A monthly roundup of the news, dispatches, and marginalia that caught our eye.
In this dispatch of the Queue, the staff reads up on the latest on the troubled National Flood Insurance Program, considers the legacy of Bunny Mellon, and indulges in a little nostalgia.
CATCHING UP WITH…
- Slate (via Climate Desk) has an article on “Flood Zone Foolishness,” detailing how the very states most at risk are blocking reforms to the National Flood Insurance Program. In the November 2013 issue, we ran an interview with the project lead on the plan that recommended changes to the program (“The Risk Picture”) and the likely uptick in consumer premiums.
- Lawrence Halprin (posthumously), along with Lawrence Noble (sculptor) and George Lucas (owner), will receive the Henry Hering Memorial Medal for Art and Architecture from the National Sculpture Society (founded 1893) for their outstanding collaboration on the Letterman Digital Arts Center in the Presidio in San Francisco.
- Michael Ezban, ASLA, is the 2014 Maeder-York Family Fellow in Landscape Studies at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. His proposal is “Landscapes of Aquaculture.” He’ll be in conversation with Charles Waldheim on June 12, 2014 at the museum in Boston, MA.
FIELD STUDIES
- The terrific new issue of the recently rebranded Scenario Journal is on “Building the Urban Forest.”
- An appreciation of Bunny Mellon (1910–2014), plantswoman and garden designer.
- Richard Benfield says garden tourism is more important than you think—and unlike other types, it’s year-round.
- The cul-de-sac gets some attention and respect. 99% Invisible re-broadcasts an episode on this much-maligned symbol of mid-century suburbanization. Bonus points for the E.T. reference.
- Jonathan Massey looks at the “spectacle of growth” on display at the 10th São Paulo Architecture Biennial in Places.
OUT AND ABOUT
- Deadline approaching for this radically hybrid art/geography/landscape/performance event: The Anthropocene, Cabinet of Curiosities Slam, to be held at the University of Wisconsin–Madison November 8–10, 2014. The conference will feature a keynote address from Elizabeth Kolbert, author of The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History and Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change.
- The Center for Land Use Interpretation continues its stellar look at our power landscapes (“Power to the People,” LAM, December 2013) with a new exhibition on solar plants: Solar Boom: Sun-Powered Electrical Plants in the USA. On view at CLUI Los Angeles from March 7, 2014.
- The Cultural Landscape Foundation unveils its 2014 season of events, which includes What’s Out There Weekends in Miami, Richmond, Virginia, and Los Angeles; the Garden Dialogues series; and a land-art theme for Landslide.
- A six-chapter convergence, the ASLA Central States Conference will meet in Omaha, Nebraska, April 9–11, 2014.
- This year’s Parks and Greenspace Conference is on Pipes to Parks: Creating Greenspace with Rainwater. It will be held on March 31, 2014 in Atlanta.
- The Middle East Smart Landscape Summit 2014 will be held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, May 6–7, 2014.
[…] The Queue, March 2014: Landscape Architecture Magazine […]