Category: ecology
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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…
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New York City’s Amphibious Heritage
Via the always interesting Strange Maps, a utopian proposal from the early 20th Century for New York City with current parallels of either the practical Dutch examples of land reclamation or the ridiculous Dubai examples of artificial islands. Immediately making me think of Robert Grosvenor proposal for ‘Floating Manhattan’ – This 1911 proposal by Dr. T. Kennard Thompson entitled ‘A…
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Botanical Neurobiology
A TED Talk on Plant Intelligence by Italian botanist Stefano Mancuso will leave you on the edge of your seat and asking all sorts of questions of both your house-plants and about the wide-ranging implications for landscapes. Mancuso operates the International Laboratory of Plant Neurobiology in Italy. A brief synopsis of the talk: “Does the Boston…
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Landscape Performance Series
Interesting link to the Landscape Architecture Foundation‘s new resource – the Landscape Performance Series – which is sort of an adjust to the Sustainable Sites Initiative which is “…designed to fill a critical gap in the marketplace and make the concept of “Landscape Performance” and its contribution to sustainability as well known as “Building Performance” is…
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Patch, Mosaic, Corridor
While urbanization and sprawl into every nook and cranny of the ecosystem has left large habitat patches in North American relatively difficult to attain, a post by Treehugger shows that the less dense South American continent has the potential to provide a large mosaic of territory for the native Panther – Jaguar onca – (aka…
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Reslience
A tree at Lime Kiln Point State Park on San Juan Islands. Soon, if this tree has its way – trespassing will again be allowed on this property: (images (c) Jason King – Landscape+Urbanism)
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Disaster Imagery
The Gulf oil spill – documented by Photographer Edward Burtynsky, best known for his fabulous work ‘Manufactured Landscapes‘… capturing the essence of the breadth of disaster and human-wrought destruction. (via Treehugger, more images on the exhibit at the Metivier Gallery). :: image via Treehugger
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Restoring the Garden of Eden
A great feature from Spiegel Online covers the work of Azzam Alwash, a US/Iraqi hydraulic engineer aiming to restore what were once vibrant wetlands flourishing in the cradle of civilization through an organization called Nature Iraq. While most news coming from the region focuses on bricks and mortar rebuilding, it’s important to note the power…
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Ecological Urbanism: Introduction Part 2
Continuing the investigations of the introduction to the book ‘Ecological Urbanism‘ (read Part 1 here) – we pick up on the concepts of ecological urbanism in the explosion of interest in urban and local food production. Near and dear to my interests, the ability to transform such shrinking cities like Detroit, emulating the lessons and…
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Ecological Urbanism – Introduction Part 1
‘Ecological Urbanism‘ (640 pages, Lars Müller Publishers; 1 edition (May 1, 2010) edited by Mohsen Mostafavi with Gareth Doherty) literally arrived with a thud last week, the 650 page brick like tome touching down on the front step of the house with much anticipation. Tempted as I was, a number of deadlines made me hold…