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Archive for September, 2009

Senators Boxer, Kerry Release Ambitious Climate Change Bill

Posted in Climate Change, Policy and Regulation, Sustainable Design on 09/30/2009 | 1 Comment »

Senators Barbara Boxer and John Kerry along with nine other supporters released their comprehensive climate change bill today, which offers more strict limits on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions than the U.S. House version that passed three months ago. The 820-page draft climate change bill aims to cut 20 percent of U.S. GHG emissions (recorded at 2005 levels) by 2020. The American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) is only expected to [...]

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NYC Parks Commissioner Benepe: “Other Peoples’ Useless Land Is Often Something We Covet”

Posted in Public Spaces, Urban Design, Urban Revitalization on 09/28/2009 | Leave a Comment »

Urban Omnibus developed a feature highlighting some of NYC’s efforts to re-use brownfields to create parks. Using quotes from long-time NYC Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe, Urban Omnibus frames some of the recent park projects that came out of abandoned or otherwise “useless” land. The parks illustrate one of Benepe’s ideas: “With a lot of design and [...]

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Alabama Declares War on Cogongrass

Posted in Environment, Policy and Regulation on 09/28/2009 | Leave a Comment »

Cogongrass has taken over ecosystems in Alabama and USD 6 million in economic recovery funds is now being used to exterminate this invasive non-native species, writes The New York Times. Cogongrass (Imperata Cylindrica) is also known as the “perfect weed,” and considered one of the worst in the world. ”It can take over fields and forests, ruining crops, destroying native plants, upsetting [...]

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Tracking the Trash “Removal Chain”

Posted in Technology, Waste on 09/28/2009 | 1 Comment »

M.I.T’s Senseable City Lab launched called an initiative Trash Track, which seeks to create a future where we “understand the ‘removal-chain’ as well as we do the ‘supply-chain’, and where we can use this knowledge to not only build more efficient and sustainable infrastructures but to promote behavioral change.” M.I.T. adds that the project aims to make the “invisible infrastructures [...]

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USGBC’s LEED Platinum Interior Space

Posted in Green Buildings, Real Estate Development, Sustainable Design, Technology on 09/28/2009 | Leave a Comment »

The National Building Museum organized a private tour of the new LEED platinum spaces of RTKL, an architecture and engineering firm, and the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). The new spaces reside within a 1970′s office building that isn’t LEED certified. The spaces demonstrate how high-quality, sustainable spaces can be created within older buildings. RTKL [...]

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Harvard University’s Soil Restoration Project

Posted in Campus Planning, Environment, Gardens, Landscape Architecture, Public Spaces, Sustainable Materials, Water Management on 09/24/2009 | 1 Comment »

What began as a one-acre pilot project has turned into a 25-acre initiative. Harvard University is now feeding its campus soils with compost and compost tea instead of pesticides and synthetic nitrogen. In comments to The New York Times, Wayne Carbone, Harvard’s landscape manager said: “Our goal is to be fully organic on the 80 acres [...]

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Google SketchUp for Site Design

Posted in Landscape Architecture, Sustainable Design, Technology on 09/22/2009 | 2 Comments »

Daniel Tal, RLA, ASLA, recently published “Google SketchUp for Site Design: A Guide to Modeling Site Plans, Terrain, and Architecture” (Wiley & Sons). The 350-page how-to tutorial covers everthing from drawing lines to developing “expressive” models through SketchUp’s modeling process. SketchUp, a 3D modeling program developed by Google, is often used by designers and planners [...]

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Cities in the Era of Climate Change

Posted in Climate Change, Policy and Regulation, Public Spaces, Sustainable Design, Urban Design, Urban Revitalization on 09/20/2009 | 1 Comment »

At the 2009 ASLA Annual Meeting, Alexandros Washburn, Urban Design Chief, City of New York government, argued that major cities must mitigate greenhouse gas (GHGs) emissions and adapt to climate change while engaging in “resource creation.” Smart cities can adapt to climate change and create new value in the form of renewable energy and open [...]

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Kermit Baker, Harvard / AIA Economist, on Market Outlook

Posted in Policy and Regulation, Sustainable Design on 09/20/2009 | Leave a Comment »

Kermit Baker, a Senior Fellow at Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies and the Chief Economist of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), spoke at the ASLA 2009 Annual Meeting general session this morning about the economic outlook for the landscape architecture industry. Baker acknowledged that landscape architects have been “mired in a steep downturn [...]

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Can London’s Olympic Games Regenerate a Troubled Community?

Posted in Landscape Architecture, Policy and Regulation, Public Spaces, Residential Design, Sustainable Design, Urban Design, Urban Revitalization on 09/19/2009 | 1 Comment »

In a session at the 2009 ASLA Annual Meeting in Chicago, London’s Development Agency and EDAW AECOM presented the London 2012 Olympics master plan, and asked whether the new Olympic games site can really help regenerate an environmentally damaged and economically depressed urban community? London’s Development Agency expects one million new residents by 2020. Over 25 percent of this growth [...]

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