Author: Jason King
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Illustrating the Urban Condition
From a representational point-of-view, it is interesting to see some of the ways in which representation plays a vital role in communication. I’ll inevitably revisit this some more, as it’s a topic worth exploring, but these examples span the photographic to the planimetric, while encapsulating a wide range of messages. To begin, it’s always interesting…
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Bad Idea of the Week
It’s almost summer in Portland (aka the Rose City), thus time for the annual schlock-fest we like to consider the Rose Festival… in that spirit, the bad idea of the week goes to the tacky Neon Rose atop the John Yeon designed building (that previously was the visitor’s information center and has sadly sat partly…
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Urban Typologies – Freeway Field Guide
This was one of those posts you immediately fall in love with as someone with a penchant for infrastructure and urbanism. We love naming typologies and objets d’urbanity, so when poignantly topical blog The Infrastructurist offered this two-part series on ‘A Field Guide to Freeway Interchanges’ I decided to devour it, then share some of…
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Ecological Urbanism – Podcasting Now
I was really excited to see that the Podcasts of the Ecological Urbanism conference at the GSD (from early April) are now available… for those of us unable to make the trek to check it out live. While a 100×200 pixel image isn’t the same as a conference, I hope this trend continues with other…
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Clean Water Services – Field Operations Center
A recent trip out to a meeting at the Clean Water Services Field Operations Center yielded some interesting images of some of the innovative stormwater ideas that were implemented into this project, which opened in 2003. The design was completed by Pivot Architecture from Eugene, along with Murase Associates from Portland as landscape architect. ::…
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Plant Propaganda
A recent visit to the Clean Water Services Field Operations Center in Beaverton offered the added bonus of some interesting signage about native plantings… While I’m not a native purist by any means, I like the inventive way of conveying the idea. :: images by CWS – photos by author Stay tuned for some pics…
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Reading List: CPULs
This is one of those densely packed and overpriced small volumes that make you think twice a few times in the bookstore – until you get your hands on it and unlock some of the potential of Andre Viljoen‘s thoughts on Continous Productive Urban Landscapes: Designing Urban Agriculture for Sustainable Cities. :: image via Transition…
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Wilderness, Continued…
Book Review continued from Part I: Reading List: Wilderness and the American MindAldo Leopold’s ideas of a ‘land ethic’ and ‘ecological conscience’ offered a touchstone for a new movement – giving birth to the idea of instilling Americans with a love and respect for their land. While mostly known for the amazing work ‘A Sand…
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Reading List: Wilderness & The American Mind
Taking a break from the computer and the endless array of blog posts gives one an opportunity to reconnect with the written word in a different way. (For full disclosure, I hate reading on the computer – so really have to slog through text heavy posts and articles…) A couple of interesting books that I’ve…
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Bad Idea of the Week
This interesting product appeared last week from Inhabitat, consisting of small squares of grass for your desk or home. “These grass squares were designed at the Shenkar College of Engineering and Design, Israel, in 2009 as a way to combine nature and architecture.” While a laudable concept in theory, the idea of bring in grass…