Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘PLANNING’ Category

ART DIRECTOR’S CUT, MARCH 17

Posted in ECOLOGY, ENVIRONMENT, HABITAT, ONLINE ONLY, PHOTOGRAPHY, PLANNING, PLANTS, REGION, RESILIENCE, SOIL, SPECIES, tagged , , , , , , , , , on March 17, 2020| Leave a Comment »

The things our art director, Chris McGee, hated to leave out of the current issue of LAM.

Photo by Michelle Wendling.

From “Tallgrass Rehab” in the March 2020 issue by Dawn Reiss, about how a small army of landscape architects, ecologists, administrators, and volunteers are reseeding a rare instance of the Midwest’s signature landscape.

“Tallgrass prairie pollinator.”

–CHRIS MCGEE, LAM ART DIRECTOR

As always, you can buy this issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine at more than 250 bookstores, including many university stores and independents, as well as at Barnes & Noble. You can also buy single digital issues for only $5.25 at Zinio or order single copies of the print issue from ASLA. Annual subscriptions for LAM are a thrifty $59 for print and $44.25 for digital. Our subscription page has more information on subscription options.

Read Full Post »

THE THIN GREEN LINE

Posted in AWARDS, BROWNFIELDS, CITIES, CLIMATE, ECOLOGY, ENVIRONMENT, PARKS, PLANNING, RECREATION, REGION, RESILIENCE, SHORELINE, VIEWS, WATER, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 12, 2020| 1 Comment »

BY JONATHAN LERNER

Parks along New York City’s vulnerable waterfront, like the one recently completed at Hunter’s
Point South, are both amenity and armor.

FROM THE MARCH 2020 ISSUE OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE.

 

Even as the tides lapping at its edges rise, New York City is turning eagerly toward the water to relieve both a congested transit system and a shortfall in housing stock. For example, you can now travel among all five boroughs by ferry. Ferries have several advantages over streets and subways. For the passenger, those include wind in your hair and magnificent, alternately thrilling and calming views of the harbor; for the city, minimal fixed infrastructure and the ability to easily alter routes if circumstances—such as the shorelines themselves—should change. And from the new ferries that ply the East River, you can see the city’s most visible effort to address the housing crunch: clusters of enormous apartment towers recently built and under construction along once-industrial waterfronts.

The city mandates that, with redevelopment, the water’s edge be public space. Some of that is the “waterfront public access area” each newly developed riverside property is required to provide. Those areas must at least have landscape and seating; as built, they vary from quite thoughtful to afterthought. There are also a number of city and state parks along the river. So there is beginning to be a continuous public edge. It will probably always have gaps, but they are filling in as the new housing developments rise. Viewed from out on the water, the chain of public spaces resolves into a thin green line, as much of it consists of esplanades and piers or is otherwise flat. Still, discontinuous and varying in design quality as its component pieces are, they are hugely popular—just because they exist, and also because some of them are truly inspired. That would describe one of the newest of the city-developed pieces. In its case, you do begin to glimpse its features from the river, because it has hills and an architectural overlook jutting up and out toward you. This is, in fact, just where the ferry stops in Long Island City, Queens: Hunter’s Point South Park, designed by Thomas Balsley, FASLA, (whose eponymous firm joined SWA in 2016) in collaboration with Weiss/Manfredi Architecture/Landscape/Urbanism. (more…)

Read Full Post »

MARCH LAM: WHERE THE WILDNESS IS

Posted in CITIES, CLIMATE, ECOLOGY, EDUCATION, ENVIRONMENT, ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE, HEALING GARDENS, ONLINE ONLY, PEOPLE, PLANNING, PLANTS, PRACTICE, RECREATION, RESILIENCE, REUSE, SHORELINE, SOIL, SPECIES, WATER, WILDLIFE, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 2, 2020| Leave a Comment »

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

FOREGROUND

On Belonging and Becoming (Interview)
Julian Agyeman, a Tufts University planning professor, talks about his work in the realm of
environmental justice.

Perfume Genius (Materials)
SALT Landscape Architects relates the history of downtown Los Angeles through a series of olfactory encounters.

FEATURES

The Thin Green Line
The second phase of Hunter’s Point South in Queens, designed by the office of Thomas Balsley, FASLA, (now SWA/Balsley) with Weiss/Manfredi Architecture/Landscape/Urbanism, extends the park’s renowned toughness.

Tallgrass Rehab
A former U.S. Army arsenal in Illinois is now Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie, the only public land
of its kind, and one of the continent’s rarest biomes.

Have Van, Will Garden
The Winnipeg-based landscape architects Anna Thurmayr and Dietmar Straub, ASLA, have a simple
description of their work: humble and never complete.

All this plus the regular Now and Goods columns. The full table of contents for March can be found here.

As always, you can buy this issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine at more than 250 bookstores, including many university stores and independents, as well as at Barnes & Noble. You can also buy single digital issues for only $5.25 at Zinio or order single copies of the print issue from ASLA. Annual subscriptions for LAM are a thrifty $59 for print and $44.25 for digital. Our subscription page has more information on subscription options.

Keep an eye out here on the blog, on the LAM Facebook page, and on our Twitter feed (@landarchmag), as we’ll be posting March articles as the month rolls out.

Credits: “The Thin Green Line,” © Vecerka/Esto, courtesy SWA/Balsley and Weiss/Manfredi; “Have Van, Will Garden,” Brian Barth; “Tallgrass Rehab,” Michelle Wendling, “On Belonging and Becoming,” Alonso Nichols/Tufts University; “Perfume Genius,” Michael Wells. 

Read Full Post »

SHOW YOUR WORK, EXPAND YOUR SPHERE

Posted in BROWNFIELDS, CITIES, CLIMATE, ECOLOGY, ENVIRONMENT, ONLINE ONLY, PEOPLE, PLANNING, PRACTICE, REGION, RESEARCH, RESILIENCE, THE CLIENT, UNIVERSITY, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 27, 2020| Leave a Comment »

BY ZACH MORTICE

A mirrored hut, in the shape of Thoreau’s New England cabin, reminds us to slow down our metabolism for appraising and interpreting landscapes. Photo by Justin Knight.

Günther Vogt on the limits of design, and the boundless reach of landscape architecture.

 

Ask Günther Vogt what the problems facing landscape architecture are, and he’ll tell you that there’s a bit too much design happening today.

This provocation suggests that it’s time for landscape designers to spend less time fussing with the proportions of a public square and more time working through urban and region-scaled problems. That was the thrust of Vogt’s Frederick Law Olmsted Lecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design earlier this month, which accompanied an exhibition of his work on display now at the GSD’s Druker Design Gallery at Gund Hall. First the Forests exhibits six of Vogt’s projects and is filled with artifacts, models, specimens, and dioramas presented in tactile wood boxes—references to the European tradition of the “Wunderkammer” or “cabinet of curiosities,” eclectic containers filled with wonder and mystery.

There are cylindrical core samples of Boston’s mineral geology, impossibly delicate 19th century Italian gypsum models of mushrooms, excerpts from German plant morphology diagrams, and deconstructed and collaged 19th century landscape paintings, with foreground and background elements cut out and separated between panes of glass, giving the painting a semblance of texture and depth. LAM spoke to Vogt before the lecture about the exhibition. (more…)

Read Full Post »

AMAZON FIRE: WHO OWNS THE AMAZON?

Posted in ECOLOGY, ENVIRONMENT, ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE, FEATURES, HABITAT, HEALTHY COMMUNITIES, PLANNING, REGULATIONS, RESILIENCE, WILDLIFE, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 25, 2020| 2 Comments »

As part of an ongoing effort to make content more accessible, LAM will be making select stories available to readers in Spanish. For a full list of translated articles, please click here.

BY CATHERINE SEAVITT NORDENSON, ASLA

FROM THE FEBRUARY 2020 ISSUE OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE.

 

Who owns the Amazon? In news reports about the unprecedented number of fires burning in this vast forest during the past several months, Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, has vehemently answered “Brazil”—punctuating that claim with the charge that any nation holding a different opinion is simply a colonizer, usually a European one. Yet defined in terms of the river’s massive watershed, the Amazon rain forest—the world’s largest such tropical biome—falls within eight South American countries: Brazil, Ecuador, Venezuela, Suriname, Peru, Colombia, Bolivia, and Guyana.

Those same eight polities have been embroiled in a seven-year legal battle with Amazon.com, Inc. and its CEO, Jeff Bezos, who would very much like to own .amazon—the domain name, that is. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers—the independent body that vets global Internet addresses—has sided with Bezos. American corporate interests, once again, seem to have the upper hand over local cultural heritage and place-name identity, despite concerns voiced by Brazil’s minister of foreign affairs and representatives from other governments that share the watershed.

Certainly, “owning” the Amazon has always been bound up in questions of sovereignty. And sovereignty has long been caught up in authoritative claims of possession. (more…)

Read Full Post »

MULLIGANS

Posted in ECOLOGY, ENVIRONMENT, PARKS, PLANNING, RECREATION, RESEARCH, RESILIENCE, RIVER RESTORATION, THE CLIENT, VIEWS, WATER, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 11, 2020| 2 Comments »

BY ZACH MORTICE

FROM THE FEBRUARY 2020 ISSUE OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE.

 

Just a few years ago, Keri VanVlymen, a landscape designer with Ratio in Indianapolis, had never driven a golf cart, but now she’s an expert. Over five months in 2018, she surveyed each of Indianapolis’s 13 public golf courses, trekking “every mile of every trail of every course,” she says, 49 miles in all. She’s watched colleagues get stuck on icy hills and has clawed her way up a snowy, arched footbridge, one foot on the accelerator, one hand pulling herself along the railing while the wheels spun.

In late 2017, Indianapolis hired Ratio to re-evaluate the city’s public golf courses, with an eye toward converting some into parks. Whereas most cities of its size would have one to four public courses, Indianapolis’s baker’s dozen stretches across 1,800 acres. With VanVlymen’s colleague John Jackson, ASLA, a principal and the director of landscape architecture and urban design at Ratio, the firm is proposing supplanting green fees in favor of multipurpose recreation and letting everyone onto the land.

“Golf courses are very large-scale designed landscapes,” Jackson says. “You’re playing the game through these very large corridors.” Golf courses are often designed as “18 very large rooms. If you apply that to today’s recreational trends, there’s a lot of interesting places you can go,” he says. (more…)

Read Full Post »

FEBRUARY LAM: STEADY DELETION

Posted in ACCESSIBILITY, CITIES, CLIMATE, ECOLOGY, ECONOMICS, ENVIRONMENT, ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE, FARMS, HABITAT, HEALTHY COMMUNITIES, ONLINE ONLY, PEOPLE, PLANNING, PLANTS, PRESERVATION, RECREATION, REGULATIONS, RESEARCH, RESILIENCE, SHORELINE, SOIL, THE CLIENT, WILDLIFE, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 3, 2020| Leave a Comment »

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

FOREGROUND

Public Space, No Exceptions (Law)
The Supreme Court in December affirmed that people have a right to sleep in public space when no other options are provided, but homeless advocates see worrisome holes in the net.

Mulligans (Planning)
As golf declines in popularity, the office of Ratio helps Indianapolis fix its oversupply of public courses.

FEATURES

Amazon Fire: Who Owns the Amazon?
Issues of sovereignty and colonialism in the Amazon Basin have long hindered efforts to protect its rain forests. The recent destructive push for development has made those conflicts more urgent.

Lethal Glass Landscapes
North American wild bird populations have dropped by almost 30 percent since 1970. Landscape
architects are working with policy makers to avoid the collisions that kill birds in cities.

Editorial Discretion
For a lakeside residential compound in Vermont, Wagner Hodgson weaves together
old and new elements with a few striking moves.

All this plus the regular Now and Goods columns. The full table of contents for February can be found here.

As always, you can buy this issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine at more than 250 bookstores, including many university stores and independents, as well as at Barnes & Noble. You can also buy single digital issues for only $5.25 at Zinio or order single copies of the print issue from ASLA. Annual subscriptions for LAM are a thrifty $59 for print and $44.25 for digital. Our subscription page has more information on subscription options.

Keep an eye out here on the blog, on the LAM Facebook page, and on our Twitter feed (@landarchmag), as we’ll be posting February articles as the month rolls out.

Credits: “Amazon Fire: Who Owns the Amazon?” AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano; “Lethal Glass Landscapes,” Marek Lipka-Kadaj/Shutterstock.com; “Editorial Discretion,” Jim Westphalen; “Mulligans,” Ratio; “Public Space, No Exceptions,” Brice Maryman, FASLA. 

Read Full Post »

Older Posts »