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Archive for June, 2008

Land Matters: Can This Urban Plaza Be Saved? Should It Be?

Posted in Public Spaces on 06/25/2008 | Leave a Comment »

I visited Boston’s City Hall Plaza in the company of one of our LA forums (“In Search of Public Space,” August 2001), and the place struck me as an urban design disaster—a featureless expanse of brick on which pedestrians look dwarfed and lost. Our forum included four big-city landscape architects and an expert on urban [...]

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When Parks Are Too Successful

Posted in Uncategorized on 06/23/2008 | Leave a Comment »

New York magazine pretty much shatters the image of New York’s Central Park as an oasis of calm in that hypercharged city (http://nymag.com/guides/summer/2008/47976/). “The current situation is a New York City case study of the economic phenomenon known as the tragedy of the commons, whereby a shared resource is, inevitably, overexploited,” writes Gabriel Sherman. So [...]

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Mauling a Mall? Charlotteville’s Call to Action

Posted in Public Spaces on 06/23/2008 | Leave a Comment »

Designed by American landscape architect Lawrence Halprin (1916- ) in the 1970s, Charlotteville, Va.’s downtown mall was the product of a community-oriented design process that included many of Charlottesville’s citizens and that aimed to respond to Charlottesville’s social history. It continues to serve citizen’s needs and serve as a vibrant, successful community gathering space. The [...]

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From Blight to Beauty

Posted in Environment on 06/19/2008 | Leave a Comment »

A recent online article in Plenty by Alexa Schirtzinger focuses on the concept of reclamation of trees felled by natural calamity…and the lessons that can be learned. The Chicago Furniture Designers Association is organizing exhibits of high-style furniture pieces made of ash, the normally utilitarian wood suddenly rendered abundant as the emerald ash borer wreaks [...]

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National Park(ing) Day

Posted in Public Spaces on 06/10/2008 | Leave a Comment »

It’s that time of year again as the intrepid among us begin to think of how to acknowledge National Park(ing) Day. This event, set for September 19 this year, finds folks across the country and around the world transforming parking spaces into temporary oases to underscore the need for integrating the natural world into our [...]

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