Landscape+Urbanism

Category: representation

  • 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…

  • The Deconstructed City

    Amazing new maps from an L+U favorite, Strange Maps, featuring ‘A Taxonomy of City Maps:  “Imagined cities built from the fragments of real ones: something similar is happening in Tout bien rangé, a cartography-based artwork by French artist Armelle Caron. It consists of a series of map pairs, one a blind, but recognisably real city…

  • Architect’s Brother

    Stunning work by artists Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison worth checking out (link via the always great Landezine).   Not a whole lot of descriptions around to place these – so just soak them in – more at the artists website.  Happy New Year! :: images via Landezine

  • Tales from Portlandia

    As it is always important to laugh at oneself  – the 6-part IFC Original short-based comedy series PORTLANDIA, created, written by and starring Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein will premiere January 21, 2011 at 10:30 PM ET/PT. Each episode’s character-based shorts draw viewers into “Portlandia,” the creators’ dreamy and absurd rendering of Portland, Oregon. Bloody brilliant… Can’t wait for…

  • Zappata Romana

    The ease of online mapmaking leads to a democratization of the dissemination of all forms of information.  In the spirit of Greenmaps, Italian firm Urban Architecture Project presents Zappata Romana, a simple, icon-based mapping of community-run green spaces on underused and abandoned areas in Rome. Visualizza “ZAPPATA ROMANA”: community-run green areas _by studioUAP in una…

  • 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…

  • Natural Boundary / Political Boundary

    I’m really glad that Strange Maps featured the interesting (albeit never realized) notion of John Wesley Powell‘s watershed-based approach to defining political boundaries in his 1890 ‘Map of the Arid Region of the United States’.  The concept reframes the Jeffersonian national grid, using drainage districts as “the essential units of government, either as states or…

  • 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…

  • ‘A Landscape Manifesto’

    Always a big fan of manifestos – the recent release of Diana Balmori & Michael Conan’s ‘A Landscape Manifesto‘ aims to be an interesting read (I have a copy en route, so stay tuned for a more expansive review). :: image via Amazon Some info on the book, from the Manifesto Website. “A Landscape Manifesto’…

  • New City Landscape Denver

    From Urban Tick, an interesting graphic display of social media that creates a new ‘landscape’ of the City of Denver.  Check out the site for more maps from around the world.  (images are screenshots from the interactive map) Some info:  “This New City Landscape represents location based twitter activity as the tweetography of the city.…