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Archive for August, 2008

Land Matters: Time to Forget Everything You Know?

Posted in Public Spaces, Urban Design on 08/27/2008 | 2 Comments »

Does the general public care whether their urban spaces have the elements landscape architects are taught to provide—seating and shade, for example, or plants? What I saw yesterday evening in Silver Spring, Maryland, an older “edge city” bordering Washington, D.C., made me have my doubts. Silver Spring hires landscape architects to design some of its [...]

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Can Landscape Architecture Really Help Manage Traffic?

Posted in Sustainable Transportation on 08/25/2008 | Leave a Comment »

I have just begun Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us) by Tom Vanderbilt and I’m already hooked. He thus far has tagged just about every bad driving habit I’ve ever adopted and puts the act of driving to work into frightening and fascinating perspective. Which leads me [...]

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National Park(ing) Day Announced

Posted in Landscape Architecture on 08/08/2008 | Leave a Comment »

Break out the deck chairs, benches, and potted plants, because the Trust for Public Land (TPL) has announced National Park(ing) Day for Friday, September 21. National Park(ing) Day aims to turn metered public parking spots nationwide into temporary public parks. The goals, organizers say, are to celebrate parks and promote the need for more parks [...]

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