Category: biophilia
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Daily Drawdown 2: Refrigerant Management
This is the second in an ongoing series illustrating the relationship of Drawdown strategies to landscape architecture. For context, read the initial post here. Yes, I’m here today to talk about Refrigerant Management. I do this for a couple of reasons. First, it is important in terms of Drawdown, as this is, by far, the…
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Living Nature
I seem to be attracted to compelling pavilion installations this month, as this interesting proposal (via Archinect)for a project ‘Living Nature’ by Carlo Ratti Associati definitely caught my eye with it’s interesting take on climate and seasons. A short description from the CRA site: “International design and innovation office CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati has unveiled “Living Nature. La Natura…
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Connecting Green
Although not a new idea, the concept of connected green roofs that emerge from the ground on to structure is a persist, compelling idea, essentially blending building and site and maximizing green space, habitat, and square footage through layering of uses. A trio of projects show the variations on that theme. First, via Designboom, the…
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Ecologists on Urban Ecology
A great roundtable going on right now from The Nature of Cites asking ecologists “What is one thing every ecologist should know about urban ecology?” Consisting of a range of voices from all over the globe, the conversation discusses the larger contributions of ecology, as well as some of the challenges, as mentioned by David Maddox in…
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Austere Gardens
I received a little gem of a book from Oro Editions entitled Austere Gardens: Thoughts on Landscape, Restraint, & Attending. Written by Marc Treib, the book (at a slim and image-heavy 100 pages) is a meditation of a sort. Having been immersed in some much heavier reading recently, I sat down and absorbed (reveled in?)…
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Treescrapers
A recent post from CityLab delves into an on-going. Entitled ‘Are ‘Treescrapers the Future of Dense Urban Living?’, explores the concept beyond the fantastical and thinks about this type of work in terms of reality and the more pragamatic elements. Weird Dune references about Passive House designers (?) aside, having some critical evaluation the points…
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Worlds Largest
Via, Dezeen, a post about Rafael Viñoly design for The Hills at Vallco, along with landscape architecture firm Olin, to redevelop the “…Vallco Shopping Mall in Cupertino into a vast mixed-use development featuring a 30-acre (12 hectare) green roof.” Billed as the ‘largest green roof in the world’, a title of which is somewhat arbitrary and ambiguous,…
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Vegetal Cities
Continuing the theme, I spotted this post on Treehugger, showcasing the amazing work of Luc Schuiten, a Belgian architect who offers “…a visionary approach to rethinking cities, in a biomimetic fashion. In his lush and fantastical renderings of what he calls “vegetal cities,” urban centers are transformed into living, responsive architectures that merge nature with…
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Vegitecture Throwback
Oh, it’s been a bit since i’ve posted something in the category of Vegitecture (aka Vegetated Architecture). I still follow the trend closely and although more ubiquitous, there are still some showstoppers here and there. I thought it good to do a quick throwback to some interesting ones i’ve spotted recently, from an post from…
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Language of Landscape
A great article in the Guardian on an upcoming work (Landmarks) by nature writer Robert Macfarlane on the ‘rewilding of our language of landscape’. I was not familiar with Macfarlane, but the takeaway of the connection between language and understanding of natural systems is captured in the subheading: “For decades the leading nature writer has…