This Week in Landscape | 21 October 2012

Landscape links from around the world for your weekly reading

Las Vegas Downtown | Image posted by Flickr User Fronteras Desk Image taken by Jude Joffe-Block

What Happens in Brooklyn Moves to Vegas | Timothy Pratt | NY Times
…almost a year into the Downtown Project, his $350 million urban experiment to build “the most community-focused large city in the world” in downtown Las Vegas

Appreciating the D.C. area’s landscapes | Roger K. Lewis | The Washington Post
To help local citizens and millions of annual visitors explore, understand and better appreciate the city’s landscapes, and not just its buildings, the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) recently launched its “Landscape Architect’s Guide to Washington, D.C.”

Native plants support native animal populations | Candy Williams | triblive
Native plants offer many other advantages, according to Castorani. They are adapted to our soils and climate, they require less care and watering when established, and they thrive with less fertilizer and disease control.

German Gardener Helps Saudi Desert Bloom | Susanne Koelbl | Spiegel Online
A German landscape architect who has been working in Saudi Arabia for nearly 40 years, Richard Bödeker turns his wealthy clients’ dreams into reality.

Cities need to think of green urban solutions | Construction & Maintenance News 
The participants comprised 90 newly qualified landscape architects, leading international architects, engineers and experts, how the increasing amount of rainwater may affect future urban design and help create ownership and new cultural attitudes to water in cities.

 Where will we live? | Arif Hasan | Himal Magazine
Arif Hasan speaks on the ‘World-Class City’ concept, and its repercussions on urban planning for Asian cities.

Infographic: An App For Architects That Makes Physics Easy | Fast Co Design 
The app, available for iPhone and iPad, is a barebones set of images and animations that show the forces inherent in cables, arches, domes, columns, beams, and more.

 

IMAGE CREDIT | Image posted by Flickr User Fronteras Desk Image taken by Jude Joffe-Block

Tiburon Bay House | Tiburon USA | Shades of Green Landscape Architecture

Intent: The client wanted a garden with different outdoor spaces so there would be places to enjoy the view, but also have areas that were shielded from the wind. The lot is steep and fairly large, so large areas were to be natural and low maintenance.  We also wanted to reuse the materials on the site; to minimize and reuse water; and to keep surfaces permeable while creating a natural and modern garden.

Continue reading Tiburon Bay House | Tiburon USA | Shades of Green Landscape Architecture

Hamilton Residence | Miami USA | Arquitectonica GEO

Hamilton Residence | Miami USA | Arquitectonica GEO

A residential landscape that integrates the owner’s heritage, French with their place of residence: Florida. An exposed and unused lawn is converted into a poetic display of hardy native plants and trees which require little maintenance and no water during the dry season. The driveway integrates elements of French formality de-constructed classic shapes of Versailles parterres floating in a bed of Florida seashells.

Continue reading Hamilton Residence | Miami USA | Arquitectonica GEO

This Week in Landscape | 12 February 2012

This weeks round-up of landscape news and views from around the web

Tribeca Neighborhood has a High Walkability Score (Flickr Image: Paul Stein)

Most Americans Want a Walkable Neighborhood, Not a Big House | Nona Willis Aronowitz | GOOD
The symbol of American success often involves having the biggest house possible, but our outsized fantasies seem to be shifting.

Reclaimed bus yard begins life as urban wetland | Kate Linthicum | LA Times
A nine-acre park at Avalon Boulevard and 54th Street offers walking paths, native plants and pools with bacteria that clean polluted storm water

Phoenix architect uses desert landscape as inspiration, focuses on simplicity, sustainability | Josselyn Berry | Downtown Devil
Attributes of the desert landscape are re-imagined in the work of Phoenix architect Will Bruder.

Frederick Law Olmsted Is Holding Us Back (There. I Said It.) | ASLA DIRT Blog
A blog post that has caused a stir in the profession in the USA. Is Frederick Law Olmsted holding landscape architects in the USA back?

Landscape Architecture Students Work with Frogtown to Create Pop-Up Tree Nursery | Jolene Brink | University of Minnesota College of Design News
University of Minnesota landscape architecture students are collaborating with Saint Paul Parks and Recreation Department, Frogtown residents, and the Frogtown Neighborhood Association to create a temporary nursery for 4-6 months during 2012.

Don’t Reinvent The Wheel, Steal It: An Urban Planning Award for Cities That Copy | Zak Stone | GOOD
Cities around the world may all be struggling with the same problems, from building affordable housing to boosting internet access, but a lack of dialogue means that local governments rarely copy each other’s successful ideas….

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IMAGE CREDIT: [Flickr Image: Paul Stein]

A Walk in the Woods | Hillsdale New York | Jon Piasecki

A Walk in the Woods-Jon Piasecki

The goal of this project is to connect my clients, an urban family of 4, with the amazing rural land they own in upstate New York as their second home. Simplicity, ease of maintenance and the use of materials taken from the 90 acres are the guideposts that orient the project. This work is a sculptural examination of the subtle traces of cultural history and ecological processes on site.

The soil on the project is horrendous. It is a greasy mix of shale and clay that is prone both to drought and standing water depending on the ambient meteorological conditions. The deer pressure is intense with upwards of 40 deer per square mile. No irrigation system exists, nor can it as the well supplies very little water. The wind and cold conditions are extreme. This site was formerly a high pasture for cattle that had been left fallow as a result of its low productivity for a few decades before my clients bought this land. The clients are not avid gardeners. They are quite busy and they live on this site primarily on the weekends.
Continue reading A Walk in the Woods | Hillsdale New York | Jon Piasecki

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