Category: materials
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Reading List: Inspired by Nature: Plants
This past weekend, I swung by my local mecca of all things printed word, and as always was both struck and disappointed with the selection of architectural titles. One they had in the newish ‘green building’ section at Powell’s was ‘Inspired by Nature – Plants: The Building Botany Connection’ by Bahamon, Perez, and Compello (published…
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Go: West 8 Young Man
I try to hide my distaste or love for things landscape+urbanist in the quest for some sort of neutrality (um, ok, not really). Without critical evaluation and dialogue – we lack the capacity to expand our thinking and examine our interventions in ways that are beneficial to us individually and collectively. Or in short, we…
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Furnish Green
Picking up some threads of a recent post about some inventive site furnishings, as well as the ongoing obsession with Vegetated Architecture brings another melding of the two. A range of vegetated furniture that ranges from the purely decorative to the downright functional. First, a quick shot from Michael Cannell’s blog at Dwell – with…
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Aqueous Solutions Pt. 1: Use/Reuse
Water is obviously something we rely on for a number of things beyond mere existence. At the root of water, however, is it’s ability to sustain us both physically and spiritually. It’s disheartening then to see how much we take this for granted, or exploit and destroy this seemingly ubiquitous (yet actually very precious) resource.…
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Take a Seat
Continuing a more focused look at some landscape elements – there were a bunch of interesting seating concepts that have emerged lately – from the grand, to the contextual, to the bovine. Similar to the discussions regarding texture and materiality, furnishings are something we tend to have a hard time evolving as a stylistic component.…
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Materiality: Textured Verticality
It has been a bit since I’ve discussed the concept of texture and materials – and a quick peek through some saved up links made me realize there was a bevy of project images just waiting to emerge. I will attempt to focus this a bit by concentrating on vertical surface texture – spanning a…
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Mimic Nature
Often the use of natural forms is implemented for aesthetic or biophilic reasons, and the resultant forms tend to span the gamut from stunning to awful. We’ve shown examples of abstracted trees here and here – and the use of natural forms often peeks into building both as a metaphor for ecological function as well…
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Trend-Spotting: Living Walls
It’s official – green walls are the next BIG thing. Ok, we already knew that – but one reason I say this now? While coverage in the glossy design magazines is one thing, showing up on CNN.com is a good sign of a trend both spotted and confirmed. What’s next? People magazine profiling Patrick Blanc?…
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Transportation and Space
It sounds obvious when you say it (and it has been said many times before) but it is always striking to see how influential modes of transportation are on the shaping of our cities. The magnitude and impacts are immense but also provide a range of new opportunities to explore. The typical figure ground study…
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From the Rooftop: Varietals
Along with walls, rooftops are the logical frontier of landscape intervention, and although many terms are thrown around to both tantalize and confuse the novice and expert alike. For instance, you will notice my own use of the terms ‘ecoroof’ and ‘green roof’ almost interchangably. In my mind they are the same, although ‘eco-‘ is…