Landscape+Urbanism

Category: urbanism

  • 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…

  • PA35: Going Live

    I was really excited to receive the latest version of  Pamphlet Architecture, published by Princeton Architectural Press.  While I’ve not seen all of them, i do have at least a dozen, and they offer focused snapshots of theory and practice both as well as a longitudinal section of though spanning decades.  My first experience was…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • Game/Landscape

    I’ve mentioned a few times on Twitter, I have had an on-going interest in game design as a medium, but also in relation to the potential synergistic overlaps between the technology/techniques with landscape architecture and urbanism practice.  The most obvious connection has to do with visual representation, as the ability to create engaging site and building…

  • 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,…

  • TopoView for Historic USGS Maps

    The USGS tool TopoView offers access to digitized maps from 1879 to the current day – which is an amazing resource for looking at landscape change over time.  Using an online mapping tool, you can access maps from 250,000 scale down to 24,000 for the entire US , including Alaska and Hawaii.  The maps are…

  • 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…

  • San Francisco Hidden Hydrology

    A project of note that made the rounds over the past month resonated with the concept of Hidden Hydrology.  The project ‘Ghost Arroyos‘, proposed as part of the Market Street Prototyping Festival  paints the town blue, in a sense.  I definitely like this idea, as we’ve discussed doing a similar exploration of Portland’s Tanner Creek.…