Landscape+Urbanism

Category: infrastructure

  • SEAing Green Streets

    Probably a case of green streets on the brain – but a current pro-bono project has inspired me do some looking back at a range of innovative stormwater projects using the street rights-of-way. One of the best is Seattle’s SEA Street project. SEA stands for ‘Street Edge Alternatives’ and is part of the Natural Drainage…

  • Delirious Detroit: Land of UnReal Estate

    After a brief, work induced break from blogging, I’ve amassed a collection of posts from Detroit, which seems to be getting a lot of attention of late as perhaps the poster child of urban voids. The report that we worked on in last falls SDAT is slowly nearing publication, so definitely check back here for…

  • Malcolm Wells: Infra Structures

    Subtitled “Life support for the nation’s circulatory system”, the 1994 book Infra Structures by Malcolm Wells offers a chance to revisit the integration of our architecture and infrastructural systems – appropriate for our new found interest in the workings of our society and urbanity. The the juxtaposed pipe/greenery on the cover, the thrust of this…

  • Reading List: The Infrastructural City

    The Infrastructural City: Networked Ecologies in Los Angelesedited by Kazys Varnelis (Actar – 2008) :: image via NetLab If not for the impeccable timing of the release of this book, and the fact that the content within has inevitably been in progress for some time – I would say that ‘The Infrastructural City’ was a…

  • Desert Oasis

    While we think of the politically charged border-wall and crossing as a confrontational experience, why can’t these international transition spaces be celebrated as points of interest and beauty. The competition for border crossing for pedestrians between Mexico and the United States in 2005 was won by the Belgian firm OFFICE Kersten Geers David Van Severen,…

  • DailyLand: Green Island

    Somewhat of a visionary departure for the DailyLand feature, these visions of ‘green’ urbanism in the literal Green Island proposals of a vegetated Tokyo are both confrontational and thought provoking. It makes me think directly of the previous post wishing for green transit, and taking it a whole city further. Specifically I ask… would cities…

  • Oh Joyless Utopia

    This quick one found via Modern Mechanix features a ‘City within a City’, featuring New York’s Interstate Commerce Center, envisioned in 1946 as a dreary, hypermobilized utopian hub. “This unique “in-building highway,” 32 feet wide and three-quarters of a mile long, and rising at a grade of only 6%, will be one of the outstanding…

  • Water Dump

    There’s been a lot of activity around water – predominately its use and inevitable misuse. In this version of the dump… some choice bits worthy of another look. :: Big Squirt – image via Treehugger An interesting ephemeral art-piece, “STREET FOUNTAIN by HELMUT SMITS, 2002: Small water pumps in existing pot-holes in the road surface.…

  • Transportation Dump

    I’ve been doing a ton of research lately on green streets, so that’s cause some focus beyond the general bigger picture of transportation. And with all of the upcoming spending on infrastructure through stimulation – it will be interesting to see how much of this will be green, how much will be grey, or at…

  • Dubai in the Toilet

    There’s been a couple of murmurs regarding the failing infrastructure in Dubai, which has now (temporary) closed the famed Jumeirah Beach due to a preponderance of brown trout. Via Times Online: “A noxious tide of toilet paper, raw sewage and chemical waste has transformed Dubai’s most prestigious stretch of shoreline into a foul-smelling health hazard.…