Landscape+Urbanism

Category: resilience

  • Why Cities Need More Green Roofs

    Nice video from NPR on Why Cities Need More Green Roofs.  From the summary. “We took a field trip to the largest green roof in New York City. Then we imagined what the city could be like if all of its roof space was green.”

  • Water and Cities

    Interesting exploration from Architect’s Newspaper from October covering a range of water specific projects and proposals in the urban realm.  A short description: “For landscape architects today, urbanism and water go hand in hand. Whether dealing with issues of sea level rise, groundwater retention, or just plain old water supply infrastructure, landscape architects are working…

  • Block’Hood

    An interesting link via the A/N Blog on a game development from the Plethora Project called Block’Hood.  Taking a cue from SimCity, this game explores simulation at a bit finer grain.  From their site: “Block’hood is a neighborhood-building simulator that celebrates the diversity and experimentation of cities. You will have full access to 90+ building…

  • 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…

  • Campy

    Azure Magazine shows off some ideas from Toronto-based Lateral Office on the concept of camp (outdoor, not kitsch) as part of the Chicago Architecture Biennial.  Through simple model, diagram and illustration (which are fabulously monochromatic, btw) they outline a proposal of modern outdoor [not necessarily recreational] living. A short description: “Co-founders Mason White and Lola Sheppard…

  • LA+ Journal

    A fine addition to the ranks of landscape architecture journals that recently emerged is LA+, The Interdisciplinary Journal of Landscape Architecture, from the Penn.   From the website, the journal is billed as the “…the first truly interdisciplinary journal of landscape architecture. Within its pages you will hear not only from designers, but also from historians,…

  • Bioclimatic Design

    Good article in the USGBC+ magazine related to Bioclimatic Design and some projects that focus on the integration of vernacular strategies (and forms) to increase responsiveness to the local environment in which they are built.  This is nothing new for many designers, and builds upon centuries of knowledge, but I’m mostly interested in how it…

  • Islands of Seattle

    This map of Seattle by UW Planner Jeffrey Linn via a post on The Whole U, features a speculation on sea level change in the Seattle region. The result is dramatic when taken to the level of complete world ice-sheets melting resulting in a 240′ sea level rise.  Particularly is you live in certain parts…

  • Get Shaking

    One thing of note in Seattle is that it is a city of varied topography, and that this obviously guided the evolution of where settlement occurred, while creating districts and landmark areas (many ending with ‘Hill’).  An interesting post related to this topographic urbanism is the seismic stability of my new city.  From the Seattle…