Landscape+Urbanism

  • Reading List: Subnature

    Another book that engaged me on my hiatus from blogging is one I picked up on somewhat of a whim as it looked like a fascinating read. I wasn’t disappointed, as ‘Subnature: Architecture’s Other Environments” by David Gissen, quickly became impossible to put down. The reason? It really tackles some interesting terrain that is definitely…

  • Can I get a ‘Hell Yeah!’

    From AnArchitecture, quoting an article from Inside PR.“I actually hate billable hours. Don’t get me wrong – I like working – I really like bringing in the money.. but I just don’t like tracking every minute of my time – especially when it comes to multi-tasking and working on more than one thing, or often…

  • Portland Grid, revisited

    The question of the efficacy of the grid system is continually interesting, and there have been some interesting conversations about this with a range of folks locally. Another resource to throw some information into this discussion is the recently released background documents in support of the Portland Plan. One worth checking out for any Portland-phile…

  • Living Buildings 2.0

    Early last week, on the heels of the Sustainable Sites Initiative updated system launch, the International Living Building Institute offered the updated version of the Living Building Challenge, v2.0 – which offers a comprehensive building rating system for not just green, but regenerative buildings. :: image via ilbi The new system offers a much more…

  • Size Does Matter, or Not

    An interesting article in Planetizen called “Beloved and Abandoned: A Platting Named Portland” investigates one of the unique, frustrating and beloved quirks of Portland. This is, our slicework of 200 foot square blocks… making for a lot of roads, and development of tiny blocks. It’s our burden to bear. The article is a fascinating ride…

  • Big Box Surplus Space

    One of the major ‘big ideas’ of our Integrating Habitats competition, or the idea of reinventing suburbia in general, is the reduced parking need over time – and what to do with the leftover paved areas. An article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution shows this idea isn’t merely peak oil induced futurism, but a more current…

  • PlastiCity FantastiCity

    The fabulous RMIT based journal KERB has recently announced a new competition called PlastiCity FantastiCity, to envision a new urbanism. From the site: “The competition re-envisions city systems to explore fantastical opportunities that enable groundbreaking and fun projects which shake the design world. A multi-disciplinary approach is encouraged though not required and we are sure…

  • Sustainable Sites – Update

    From some sneak peeks of the latest update to the Sustainable Sites Initiative (more from L+U here), I was both excited about the next iteration and establishment of more rigorous set of criteria, and a bit curious how it was going to maintain some of the necessary distance, inclusivity and poetry that is lacking in…

  • Elements of Urban Agriculture

    I had the opportunity today to see a presentation by local urban agriculture guru Marc Boucher-Colbert (the man behind the Rocket Restaurant rooftop garden here in Portland). Instead of focusing directly on rooftops, he outlined a broad version of urban agriculture through an investigation of a range of possible strategies for our cities. This is…

  • Remembering Lawrence Halprin (or at least some of his projects)

    In the blogosphere, this is old news now. It’s been a week since I heard about the death of landscape architectural icon Lawrence Halprin – actually the day after while in a meeting where part of the topic was discussing the iconic nature of his park sequence in Portland as inspiration for a small plaza…

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