Category: materials
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Revisiting the Strip
Following a post regarding the Flip A Strip competition sponsored by SMOCA (see Flip this Strip, 10.20.08) I got word from students Nils Havelka and Nicolas Zimmerman from the ETH Zürich – and the similarities of the winning entry ‘urban battery’ by MOS to their entry Living House in the Holcim Foundation Student Poster Competition…
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The ‘Bill Gates of Sustainability’
There is little doubt that the reputation of William McDonough (WMD) and that of green design are somewhat synonymous. As one of the fore-fathers of this modern ‘green boom’ we are in the midst of, and one of the thought leaders of our time, WMD has occupied a spot near the apex of this architectural…
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Platform to Nowhere
There’s something amazingly simple and death-defying about the detailing of this project by Todd Saunders & Tommie Wilhelmsen in a picturesque location in Aurland, Norway. Some text via Arch Daily: “The landscape is so fantastic that it is difficult to improve the place, but at the same time very easy to destroy the atmosphere by…
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Materiality: Grab Bag
It’s been a long while since I’ve posted anything on materials… perhaps due to the work I’ve been engaged in, and the fact that little of it is dealing with material selection, or the recent focus on evaluating the more sustainable materiality – sans aesthetics. That is not to say that materials don’t constantly play…
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Reading List: Materials for Sustainable Sites
It’s rare to find a must-read book for the profession of landscape architecture. This is not to say that there aren’t a bunch of amazing books to highlight a diversity of works – including projects, theories, styles and interests. It is, however, rather uncommon for the topical nature of a text to be able to…
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Got Rust?
My undying love of rusted cor-ten metal should not be a surprise to regular readers of L+U (here, here, and here, for instance). And Andrea Cochran riffs about it here. There are a couple of local examples here in Portland I will post soon – but until then, a few examples that use this fabulous…
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Water Power
It was interesting, in some research for a project at work, I looked up the cost of water in Portland to calculate the additional cost of irrigation for expanded landscape area on a rooftop. The idea was that we needed to factor in the additional cost of 20000 gallons of water to be used for…
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Water Worlds
A range of projects featuring water not just as a theme, but a major design element… very disparate in scale and application, but with that common hydrological thread. For starters, one of the typologies of green roofs, discussed previously on L+U, is the concept of ‘blue roofs’ – which use water to provide cooling atop…
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Andrea Cochran Interview
I do have a certain unreserved fondness for the designs of Andrea Cochran, and was excited to see this Dwell Design Leaders video, via Andrew Spiering from the steadily growing and informative Land8Lounge… check out the video, as well as the lounge… you won’t be sorry with either.
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Materiality: Concrete Solutions
Concrete is one of those amazingly malleable and adaptable materials. I’ve mentioned the concept of air purifying concrete, permable features, as well as interesting textures and board-forming techniques. Here’s a few new examples from around the globe. Starting off, I absolutely love the rough facade treatment (via Arch Daily), from Architect: Marcio Kogan in Sao…