Landscape+Urbanism

Category: infrastructure

  • Daily Drawdown 12: Smart Growth

    This is the twelth in an ongoing series illustrating the relationship of Drawdown strategies to landscape architecture. For context, read the initial post here. As I alluded to in the post on Buildings & Cities, there are a number of secondary Drawdown strategies around ‘smart growth’ that have the ability to make a positive contribution…

  • Daily Drawdown 11: Materials

    This is the eleventh in an ongoing series illustrating the relationship of Drawdown strategies to landscape architecture. For context, read the initial post here. The decisions about materials we use on projects have implications in a number of areas, including loss of biodiversity, the pollution produced during manufacturing, and the overall greenhouse gas emissions that…

  • Daily Drawdown 10: Lighting & Energy

    This is the tenth in an ongoing series illustrating the relationship of Drawdown strategies to landscape architecture. For context, read the initial post here. Compared to buildings, the relative energy demands for landscape architecture projects are a fraction of the energy usage, and this often means we forget to fully address opportunities for both reduction…

  • Daily Drawdown 9: Water

    This is the ninth in an ongoing series illustrating the relationship of Drawdown strategies to landscape architecture. For context, read the initial post here. Water is fundamental to discussions about climate change. Specifically the major shifts in water that will occur through global warming — droughts, extreme precipitation events, storm surge, and sea level rise,…

  • Daily Drawdown 6: Coastal Wetlands

    This is the sixth in an ongoing series illustrating the relationship of Drawdown strategies to landscape architecture. For context, read the initial post here. There are a number of solutions mentioned in Drawdown that interface with the natural environment, and in doing so have a direct interface to landscape architecture. Coastal Wetlands are an important…

  • Daily Drawdown 5: Buildings & Cities

    This is the fifth in an ongoing series illustrating the relationship of Drawdown strategies to landscape architecture. For context, read the initial post here. Beyond looking at a specific strategy, in this post I wanted to focus on a specific sector that compiles what seems most relevant to landscape architecture – Buildings and Cities. This…

  • Daily Drawdown 3: Green Roofs

    This is the third in an ongoing series illustrating the relationship of Drawdown strategies to landscape architecture. For context, read the initial post here. In the last post, I focused on a Drawdown topic, Refrigerant Management, that seemed out to be well outside of the scope of landscape architecture, to point out that we have…

  • Daily Drawdown 1: Lessons for Landscape Architects

    As you delve into the various publications related to climate change, you find it runs the gamut from impenetrable to porous. I personally find much of design writing on the subject a bit toothless, and as far as scientific writings, the NCA4 pretty readable and compelling, whereas the IPCC reports require a bit of a…

  • Solutions for Cities

    As mentioned in the previous deep dive into the recent IPCC Special Report, this city-specific version of includes a Summary for Urban Policy Makers, from December, 2018, giving a bit more context on the impacts summarized in October the 1.5°C of global warming, specifically focused on what it means for cities. As mentioned, “Climate science…

  • Climate Change & Landscape Architecture

    Following up on the foundations of climate change, I want to dive into the specific context of landscape architecture, and lay some foundations on applicability to the profession. For these initial posts I am aiming for breadth and summation rather than detail at this point, to sketch out a broader research agenda, map out where…