Landscape+Urbanism

Category: landscape architecture

  • It’s kind of a big deal

    Yeah, I mean that deal – the Green New Deal, put forth today by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (aka AOC), the newly elected Democrat from New York, and Ed Markey, Democratic Senator from Massachusettes. And yes, it was the big news of the day. There’s plenty of coverage about it, and lots of stories and opinions…

  • 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…

  • A Changing Climate

    Lately, I’ve been obsessed. Like many of you, I imagine, I’ve been drawn down the rabbit hole and putting a lot of thought into global climate change, and it’s impact on the worlds in which we live and work.  From the October IPCC Report documenting impacts from 1.5°C warming to November’s Black Friday surprise in…

  • The Shape of Water

    An amazing resource posted on ASLA’s The Dirt (here) focuses on Design Guidelines for Urban Wetlands, specifically what shapes are optimal for performance. Using simulations and physical testing to investigate hydraulic performance the team from the Norman B. Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism (LCAU) at MIT.  Led by Heidi Nepf, Alan Berger and Celina Balderas Guzman along with a team…

  • Irish Hunger Memorial

    I remember seeing images of the Irish Hunger Memorial in Battery Park City a few years back, and was amazed by the hovering cantilevered structure holding a metaphorical ‘slice’ of Irish landscape.  The Memorial, designed by internationally renowned sculptor and public artist Brian Tolle, originally opened in 2002. It is a contemplative space devoted to…

  • Landscape Observatory: The Work of Terence Harkness

    I was really excited to learn about the publication of this book Landscape Observatory: The Work of Terence Harkness (2017, Applied Research & Design).  Having earned my undergraduate degree in Landscape Architecture at North Dakota State University, our design milieu often focused on the sprawling plains, with design exercises that took us into the realms…

  • Fantasy Island

    Excited to see the announcement of a new global design ideas competition from LA+ Journal, entitled Imagination. “Paradisiacal, utopian, dystopian, heterotopian – islands hold an especially enigmatic and beguiling place in our geographical imagination. Existing in juxtaposition to what’s around them, islands are figures of otherness and difference. Differentiated from their contexts and as much…

  • PA35: Going Live

    I was really excited to receive the latest version of  Pamphlet Architecture, published by Princeton Architectural Press.  While I’ve not seen all of them, i do have at least a dozen, and they offer focused snapshots of theory and practice both as well as a longitudinal section of though spanning decades.  My first experience was…

  • Treescrapers

    A recent post from CityLab delves into an on-going.  Entitled ‘Are ‘Treescrapers the Future of Dense Urban Living?’, explores the concept beyond the fantastical and thinks about this type of work in terms of reality and the more pragamatic elements.  Weird Dune references about Passive House designers (?) aside, having some critical evaluation the points…

  • Game/Landscape

    I’ve mentioned a few times on Twitter, I have had an on-going interest in game design as a medium, but also in relation to the potential synergistic overlaps between the technology/techniques with landscape architecture and urbanism practice.  The most obvious connection has to do with visual representation, as the ability to create engaging site and building…