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Archive for the ‘WATER’ Category

JULY LAM: BETWEEN TWO CRISES

Posted in CITIES, ECOLOGY, ECONOMICS, ENERGY, ENVIRONMENT, ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE, HEALTHY COMMUNITIES, ONLINE ONLY, PEOPLE, PHOTOGRAPHY, REGION, REGULATIONS, RESILIENCE, STREETS, TRANSPORTATION, WATER, WILDLIFE, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 1, 2020| Leave a Comment »

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FOREGROUND     

Law in the Land (Interview)
The author and legal scholar Jedediah Purdy’s new book, This Land Is Our Land, sifts through
contradictory assumptions about our ties to the environment.      

Midas’s Touch (Planning)
Conservationists strike an uneasy alliance with a mining company that wants to clean up
and restore habitat near an old gold mine—so it can restart mining operations.

FEATURES

All Ours
A photographic essay of Washington, D.C.’s First Amendment spaces under threat
by the government.

After Extraordinary Conditions
With a small landscape architecture practice and a gimlet eye, the author makes her way
around the city of Tbilisi, Georgia, during the coronavirus lockdown.

The full table of contents for July 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 July articles as the month rolls out.

Credits: “All Ours,” Sahar Coston-Hardy, Affiliate ASLA; “After Extraordinary Conditions,” Dina Oganova; “Law in the Land,” courtesy Laura Britton; “Midas’s Touch,” courtesy Midas Gold.

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EVERYBODY IN

Posted in ACCESSIBILITY, ECOLOGY, ECONOMICS, ENVIRONMENT, ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE, HEALTHY COMMUNITIES, ONLINE ONLY, PARKS, PLANNING, REGULATIONS, RESILIENCE, SHORELINE, WATER, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 22, 2020| Leave a Comment »

BY ZACH MORTICE

Hunter’s Point South in Queens, New York. Copyright Jonnu Singleton, courtesy SWA/Balsley and Weiss/Manfredi.

A Waterfront Alliance report wades into how waterfront access is a crucible for public health and a measure of inequality.

 

Despite alighting across the two rivers and an ocean, only 37 percent of New York and New Jersey’s waterfronts are open to the public, and only 9 percent of waterfronts in the poorest areas are accessible. The Waterfront Alliance’s new report “Waterfront Access for All: Breaking Down Social and Physical Barriers to the Waterfront” shines a light on this pervasive inequality. The report (available here) covers both policy and design interventions that can address this chasm. Those are now more urgent as the nation grapples with the twin crises of COVID-19, which has made outdoor landscapes vital places for safe refuge, and racial inequality, which is easily read through access to public waterfronts. The report focuses on New York and New Jersey and includes input from more than 60 organizations. The Alliance partnered with the New York –New Jersey Harbor & Estuary Program to convene the task force that assembled the report. Intended to influence the public and city agencies, the report aims to inform the New York City Department of City Planning’s Comprehensive Waterfront Plan, and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection’s rule making process.

“We’re trying to help the public, designers, and government agencies to reimagine what connections to the water can look like,” says Sarah Dougherty, the program manager at the Waterfront Alliance, a nonprofit advocacy group that a works toward creating healthy, resilient, and equitably accessible waterfronts. (more…)

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THE RIVER AND THE REAL WORLD

Posted in ECOLOGY, ENVIRONMENT, PARKS, PLANNING, RECREATION, REGION, RESILIENCE, RIVER RESTORATION, SHORELINE, STREETS, STUDENTS, UNIVERSITY, WATER, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 12, 2020| Leave a Comment »

BY JONATHAN LERNER

Cornell students bring visions for climate adaptation down to the Hudson shore.

FROM THE MAY 2020 ISSUE OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE.

 

The Hudson River is tidal, gaining a mean elevation of only two feet for 150-plus miles inland from the Atlantic. It is flanked, almost without interruption, by bluffs and cliffs. Most communities along it have only a slender strip of land at river level. Historically, industries and infrastructure were sited below, with more salubrious parts of towns built up the slopes. Most industry is gone. Communities want to reinvent their riverfronts, which means contending with the tides and storms of a changing climate. They’re getting help from Josh Cerra, ASLA, the director of graduate studies in the Department of Landscape Architecture at Cornell University. With collaboration from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s Hudson River Estuary Program, he has been bringing community-based “Climate-Adaptive Design” studios to Hudson River towns.

The studio has obvious pedagogical value. Students learn site research and engagement skills, and to imbue design with climate science. Meanwhile, it lets Cerra pursue an interest in applied education and cross-disciplinary experiences. In developing their concepts, his students get “consultants”—other students, from Cornell’s Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering. To assess the studio’s benefits, Cerra is collaborating with a Cornell researcher who studies behaviors and conservation management. Their inquiries, he says, include “how working with engineers or other technical partners may enhance learning innovation” for landscape architects. And then there is the studio’s value to the towns, which are gifted with provocative visions for their futures. (more…)

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APRIL LAM: LANDSCAPE FOR LIFE

Posted in CONSTRUCTION, ECOLOGY, ENVIRONMENT, IN THE ISSUE, INTERVIEW, MATERIALS, ONLINE ONLY, PARKS, PHOTOGRAPHY, PLAYGROUNDS, PRACTICE, SCHOOLS, WATER, WORKSTATION, tagged , , , , , , on April 1, 2020| 1 Comment »

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FOREGROUND

The Bricks Are Back (Materials)
A beloved theater and public plaza are reimagined for accessibility and diversity.

Worked Up (Workplace)
Working on two Indiana campus sites for a hometown company, DAVID RUBIN
Land Collective balances corporate identity with a sense of place.

FEATURES

 The Wild World of Terremoto
Terremoto is a young firm in Los Angeles betting that the future depends on redesigning practice
along with the Southern California landscape.

Fair Play
Working inside the Milwaukee Public Schools system, Pam Linn, FASLA, is rolling out an equitable model
for upgrading dozens of Milwaukee’s dreary schoolyards and playgrounds.

Hell of Fun
Montreal-based Claude Cormier + Associés hurdles design obstacles with a sly sense of humor and vibrant colors, but it only looks easy. It’s not.

In honor of World Landscape Architecture Month, the entire April digital issue is available for FREE, and you can access it here. As always, the April issue covers a wide swath of the work landscape architects do designing equitable schoolyards, playful public spaces, community-oriented corporate campuses, and unexpectedly wild gardens. Be sure to take a look at ASLA’s #WLAM2020 and #LifeGrowsHere programs and initiatives aimed at promoting the profession and how you can participate. We will continue to post new stories all month on the impacts of COVID-19 on the profession of landscape architecture here and abroad.

You can buy Landscape Architecture Magazine online. Single digital issues are available for only $5.25 at Zinio or you can 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 website, on the LAM Facebook page, and on our Twitter feed (@landarchmag) for more updates on COVID-19 impacts, #WLAM2020, and fresh journalism on the profession of landscape architecture.

Credits: “Fair Play,” Colin Boyle/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Via Imagn Content Services, LLC; “Hell of Fun,” Cyril Doisneau; “The Wild World of Terremoto,” Stephen Schauer; “The Bricks Are Back,” Meghan Montgomery/Built Work Photography; “Worked Up,” Hadley Fruits. 

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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…)

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ART DIRECTOR’S CUT, MARCH 10

Posted in CITIES, CLIMATE, ECOLOGY, ENVIRONMENT, NEW YORK CITY, ONLINE ONLY, PARKS, PHOTOGRAPHY, RECREATION, RESILIENCE, SHORELINE, VIEWS, WATER, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on March 10, 2020| Leave a Comment »

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

Courtesy SWA/Balsley and Weiss/Manfredi.

From “The Thin Green Line” in the March 2020 issue by Jonathan Lerner, about a new waterfront park in New York City by SWA/Balsley and Weiss/Manfredi that keeps floodwaters at bay and people flocking to the shoreline.

“Working out the waterfront.”

–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.

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QUITE A SPLASH

Posted in CLIMATE, ECOLOGY, ECONOMICS, ENVIRONMENT, ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE, HEALTHY COMMUNITIES, LAND MATTERS, POLLUTION, REAL ESTATE, REGULATIONS, RESIDENTIAL, RESILIENCE, SHORELINE, WATER, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 3, 2020| Leave a Comment »

BY BRADFORD MCKEE, EDITOR

FROM THE MARCH 2020 ISSUE OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE.

 

The National Association of Home Builders, among others, is giddy about a new Trump administration rule that allows widespread water pollution and wetland destruction. In late January, the federal government put out its final fixes to the Navigable Waters Protection Rule, known also as the Waters of the United States rule, under the Clean Water Act. The changes remove safeguards for most wetlands and more than 18 percent of streams. You are now free to fill these wetlands and foul these waters unburdened by law or by the unforgiving science that tells us which things turn water toxic and that water still runs downhill. The administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Andrew Wheeler, even showed up at the home builders’ annual gathering in Las Vegas to announce the changes the group has wanted so badly. Their website headlined the announcement as “a big splash.” (more…)

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