Category: green roofs
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Vertical Agriculture + Solar Access
It’s been a bit since I’ve posted on Vertical Agriculture – but an architecture studio I’m helping with at Portland State has a number of students pursuing food production as part of their buildings relating to urban ecology – and has me again thinking of the practicality of these building-based growth modules. While intrigued by…
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The Park: Dallas
Following up on the post about freeway capping, a reader alerted me to The Park, a Dallas, Texas based project aimed at reclaiming spaces atop the existing freeway corridor: “Five acres of shared, public green space will deck over the existing Woodall Rodgers Freeway, bringing new traditions, shared experiences and FUN to the center of…
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Rooftop Habitats – Dusty Gedge
Urban ecologist Dusty Gedge came to Portland recently for a series of lectures discussing biodiversity for ecoroofs – a topic in need of exploration in our region. His inspiring work in London is an example of the impact that policy and design changes on habitat in urban areas.:: image via Dusty Gedge Via KGW: “Wednesday,…
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Urban Crossings – Los Angeles
Picking up on the threads of the Vegitecture post on ‘Crossings‘, a post on The Dirt made mention of the plans to cap a number of freeways throughout Southern California. “According to The Architect’s Newspaper, there are four separate projects being considered across L.A.: one in Hollywood, one in downtown LA, and two in Santa…
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Reforesting Cities
A great post on Urban Omnibus investigates the potential of implementation of urban reforestation blended into existing buildings in our urban areas. From author Vanessa Keith, author of the article: “Retrofitting our urban building stock to address climate change need not be limited exclusively to increasing their energy efficiency. If “one of the primary causes…
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Elements of Urban Agriculture
I had the opportunity today to see a presentation by local urban agriculture guru Marc Boucher-Colbert (the man behind the Rocket Restaurant rooftop garden here in Portland). Instead of focusing directly on rooftops, he outlined a broad version of urban agriculture through an investigation of a range of possible strategies for our cities. This is…
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EcoCity Hamburg
Hamburg, Germany’s new planned EcoCity by TecArchitecture and Arup has received a lot of attention as of late… let’s take a look::: image via WAN Wind turbines… check. Green roofs and walls… check. Water and futuristic, semi-biomorphic building forms… check. Reuse of structures… check… Multiple green rating systems… check! Looks like an eco-city… Ok, I’m…
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Urban Chickens Build – 6
The final installment, the completion of the Chicken Cube, with ramp, some final security measures, ecoroof, and rain chain downspout. The ecoroof plants were leftovers from the Ecoroof Vendor Fair and had a diverse variety of sedums along with some native and other perennials, grasses, and herbs. The front side, with all the hardware cloth…
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Local Flavor: Oregon Sustainability Center
Based in Portland, Oregon I sometimes forget the fact that what we consider everyday is often innovative in the larger global scale. My blog reaches beyond to interject many global ideas into our local work, but also to place what we are doing within a larger ecological design concept. One project worth noting is the…
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Veg.itecture Spin-Off
It’s fun to see something that seemed relatively nascent a few years back grow into a full-fledged phenomenon. The growth of vegetated architecture projects and the number of sites covering this topic has literally exploded of late, and I was fearful that the entire Landscape+Urbanism blog would be eclipsed and framed by Veg.itecture rather than…