Category: parks
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The Digital Canopy (Expanded)
It’s intriguing that Google Earth 6 has started populating the virtual ‘planet’ with 3-Dimensional trees, which together with buildings and terrain offer the opportunity for some reasonable representation of exterior sites. Right now, only a few cities have been added in selected cities and natural areas: “I think we can all agree that our planet…
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Ecology.Agency.Urbanism
I warn the reader that my take on the recent NOWurbanism lecture featuring Chris Reed, Randy Hester and Howard Frumkin may be skewed by a really bad cold and the influence of massive doses of cold medicine, along with spilling an entire water bottle inside my bag that literally muddied my notes into a semi-decipherable pulpy…
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Artificial Rivers
A post on Gardenvisit discusses the historical idea of creating artificial landscapes, in this case the Serpentine Lake in Hyde Park, to appear ‘natural’. :: image via Gardenvisit “In 1730 Queen Charlotte ordered the damming of the Westbourne River as part of a general redevelopment of Hyde Park and Kennsington Gardens by Charles Bridgeman. The…
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Works of Landscape Urbanism?
A long-standing question that seems to have arisen in recent days due to discussions on Ecological Urbanism, coupled with a reconnection to the Landscape Urbanism bibliography. I’ve also recently rescued my book collection from storage – so have an opportunity to look specifically at some of the pertinent literature to glean what we could consider…
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Sodding Bridges
Although I did get stuck waiting for one of the many bridges today, my title for this post is more tongue in cheek than brit-inspired rage. Bridges are part of the fabric of Portland, and give our city much of it’s identity while also serving as vital infrastructure connecting east to west (and north to…
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Ephemeral Urban Gardens: Installations
Examples of ephemeral productive agricultural landscapes give an indication of the possibilities of occupation of urban sites for education and growing food. LAND GRAB CITYA recent installation called Landgrab City as part of the Shenzhen & Hong Kong bi-city Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture. Designers Joseph Grima, Jeffrey Johnson and José Esparza have created a farm in…
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Sunday Parkways
I thought it apt to post something about Portland’s Sunday Parkways, as today the route leads right in front of our house in Northeast. This concept, inspired by the Bogota, Colombia concept of Ciclovía – which is the temporary event or permanent closure of a street to automobile traffic. This is the third year that…
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The Park: Dallas
Following up on the post about freeway capping, a reader alerted me to The Park, a Dallas, Texas based project aimed at reclaiming spaces atop the existing freeway corridor: “Five acres of shared, public green space will deck over the existing Woodall Rodgers Freeway, bringing new traditions, shared experiences and FUN to the center of…
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Urban Crossings – Los Angeles
Picking up on the threads of the Vegitecture post on ‘Crossings‘, a post on The Dirt made mention of the plans to cap a number of freeways throughout Southern California. “According to The Architect’s Newspaper, there are four separate projects being considered across L.A.: one in Hollywood, one in downtown LA, and two in Santa…
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Take Back the Streets 1
From Fast Company: “Most metropolis’ are so busy building the future that they don’t have time to re-think the past. Not so with Seoul, South Korea. In 2003, the city demolished a downtown freeway to restore an ancient stream that once flowed beneath the thoroughfare. More than 75% of the scrap material from the demolition…