A new podcast aims to demystify the Green New Deal and its implications for the profession. By Anjulie Rao Since Senator Edward J. Markey and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced the Green New Deal (GND) house resolution to Congress in 2019, architecture and landscape architecture educators have been teaching emerging designers to grapple with the possibilities of a carbon-neutral future outside the formal landscape practice (see “The Year of the Superstudio,” LAM, April 2022). Faculty are educating students on the interconnected systems related to economic policy, social movements, and the built environment, effectively blurring boundaries between areas of expertise.

A review of Plant Life: The Entangled Politics of Afforestation by Rosetta S. Elkin. By Jennifer Wolch Tree planting campaigns are widely seen as a nature-based solution to a variety of environmental challenges. Trees can absorb carbon emissions, halt desertification, protect biodiversity, cool urban heat islands, and redress environmental injustice.

In California’s wine country, a landscape architect helps farmers and residents prepare for wildfires. By Jennifer Reut Having grown up in Northern California, Ann Baker remembers the region’s wine country before it was dotted with tasting rooms and destination spas. Baker often visited her grandparents, the Solaris, at Larkmead Vineyards, the historic winery and vineyards […]

Falon Mihalic’s sculpture charts the atmospheric forces that bind us. By Zach Mortice Windbloom, a 12-foot-high sculpture and pavilion under construction near Houston by the artist and landscape architect Falon Mihalic, will give physical form to ephemeral weather processes—specifically, which way the wind blows. The site-specific piece will map the direction of local wind, and […]

Water out West is disappearing. Seven states, 30 tribes, and millions of people will need to adjust. By Lisa Owens Viani In early August 2021, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation declared the first ever Tier 1 shortage for the Colorado River, based on the agency’s projection that Lake Mead would drop below a threshold of […]