Landscape+Urbanism

Category: land use

  • THINK.urban: Introducing Megapolitanism

    A recent article from John King at the San Francisco Chronicle mentioned the concept of using the Megalopolitan scale for planning purposes. The article references the new book by Arthur C. Nelson and Robert E. Lang entitled ‘Megapolitan America: A New Vision for Understanding America’s Metropolitan Geography‘ (APA, 2011). As an example, King mentions the…

  • Black Rock City

    An interesting article making some strange connections between the land of free spiritedness that is Burning Man, specifically the arrangement of the temporary settlement ‘Black Rock City’ with the ideology of New Urbanism.  I can’t think of two uniquely different mind-sets and approaches, so find the connection to be somewhat comical – but am keeping…

  • Source: Terrain Vague – de Sola Morales

    A formative source in thinking about indeterminant spaces is Terrain Vague, a 1995 essay by Spanish Architect Ignasi de Sola-Morales.  The essay starts with a discussion of the idea of photography, which is mentioned by the author as vital to our understanding, particularly through photomontage and their inventive juxtaposition of forms, aiding our ability to…

  • RBC: Notes on the Third Ecology | Kwinter

    Notes on the Third Ecology | Sanford Kwinter Kwinter used the dichotomy of city/nature, rooting in our historic perceptions that evolved in the Industrial era.  As mentioned, this concept is characterized by a time “…when immense upheavals in social, economic, and political life transformed the very landscape around us and our relationship to it irreversibly…

  • RBC: Urban Earth: Mumbai

    Urban Earth: Mumbai  |  Raven-Elison & Askins Urban Earth, with studies in Mumbai, Mexico City, and London:  Their approach: “walking across some of Earth’s biggest urban areas, to explore their spatial realities for the people who live there and challenge dominant media discourses regarding the places in which most of us now live.  The idea…

  • Ecologies of Gold

    Brilliant study of the meshing of urbanization and gold mining in Johannesburg, South Africa by Dorothy Tang and Andrew Watkins (on Design Observer).  As mentioned in the article and accompanying photo essay;  “ In particular, the 80-kilometer mining belt between the two cities is riddled by deep-shaft mines, where companies built an extensive network of…

  • City Concealed: Staten Island

    I previously featured a video from the online video series “The City Concealed” produced by Thirteen, a project of New York station WNET.  The series offers glimpses into some of the terrain vague of the metropolis by: “…exploring the unseen corners of New York. Visit the places you don’t know exist, locations you can’t get…

  • Aquifers not Aquitards

    From the recent post on watershed boundaries, a reader mentioned the concept of underground aquifers and their relation to geographical boundaries and .  My title is in jest (sort of) referring to ‘Aquitards’ which according to Wikipedia is “a zone within the earth that restricts the flow of groundwater from one aquifer to another“, but…

  • 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…

  • Density of the Dead

    A little cross-post from the Veg.itecture blog, where the concept of a vertical cemetery in Mumbai ‘Vegitecturally Vertical Cemetery‘ was presented as a way to satisfy cultural expectations while efficiently utilizing scarce urban land. As we’ve become less likely to cross program or use cemeteries as quasi-public parks and open space – these areas (while…