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PHRWEE Urbanism
Coming from a childhood of tiptoeing through Air Force Bases around the world, I’m actually a big fan of random and overwrought acronyms (which I believe may have switched in my adult years to a new found love of clever portmanteau). In this regard, I am impressed with urb – and the fantastic and thought-provoking…
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The Detroit Dilemma – Ruminations
I recently finished up the draft text that summarized the land use and open space portions of the Detroit Sustainable Design Assessment Team (AIA SDAT) that I participated in a few months back. It gave me a chance to revisit some of the thinking around my initial thoughts and reactions – with some distance and…
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Viva le Cité
The holiday season has given me a chance to catch up on a LOT of reading, so stay tuned for a mash-up of some of the most notable new work in the coffers… as well as a few book reviews and other little projects that I’ve been trying to finish up to no avail. One…
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Happy Holidays
:: image via dlandstudio (Thanks to Susannah Drake from dlandstudio for the wintry view of their design for a temporary rink designed to fit under the Brooklyn Bridge for this post!)
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Academy of Urbanism
A quick post from Tomorrow’s Thoughts Today (look into the middle column ‘Medium Thoughts’ and scroll down to “The Deadening of Place…”) referencing the new manifesto of the Academy of Urbanism – which is more or less (according to TTT), is the UK equivalent to the Congress for New Urbanism. (insert groan here). This is…
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The Paralytic City
As we spend another day cooped up inside, waiting out what has lovingly been dubbed ‘Arctic Blast’ – the most massive of winter storms – seriously. In a place of the country that has an occasional ice storm, but doesn’t typically have snow stick around for more than a day or two at most –…
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Got Maintenance?
As regular visitors know, L+U comprehensively covers the broad range of vegetated architecture. While there are many technical issues at play, often the coverage skims the surface with some choice excerpts and some snappy graphics. This is not to imply that there is not a critical eye towards the functional side, and as a designer…
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Veg.itecture #46
A double-dose this week, as there are a number of recent impressive projects, and the preponderance of press picking up the terminology on the sub-genre of Veg.itecture. Also, recently, Landscape, The First Specialised Landscape Magazine in the Middle East was kind enough to publish my article, The “Veg.itecture of Ken Yeang”. Check out the online…
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Portland = Ecotopia?
In my third year of undergraduate studies, my Ecology instructor offhandedly mentioned the book Ecotopia by Ernest Callenbach, as something to read if you want to see a potential model of ecological urbanism. While I was toying with my youthful and newly formed consciousness about an ecological ethic, I was both rapt and appalled. Rapt,…
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Vertical Gardens
Via Topophilia, a competition right up our alley… from Exit Art: VERTICAL GARDENS – DUE JANUARY 15, 2009 The past decade has seen an emergence of green roofs and vertical gardens created by artists, designers, architects and urban gardeners to combat the lack of flora in the city. Buildings around the world — from the…