Category: agriculture
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Veg.itecture: VIVA Evolo Skyscrapers
Nothing elicits more interesting ideas and visuals than a futuristic and visionary design competition for the 21st Century Skyscraper. That has one word: eVolo. I featured a few of the entries from last years competition – so thought I would do the same for the more veg.itectural (and there are many, as pointed out in…
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White House, Green Garden
No shortage of speculation about the plans for the ‘farmer-in-chief’ and what this means for some instant credibility to the burgeoning urban agriculture movement. Also, the latest search for the White House Farmer is getting the conversation elevated to a new superstar echelon of uber gardeners. Enough to make conservatives cringe and comment on the…
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Questioning EcoMetropolitanism
Perhaps I missed the memo regarding a new found integration of ‘wildness’ into our cities as the 2009 topic to watch. Maybe it started with Fritz Haeg’s Animal Estates – jumping to Tomorrow’s Thoughts Today and the idea of City Zoo, shifting to the more expansive concept from _urb about Post Humanist Rewilded Eco Ethical…
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A Dozen of the Best of 2008
Well, in the spirit of the impending new year, it’s time for a look back on the 300+ posts from Landscape+Urbanism to glean what was new, provocative, innovative, and just plain awe-inspiring. In my biased opinion, reading through the archives and downloads from the year – is that 2008 was definitely the year of Veg.itecture…
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Urban Roof Farming x2
One of those interesting trends that may be the hot topic of 2009 (and a major topic of conversation in 2008) is the growing of food in cities – particularly on rooftops and buildings. A couple of recent articles present some viable examples of rooftop agriculture used for education and production. The San Francisco Chronicle…
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Food for Thought
It’s been ages since I’ve posted anything on urban agriculture, and it’s long-overdue… I realize my neglect after spending a bit of time sifting through some research in finishing up the SDAT report text, as well as in preparation for a submittal for the first issue of [bracket] journal with the theme ‘On Farming’… which…
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The Detroit Dilemma – Ruminations
I recently finished up the draft text that summarized the land use and open space portions of the Detroit Sustainable Design Assessment Team (AIA SDAT) that I participated in a few months back. It gave me a chance to revisit some of the thinking around my initial thoughts and reactions – with some distance and…
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Got Maintenance?
As regular visitors know, L+U comprehensively covers the broad range of vegetated architecture. While there are many technical issues at play, often the coverage skims the surface with some choice excerpts and some snappy graphics. This is not to imply that there is not a critical eye towards the functional side, and as a designer…
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Another Utopia: Victory City™
There are many diverse versions of utopia that have been proposed over the years… from Wright’s Broadacre City, Howards Garden Cities, Callenbach’s Ecotopia, Soleri’s Arcosanti and Corbu’s La Ville Radieuse (to name a few) – a long history of attempts to synthesize urban perfection have been attempted. Most of these ideas are either merely thought-exercises…
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Agro-Urban Resources
A recurring theme for sure… both on the web and media at large and within the confines of Landscape+Urbanism, urban agriculture has received short shrift lately (here) due to other ideas and concepts on the front burner. I have recently been delving through my new copy of CPULs (Continuous Productive Urban Landscapes) and will be…