Tag Archives: By S. Cowles

After Extraordinary Conditions

The hidden dimensions of a city during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Text by Sarah Cowles
Photography by Dina Oganova

Mziuri Park’s lake, excavated from the Vere ravine’s floodplain.

In the middle of March, I join a friend for a trip to Tbilisi National Park, one of Georgia’s 15 national parks, and a dense and parallactic forest of mossy Fagus orientalis, Ilex colchica, and Taxus baccata. Continue reading After Extraordinary Conditions

Crisis Actors

Designers find new ways to tell communities about climate change.

By Sarah Cowles

Members of the James Corner Field Operations team give out cotton candy from the Sponge Hub at a South Bay farmers’ market. Image courtesy James Corner Field Operations.

In the early 1920s, leaders of the Soviet Union had a communication problem: how to relay the abstract and complex communist ideology and economy to their scattered constituents across several nations, languages, and varying literacy levels. Continue reading Crisis Actors

Tooling Up

Bay Area landscape studios team with local artisans to evolve CNC-fabricated site elements.

By Sarah Cowles

TLS Landscape Architecture interns test a 1:1 foam bench mock-up for the rammed earth bench. Photo by Robert Cabral.

Alcatraz keeps disappearing, but not because of sea-level rise. “Alcatraz Island has been stolen, replaced, and stolen again,” says Nicholas Gotthardt, a senior associate at Surfacedesign in San Francisco. Continue reading Tooling Up