Category: science
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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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Arcology
A recent helpful commenter to a previous post corrected my erroneous assuption as to the roots of the word ‘Arcology’. Alas, it was not from Sim City as I was previously led to believe. The concept is most commonly associated with Arcosanti builder Paolo Soleri, but has some interesting heritage and implications for some of…
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Big + Cool: Balmori’s Mammoth Endeavor
A recent bit of information from the NY AIA awards, announcing one of the winning entries for 2008. The ‘World Mammoth and Permafrost Museum’ in Yakutsk, Siberia, which was a first-prize winner in a 2007 competition, is a project that definitely posed some challenges in site and program. The result ended up with an interesting…
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Design for Good
Ok, this is two posts from CNN in the span of a couple of weeks. And I don’t actual watch CNN, except for when trapped in an airport with the constant 10 minute new cycle. But this one is pretty impressive for major media outlet… Principal Voices is a ongoing series of discussion and dialogue…
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Vertical Farming: In Depth
I have a fascination with Urban Agriculture, more recently so due to the strategies that are being considered for implementation that either maximizes production per land acre, or maximizes the amount of acres used in the City for ephemeral or permanent farm operations. A recent post by WebUrbanist, ‘5 Urban Design Proposals for 3D City…
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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…
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Living Walls: Indoor Filtering
New Vegetated Architecture, moving to the indoors. This post was borne of images from the Cambridge Civic Administration Building in Toronto, featuring a large indoor living wall very reminiscent of the project at Guelph-Humber. This gives us the opportunity to get into depth regarding the function of indoor walls (and indoor vegetation by default) to…
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Process Landscapes
I was compelled to dust off my copy of the Landscape Urbanism Reader (ok, really just my notes), and look at a few key positions regarding the idea of ‘process landscapes’. The following quotes stuck out as applicable to process, a major tenet of LU theory (all quotations from Waldheim, ed.): Corner’s (p.16) four processes:…
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Urban Ag: A Variety of Techniques
It is garden planning season, and my plan is to double the 200 s.f. first year garden from last year, and build up some raised beds as well. I wonder, how large does a backyard garden have to get to qualify as a farm? Perhaps I should be more careful to plant what I can…
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Elements: Air
Save politics, air seems to be the issue on everyone’s mind these days. From global climate change to carbon sequestration and offsets – air quality is a significant urban landscape feature. Buildings, and landscapes (alongside appropriate technology) can be a part of the solution, in addition to being less of a part of the problem.…