Category: books
-
Landscape Architecture without LAs
A recent reference on Treehugger pointed me to Bernard Rudolfsky’s 1964 book Architecture without Architects led me to direct this line of inquiry to the landscape profession. Rudolfsky reconnected building with the stability of traditional, ‘non-pedigreed’, design (quoted via Treehugger): “…vernacular architecture does not go through fashion cycles. It is nearly immutable, indeed, unimprovable, since…
-
Tagging
Not an urban graffiti post, but a virtual tag from The Where, via Pruned, via Passages and on, and on… some of my favorite blogs, so sure, I can play along: :: The rules of the tagging game are as follows:1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).2. Open the book to…
-
Urban Ag: A Variety of Techniques
It is garden planning season, and my plan is to double the 200 s.f. first year garden from last year, and build up some raised beds as well. I wonder, how large does a backyard garden have to get to qualify as a farm? Perhaps I should be more careful to plant what I can…
-
Reading List: Vertical Gardens
Arriving last week, one of many books to come in the next year focussed on green walls and vegetated architecture. Vertical Gardens, authored by Anna Lambertini with an introduction by Jacques Leenhardt and photos by Mario Ciampi. Much like the gardens themselves, the photos of projects are full of variety and almost moist to the…
-
Shift into ‘Slow’ Gear
The Slow Food Movement has long been active in European countries, with it’s ubiquitous snail-mascot and new vocabulary (i.e. eco-gastronomy) making us stop (almost) and enjoy the concepts of local, fair, environmentally friendly food, and the idea of reconnecting to the pleasures of eating. :: logo via Slow Food International The concept is terribly European,…
-
Reading List: A Pattern Language
Some books are classics. You read them, you reference them, you let them gather dust on the shelves until one day something jogs your memory and makes them vital again. This, along with other more obsessive reasons, is why I tend to collect design books with never any thought of letting them go. And design…
-
Reading List: Blue Monday
Mondays aren’t that bad… specifically when you start off with a wonderful book. The Architecture Urbanism Design Collective (AUDC) based out of Los Angeles published the book Blue Monday: Stories of Absurd Realities and Natural Philosophies. :: image via AUDCLed my Robert Sumrell & Kazys Varnelis, the site focuses on producing not built works, but…
-
Reading List: The World Without Us
I recently finished ‘The World Without Us’ by Alan Weisman. While not exactly what i imagined when i started reading, it definitely was captivating enough in terms of a compelling future vision of life. The nutshell is that life is for some unforeseen reason, mysteriously vanished from the earth. Or i should say, human life,…
-
Reading List: Center 14, On Landscape Urbanism
I just received this copy of Center 14: On Landscape Urbanism, and have yet to delve into it in great depth due to the current Integrating Habitats Competition that i’ve been working on. :: Link to Center 14 via Amazon The interesting fact of the book is its scope, ranging from some of the initial…