Category: urban voids

  • Daily Drawdown 4: Perennial Biomass

    This is the fourth in an ongoing series illustrating the relationship of Drawdown strategies to landscape architecture. For context, read the initial post here. One Drawdown subject that fascinated me when I started reading about it was Perennial Biomass, specifically being able to use landscape waste as fuel for combustion as energy production, or for…

  • The Shape of Water

    An amazing resource posted on ASLA’s The Dirt (here) focuses on Design Guidelines for Urban Wetlands, specifically what shapes are optimal for performance. Using simulations and physical testing to investigate hydraulic performance the team from the Norman B. Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism (LCAU) at MIT.  Led by Heidi Nepf, Alan Berger and Celina Balderas Guzman along with a team…

  • Living Nature

    I seem to be attracted to compelling pavilion installations this month, as this interesting proposal (via  Archinect)for a project ‘Living Nature’ by Carlo Ratti Associati definitely caught my eye with it’s interesting take on climate and seasons. A short description from the CRA site: “International design and innovation office CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati has unveiled “Living Nature. La Natura…

  • Got Moss?

    A cool vegitectural proposal from Sam Biroscak in collaboration with Gina Dyches, Stephanie Borchers, Annick Lang, and Anneli Rice is “Mossgrove is a proposal for an architectural pavilion to be built in Times Square during NYCxDESIGN from May 12-20, 2018. It highlights the possibilities of two under-appreciated urban elements: scaffolding and moss. Individually, scaffolding and moss…

  • Ecologists on Urban Ecology

    A great roundtable going on right now from The Nature of Cites asking ecologists “What is one thing every ecologist should know about urban ecology?”  Consisting of a range of voices from all over the globe, the conversation discusses the larger contributions of ecology, as well as some of the challenges, as mentioned by David Maddox in…

  • LA+ The Tyranny Issue

    I’ve posted previously about the LA+ Journal, which has had previous issues focused on both Wild (reviewed here) and Pleasure in previous issues.  The current issue takes a radically different turn – with a focus on subjects around the broad concept of Tyranny.  Perhaps a strange topic for landscape architecture journal to tackle, and I…

  • Sensing Water

    A cool use of art to activate some overpasses in San Jose, California by Seattle based artist Dan Corson.  The first is called ‘Sensing WATER‘ which projects lighting on the underpass based on weather conditions.  From the site: Sensing WATER is a weather-responding and interactive artwork utilizing light and paint to define a major downtown…

  • Hidden Hydrology Origins 1: The Yellowwood and the Forgotten Creek

    Originally published on Terra Fluxus – 01/15/2011 As I mentioned in the previous post, there have been a number of inspirations that led to the current work on the Hidden Hydrology of Portland.  I will take this week outlining a few of the past words and images that have led to the current work.  A…