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Archive for February, 2011

Planters Groves: A Good Thing?

Posted in Landscape Architecture, Urban Design, Urban Revitalization on 02/25/2011 | 20 Comments »

Planters, famous for their peanuts and other snacks, has announced a plan to transform unused land in New Orleans, Washington, D.C., New York City, and San Francisco into “natural, green spaces” called Planters Groves. Interestingly, leading landscape architect Ken Smith, ASLA, has signed on to design these peanut-shaped urban parks made of reclaimed materials and featuring [...]

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Will the Eco-Cities of the Near Future Be Livable?

Posted in Climate Change, Sustainable Design, Sustainable Transportation, Urban Design, Urban Revitalization, Water Management on 02/24/2011 | 5 Comments »

At The Economist magazine’s “Intelligent Infrastructure” conference, a number of developers painted pictures of the bold eco-cities of the near future. However, Vijay Vaitheeswaran, global correspondent, wondered if these visionary communities weren’t just a new variation of utopia. Are these communities sustainable, scalable as a business model, and, most importantly, livable? Syd Kitson, Kitson & Partners, described Babcock Ranch, [...]

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Oyster-Tecture in Action

Posted in Ecosystem Restoration, Ecosystem Services, Sustainable Design, Water Management, Wildlife on 02/24/2011 | 2 Comments »

Sustainable designer Neil Chambers, author of Urban Green: Architecture for the Future, made the case for using natural systems to clean and manage water at a conference organized by The Economist. In Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, beach tourism had been negatively impacted by heavy water pollution. Instead of re-engineering the man-made water systems, Chambers decided to use “oyster-tecture.” In one [...]

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Jaime Lerner: Cities Are the Solution to Climate Change

Posted in Climate Change, Environment, Landscape Architecture, Sustainable Transportation, Urban Design, Urban Revitalization on 02/23/2011 | Leave a Comment »

Even though urban areas account for some 70 percent of all global greenhouse gas emissions, cities aren’t the problem causing climate change, but the solution, argued Jaime Lerner, the highly influential former mayor of Curitiba, Brazil and now architect and urban designer, at a conference organized by The Economist. To avoid turning cities into a “tragedy”, [...]

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Cities Are Organisms

Posted in Environment, Urban Design on 02/23/2011 | Leave a Comment »

At The Economist magazine’s “Intelligent Infrastructure” conference, Geoffrey West, a physicist at the Santa Fe Institute and subject of an interesting profile in The New York Times Magazine, argued that companies and cities function like biological organisms and have finite lifespans. In a provocative discussion, he asked, Is Microsoft an elephant? Is New York City a [...]

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Rockefeller Foundation: Design Needs to Improve Resiliency

Posted in Landscape Architecture, Policy and Regulation, Sustainable Design, Sustainable Transportation, Urban Design, Urban Revitalization on 02/23/2011 | 1 Comment »

Judith Rodin, the innovative leader of the Rockefeller Foundation, said the design community needs to focus on improving the resiliency of our infrastructure at a conference hosted by The Economist. Resiliency is defined as the ability to adapt and rebound from crises, and then reach an improved ”base level” at the end of the process. She [...]

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Green Buildings Respond to their Environment

Posted in Green Buildings, Sustainable Design, Sustainable Materials on 02/23/2011 | Leave a Comment »

At The Economist magazine’s Intelligent Infrastructure conference last week, a number of big-name architects discussed how effective green buildings are highly responsive to their physical environment. Richard Cook, of Cook +Fox Architects and Terrapin, Elizabeth Diller, Diller, Scofidio + Renfro, Ken Yeang, Llewelyn Davies Yeang, and Thom Mayne, Morphosis discussed some of their projects, while Tristan [...]

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Interview with Bob Peck, GSA’s Public Buildings Commissioner

Posted in Green Buildings, Green Roofs, Landscape Architecture, Policy and Regulation, Sustainable Design, Water Management on 02/18/2011 | Leave a Comment »

Bob Peck, Honorary ASLA, is Commissioner of Public Buildings for the U.S. General Services Administration. The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) manages more than 370 million square feet of space for more than one million federal employees. Martha Johnson, GSA administrator, says a zero environmental footprint (ZEF) for all of GSA’s half a million buildings [...]

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Streetcars Are Central to Sustainable Communities

Posted in Climate Change, Policy and Regulation, Real Estate Development, Smart Growth, Sustainable Transportation, Water Management on 02/15/2011 | Leave a Comment »

At the National Building Museum, Patrick Condon, ASLA, a professor of landscape architecture at the University of British Columbia, gave a run-through of his new book, Seven Rules for Sustainable Communities, which argues that bringing streetcars back is the smartest thing cities can do become more sustainable. For older cities, unearthing “barely submerged” streetcar networks may be easy, but relatively [...]

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Comments Needed: U.S. National Forest Service’s New Plan

Posted in Ecosystem Services, Forests, Public Spaces, Water Management, Wildlife on 02/11/2011 | Leave a Comment »

The U.S. National Forest Service announced it was seeking broad public input into its new 97-page plan for the country’s 193-million acre forest system. The new plan, according to The New York Times, will better enable the Forest Service to respond to natural disasters and climate change, deal with lawsuits, and empower local forest managers. Agriculture Secretary Thomas Vilsack said the updated forest management rules [...]

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