Landscape+Urbanism

Category: ecological urbanism

  • Aquifers not Aquitards

    From the recent post on watershed boundaries, a reader mentioned the concept of underground aquifers and their relation to geographical boundaries and .  My title is in jest (sort of) referring to ‘Aquitards’ which according to Wikipedia is “a zone within the earth that restricts the flow of groundwater from one aquifer to another“, but…

  • Environmental Urbanism Panel Discussion

    As an addenda to the previous post, on Chris Reed’s lecture, a round-about summary of the panel discussion that followed. Panel Discussion – Environmental Urbanism:  Ecological Design for Healthy Cities The panel was moderated by Peter Steinbrueck, with Reed joined by additional panelists including Randy Hester (who lectured the previous evening on Design for Ecological Democracy) and…

  • Ecology.Agency.Urbanism

    I warn the reader that my take on the recent NOWurbanism lecture featuring Chris Reed, Randy Hester and Howard Frumkin may be skewed by a really bad cold and the influence of massive doses of cold medicine, along with spilling an entire water bottle inside my bag that literally muddied my notes into a semi-decipherable pulpy…

  • Parsley On the Building

    A great overview on Urban Omnibus features some of the recent site specific events in the 50th Anniversary of the GSD celebrating the half century of urban design (which at least in a modern perspective evolved from Harvard and mid-twentieth century theorists).  While the author seems to incorrectly equate concepts ecological urbanism and landscape urbanism,…

  • Environmental Urbanism

    Excited to have a chance to head up to Seattle for tomorrow’s lecture as part of the NOW Urbanism series at University of Washington.  Look for a report of the festivities in coming days. November 18:  Environmental Urbanism: Ecological Design for Healthy Cities Kane Hall, Room 120 (University of Washington) What does it mean to…

  • More on the Urbanism Wars

    GSD as Epicenter The escalation of voices in the (let’s call it debate for lack of a better term) about some of the urbanisms out there – most notably New Urbanism and Landscape Urbanism, has kicked up a notch even in the past few weeks since the initial salvos. There has been a fair amount…

  • Artificial Rivers

    A post on Gardenvisit discusses the historical idea of creating artificial landscapes, in this case the Serpentine Lake in Hyde Park, to appear ‘natural’. :: image via Gardenvisit “In 1730 Queen Charlotte ordered the damming of the Westbourne River as part of a general redevelopment of Hyde Park and Kennsington Gardens by Charles Bridgeman. The…

  • On Agrarian Urbanism

    An opportunity for point-counterpoint on the topic of Agrarian Urbanism – one that, with the recent explosion of discussion and interest in urban agriculture – is vital to discussing the place of food in the city, and what impact this will have on the form and function of our urban agglomerations.  The topic is poignant…

  • A Potential Body of Landscape Urbanism – Part 1

    My questions about identifying works of landscape urbanism has its first lead.  A reader (and fellow former North Dakotan Brook Meier – an architect now practicing in India) offered some projects worthy of explanation.  He used to work for the firm LA Dallman in Milwaukie, Wisconsin and mentioned the collective Crossroads project, which he succinctly summed up as…

  • Call for Submissions: MONU 14: Editing Urbanism

    This upcoming topic from MONU 14: Editing Urbanism is pretty compelling, and worthy of checking out, as it implies a new paradigm shift for urbanism as a generative process to one of ‘editing’ the urban realm.  While not specifically referenced in the call for submissions (which is more architecturally oriented), this ‘urban editing’ is dovetailed into…