they only had some direction or money.  When I read the preliminary…

  • The Landscape Urbanism Wars

    A number of recent posts/discussions outline what is now shaping up as a ‘war’ between the proponents of Landscape Urbanism and those of the New Urbanism. I find it constantly amusing, in this time of blatant political attack ads on television every night (the rift could be DNC v. RNC), to see the polarization that…

  • Density of the Dead

    A little cross-post from the Veg.itecture blog, where the concept of a vertical cemetery in Mumbai ‘Vegitecturally Vertical Cemetery‘ was presented as a way to satisfy cultural expectations while efficiently utilizing scarce urban land. As we’ve become less likely to cross program or use cemeteries as quasi-public parks and open space – these areas (while…

  • Ph.D.

    In addition to (or shall I say augmenting) the launch this year of my new firm, I’ve also begun what shapes up to be a long process of obtaining my Doctorate – specifically a Ph.D in Urban Studies from Portland State University – and their Nohad A. Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning. I…

  • Mapping Racial Diversity

    Serendipitously continuing on the topic of mapping, some interesting ones (spotted on Seattle’s Publicola) offers many color-coded maps of racial diversity from major US cities. The work is from a familiar name, Eric Fischer (an earlier post showing some of his work is here), and he has developed another comprehensive set of urban maps highlighting…