Landscape+Urbanism

Category: urbanism

  • Reading List: Small Spaces

    A new release that arrived from Princeton Architectural Press ‘Small Scale’ advertises ‘Creative Solutions for Better City Living’ which is a lofty goal.  It immediately made me think of niche DIY magazines like Ready-Made  for people with pent up creativity just bursting with ideas if they only had some direction or money.  When I read the preliminary…

  • Density of the Dead

    A little cross-post from the Veg.itecture blog, where the concept of a vertical cemetery in Mumbai ‘Vegitecturally Vertical Cemetery‘ was presented as a way to satisfy cultural expectations while efficiently utilizing scarce urban land. As we’ve become less likely to cross program or use cemeteries as quasi-public parks and open space – these areas (while…

  • Ph.D.

    In addition to (or shall I say augmenting) the launch this year of my new firm, I’ve also begun what shapes up to be a long process of obtaining my Doctorate – specifically a Ph.D in Urban Studies from Portland State University – and their Nohad A. Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning. I…

  • Mapping Racial Diversity

    Serendipitously continuing on the topic of mapping, some interesting ones (spotted on Seattle’s Publicola) offers many color-coded maps of racial diversity from major US cities. The work is from a familiar name, Eric Fischer (an earlier post showing some of his work is here), and he has developed another comprehensive set of urban maps highlighting…

  • Animurbanism

    I thought this was pretty funny (and ridiculous) when first heard on NPR, then seen in multiple locations. The story centers on the layouts of these planned Sudanese cities, shaped like indigenous animals and even fruit from the region. This has been all over the place lately in media snippets, with a reaction of surprise,…

  • Sodding Bridges

    Although I did get stuck waiting for one of the many bridges today, my title for this post is more tongue in cheek than brit-inspired rage. Bridges are part of the fabric of Portland, and give our city much of it’s identity while also serving as vital infrastructure connecting east to west (and north to…

  • Goodbye, Landscape Urbanism BS Generator

    Sad news… I got an email that the Landscape Urbanism Bullshit Generator (and the entire ruderal site for that matter) is no longer . One of my first posts mentioned what I think is a great, tongue-in-cheek reference for the overly wordy, obfuscatorily verbose – particularly in terms of the word bank of the early…

  • The Beauty of Reading (Books)

    The lack of functioning monitor and wonder of summer have given me the opportunity to dive in and complete a few books that have been laying around unfinished. While I am intrigued by the Kindle and my sister espouses the merits of B&Ns’ Nook – I still am drawn to the written word – on…

  • Portland Photographic Record – Places

    A completely different scale from the concentrated landmarks – and perhaps the antidote to the over-documented – comes from the great Portland Grid Project a photographic essay of the city using a loose framework of grid points in which photographers are unleashed to document the ‘other’ places in the community. The plan, photographers are directed…

  • Portland Photographic Record – Landmarks

    The ubiquitous nature of digital data offers unique opportunities to display data about places that tells us a much richer story about ourselves than the actual city. Case in point, spotted via A Daily Dose of Architecture – are these ‘Geotaggers’ World Atlas‘ maps generated from geographically tagged data of uploaded photos to popular image…