Hungry Mile wasteland warning

THE man advising New York on how to revamp its public spaces has slammed the NSW Government’s plan for the former Hungry Mile site, warning it will become “fearsome at night” and a “wasteland” on weekends and public holidays.

The Government wants to transform the historic wharves at East Darling Harbour in what it describes as the biggest urban renewal project in a generation.

Half of the 22-hectare site would become a waterside wedge of parkland and public open space. The other half would consist of residential and commercial buildings.

But the Danish urban planner Jan Gehl, who is visiting Sydney, said a lack of nearby residents, a parkland too large for its own good and a location too difficult to reach, would make the area, known as Barangaroo, dangerous and deserted.

Read more @ the Source: smh.com.au – Hungry Mile wasteland warning

SNRE students contribute to winning paper on climate change

Global climate change and coastal brownfield redevelopment are two subjects that on the surface don’t play well together.

But a group of University of Michigan graduate students, including four from its School of Natural Resources and Environment ( SNRE ), have come up with an award-winning strategy. Their proposal calls for linking the subjects with a glue: a planning and design concept known as “resilience.”

The students’ interdisciplinary work was produced in the fall for the course “NRE 576/UP 576: Applying Landscape Ecological Design to Brownfield Redevelopment.” Joan Nassauer, a professor of Landscape Architecture at SNRE, developed and taught the course, which received significant support in 2007 from the Graham Environmental Sustainability Institute, Lubert-Adler, Antares Real Estate and their partners in Stamford, Conn. Each interdisciplinary team in the course developed its own focus for proposing an alternative scenario for a 220-acre brownfield redevelopment site on the South End of Stamford.

Members of the winning team are: Jeffrey Carey, College of Engineering; M’Lis Bartlett, Amy Beltamacchi and Amy Kludt, landscape architecture ( SNRE ); Sarah Levy, environmental policy ( SNRE ); and Stacey Braverman, Law School.  The title of their winning project is “Building Resilience:  Remediation Options for Minimizing Risk on Coastal Brownfield Development in light of Global Climate Change.”

Source: SNRE Press Release

Brings a new meaning to the concept of ‘Green Roof’

Sod is not the only green substance growing on King’s Court English College House’s recently-installed green roof.

A King’s Court resident was arrested yesterday after maintenance staff discovered he was growing marijuana on the college house’s roof, which was completed this January.

Read more @ the Source: The Daily Pennsylvanian – ‘When green goes wrong’ .

Architects must encourage real progress on green building, not ‘greenwash’

Buildings are the biggest source of emissions and energy consumption in Canada.

They play a major role in the environmentally unfriendly trends projecting energy consumption to increase by 37 per cent and greenhouses gases by 36 per cent over the next 20 years in North America alone. Add to that that these buildings are interconnected by a series of roads and highways and you begin to see the magnitude of the issue.

There was an estimated $30-billion worth of building-construction plans in architects’ offices in cities across Canada as 2007 began. Once completed, these more than three million new buildings will have a lifespan of between 50 to 100 years – during which time they will consume energy in the form of electricity, and generate greenhouse gases by burning fuel oil, natural gas or liquid propane. Enter the role of the architect

Read more @ the Source:  Daily Commercial News – Architects must encourage real progress on green building, not ‘greenwash’ by Kiyoshi Matsuzaki, FRAIC

Sustainable Urbanization in the Information Age

The Sustainable Urbanization in conference addresses the global challenges posed by rapid urbanization and its impact on global warming and the natural environment – from poverty and inequality to natural and manmade disasters – by calling for better sustainable planning for urban growth.

The conference will be held during Earth Week and start on April 23
United Nations Headquarters
First Avenue at 46th Street ECOSOC Chamber
New York, NY, 10017 United States

Sustainable Urbanization in the Information Age

Source: Dexigner

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