Category: Biology
-
Daily Drawdown 13: Urban Forests
This is the thirteenth in an ongoing series illustrating the relationship of Drawdown strategies to landscape architecture. For context, read the initial post here. My presentation for Grey to Green is right around the corner, so if you’re at the conference come check it out (Thursday, April 5th in Toronto), so this will be the…
-
Daily Drawdown 8: Soils
This is the eighth in an ongoing series illustrating the relationship of Drawdown strategies to landscape architecture. For context, read the initial post here. Drawdown outlines a number of individual strategies, which allows areas to be isolated and the impacts. It’s also useful to think of those beneficial relationships, and how leveraging changes in one…
-
Daily Drawdown 6: Coastal Wetlands
This is the sixth in an ongoing series illustrating the relationship of Drawdown strategies to landscape architecture. For context, read the initial post here. There are a number of solutions mentioned in Drawdown that interface with the natural environment, and in doing so have a direct interface to landscape architecture. Coastal Wetlands are an important…
-
Got Moss?
A cool vegitectural proposal from Sam Biroscak in collaboration with Gina Dyches, Stephanie Borchers, Annick Lang, and Anneli Rice is “Mossgrove is a proposal for an architectural pavilion to be built in Times Square during NYCxDESIGN from May 12-20, 2018. It highlights the possibilities of two under-appreciated urban elements: scaffolding and moss. Individually, scaffolding and moss…
-
Resilience Matters
Fans of Island Press (myself included) know of that, beyond their publication of a great diversity of books, the non-profit has a mission, to “provide the best ideas and information to those seeking to understand and protect the environment and create solutions to its complex problems”. In this regard, beyond publication around these themes, they have…
-
Urban Ecology Reading List 2: Landscape Ecology
URBAN ECOLOGY READING LIST – 2 Beyond some of the specific books focusing on the science of Urban Ecology, there are subsets of literature that support this study. This is the first of three posts to expand the reading list that investigate these other, related disciplinary alignments, including landscape ecology, the hybrid books on planning…
-
International Urban Wildlife Conference
In early June I was in San Diego for the 2017 International Urban Wildlife Conference. This was my first time at this particular conference, and it was fascinating to experience the breadth of ideas, and the urban focus on wildlife. It’s something that we as designers care about, but struggle with implementation that truly…
-
Be Like a Tree
Quick snapshot of an interesting immersive technology project Tree from MIT Media Lab, which blends technology and nature to provide a unique experience: “Tree is a virtual experience that transforms you into a rainforest tree. With your arms as branches and body as the trunk, you experience the tree’s growth from a seedling into its…
-
LA+ Simulation
The latest issue of LA+ Journal, focuses on the theme of SIMULATION. This edition, guest edited by Karen M’Closkey and Keith VanDerSys. includes “…a diverse list of contributors critically investigates the theme through a myriad of lenses including biology, computer sciences, engineering, environmental science, industrial design, philosophy, planning, among other fields.” The summary from the…
-
Hemp to the Rescue
We’ve heard of many plants that have phytoremediative qualities, that is, the properties that can absorb and neutralize toxic substances in soils. For all the versatility of hemp, I hadn’t thought of it as possessing that ability until I read recent post on Roads and Kingdoms entitled Hemp and Change. The crux of the…