Category: habitat
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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…
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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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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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Island Life
Greetings from sunny, partly cloudy Friday Harbor, where we are taking some late summer refuge from the urban areas of Portland. Life on the San Juan Islands gives one an opportunity to relax and live a more confined life -because you are literally confined with access either via plane, boat, or car (via ferry)… the…
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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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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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Metropolitan Field Guide
University of Oregon landscape architecture graduate and now Seattle resident Kelly Brenner has an interesting blog called ‘The Metropolitan Field Guide’ which focuses on design for urban wildlife habitat. As a self-professed generalist which tends to take me on ADHD-addled tours of pretty much everything, I’m a big fan of folks who aim to provide…
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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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As We Found Them… As We Leave Them
A provocative image found in an email from the local Audubon Society email offers the visual of ‘As We Found Them… As We Leave Them’, a Jay “Ding” Darling cartoon from 1923, as a statement about the state of our rivers in the face of urbanization. The reason for the email was an upcoming hearing…