Landscape+Urbanism

Category: urban ecology

  • Worlds Largest

    Via, Dezeen, a post about Rafael Viñoly design for The Hills at Vallco, along with landscape architecture firm Olin, to redevelop the “…Vallco Shopping Mall in Cupertino into a vast mixed-use development featuring a 30-acre (12 hectare) green roof.”  Billed as the ‘largest green roof in the world’, a title of which is somewhat arbitrary and ambiguous,…

  • 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,…

  • Vegetal Cities

    Continuing the theme, I spotted this post on Treehugger, showcasing the amazing work of Luc Schuiten, a Belgian architect who offers “…a visionary approach to rethinking cities, in a biomimetic fashion. In his lush and fantastical renderings of what he calls “vegetal cities,” urban centers are transformed into living, responsive architectures that merge nature with…

  • Hidden Hydrology at UERC Conference

    I recently gave a talk at the great annual conference Urban Ecology Research Consortium of Portland/Vancouver (UERC), which focuses on ” advance the state of the science of urban ecosystems and improve our understanding of them”.   I was really excited to be chosen to present (i had done a poster presentation in past years), and…

  • PE 1: Parallel Genealogies

    As mentioned, it would be worth while to explore some essays of the Projective Ecologies book, and what better way to start than with the introductory essay by Reed and Lister, Parallel Genealogies. The terms ‘ecologies’ and ‘ecosystems’ are co-opted for a variety of uses today beyond event these, which could lead to the eye-rolling…

  • 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…

  • Guest Post: From Honolulu to Paris MONU #20

    by Gabriele Baleisyte “Nature” or nature? Does natural geography still mater much to today’s city? What is the current relationship between our conception of nature and its role in urban life? Which nature is dominating now; the pure or the second one_- man made nature? During my current stay in Rotterdam, I have heard these questions widely discussed at the 6th International Architecture…

  • Hidden Hydrology Redux

    Last week, I had the honor recently of presenting at a conference with one of my idols of landscape architecture, Anne Whiston Spirn.  Aside from stimulating conversation, she presented the old and new of her work from The Granite Garden through her ongoing work on the Mill Creek Project in Philadelphia, i was reminded of…

  • Urban Ecology

    I’ve been eagerly awaiting the arrival of Urban Ecology: Science of Cities by Richard T.T. Forman (Cambridge University Press, 2014).  Since arrival a couple of days ago, i have not been disappointed, and this shapes up to be one of the most up to date resources for ecological principals applied to urban areas to date.…