Sustainable Materials

Archive for the ‘Sustainable Materials’ Category

Interview with Robert Hammond, Co-Founder of the High Line

Posted in Historic Preservation, Landscape Architecture, Public Spaces, Real Estate Development, Sustainable Materials, Urban Design, Urban Revitalization on 02/08/2012 | Leave a Comment »

Robert Hammond is Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director of Friends of the High Line, the non-profit conservancy that manages the High Line, a public park built atop an abandoned, elevated rail line on the west side of Manhattan. Hammond was awarded a Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome, as well as the Rockefeller Foundation’s [...]

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A New Life for an Industrial Landscape in California

Posted in Landscape Architecture, Renewable Energy, Sustainable Design, Sustainable Materials, Water Management on 02/06/2012 | Leave a Comment »

California’s Burbank Water and Power (BWP), one of the first power companies in the U.S. to procure a major chunk of its power from renewable energy sources and develop an ambitious carbon reduction plan, is transforming its main campus from an ”industrial relic” into a “regenerative green space,” bringing the utility to the forefront of sustainable landscape design. The new landscape is among the 150 sites selected around the country [...]

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Bench Innovations in NYC

Posted in Landscape Architecture, Sustainable Materials, Urban Design, Water Management on 12/01/2011 | Leave a Comment »

Both practicing and student architects are exploring intriguing new bench forms in New York City. In some cases, the goal is to provide benches that offer a range of benefits: multi-use infrastructure at the sidewalk-scale. In another case, the idea is to build a flexible, ergonomic model that can be scaled-up at low-cost. The Architect’s Newspaper focuses in on ”subway vent benches” that offer seating and flood control. As a response [...]

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Why Use Ipe When You Can Have Black Locust?

Posted in Forests, Landscape Architecture, Sustainable Materials on 11/10/2011 | 16 Comments »

Michael Van Valkenburgh, FASLA, and his fellow speakers got multiple rounds of spontaneous applause at the 2011 ASLA annual meeting for hosting a session on a topic near and dear to many design professionals and wood experts: how to end the unsustainable harvesting of Ipe wood and scale up the use of sustainable alternatives. The real alternative may be [...]

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The Race to SITES Certification

Posted in Ecosystem Restoration, Ecosystem Services, Landscape Architecture, Sustainable Design, Sustainable Materials, Urban Design, Water Management, Wildlife on 11/02/2011 | 2 Comments »

Instead of a lofty discussion on the merits of different prerequisites and credits, Jose Alminana, FASLA, Andropogon, Angela Dye, FASLA, A. DYE Design, Hunter Beckham, ASLA, SWT Design, and Sarah Weidner Astheimer, ASLA, james corner field operations, launched into the practical challenges and rewards involved in applying the Sustainable Sites Initiative (SITES) to new and existing projects and steering the first pilot [...]

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Becoming Greenest: Recommendations for a More Sustainable Washington, D.C.

Posted in Climate Change, Ecosystem Restoration, Ecosystem Services, Education, Environment, Forests, Green Buildings, Green Roofs, Landscape Architecture, Policy and Regulation, Public Spaces, Real Estate Development, Renewable Energy, Residential Design, Smart Growth, Sustainable Materials, Sustainable Transportation, Urban Design, Urban Revitalization, Waste, Water Management on 10/11/2011 | 2 Comments »

Washington, D.C. leadership has requested input from a range of organizations as it develops a new “unified vision” and “comprehensive framework” for a more sustainable Washington, D.C. The end goal: to connect sustainability with economic development and become the number-one, most sustainable city in North America. Washington, D.C. is currently ranked eighth in a recent [...]

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Neri Oxman’s Materials Revolution

Posted in Sustainable Materials, Technology on 10/07/2011 | Leave a Comment »

At the 2011 GreenBuild, Neri Oxman, director of Mediated Matter at MIT Media Lab and one of the few who made Fast Company’s top 100 creative people list, wants to “introduce a new dimension or sensibility” into materials production. Proposing to turn the design and engineering worlds on their heads, she said we should no longer “design [...]

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Toronto’s Genius Project: Evergreen Brickworks

Posted in Ecosystem Restoration, Ecosystem Services, Landscape Architecture, Sustainable Design, Sustainable Materials, Urban Design, Urban Revitalization on 10/06/2011 | Leave a Comment »

Evergreen Brickworks, a stellar project from Canada’s Evergreen non-profit, re-imagines a derelict 12-acre brownfield site, which was once a historic brickworks, in the heart of Toronto as a “center for learning on urban ecology.” At a session at the 2011 GreenBuild, Evergreen, an organization that asks people to ”imagine your city with nature,” and the team’s architects and [...]

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How to Do It: Measure for Green Infrastructure Success

Posted in Ecosystem Restoration, Ecosystem Services, Landscape Architecture, Sustainable Materials, Urban Design, Water Management on 10/05/2011 | 1 Comment »

At the 2011 GreenBuild in Toronto, Jim Schuessler, ASLA, BNIM, and David Dods, URS Corporation, a dynamic landscape architect and engineer duo, outlined lessons learned from two years of research into stormwater management best practices in sites across Kansas City. Sampling results from rain gardens, bioswales, “treatment trains,” and other green infrastructure systems, they explained [...]

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Solar Decathlon 2011 Innovations: Constructed Wetlands, Edible Landscapes, Rain Gardens, and More

Posted in Gardens, Green Buildings, Landscape Architecture, Sustainable Design, Sustainable Materials, Water Management on 09/22/2011 | 2 Comments »

The Solar Decathlon, a design competition and public education program run by the U.S. Department of Energy, returns to the National Mall this year, where it will be open September 23 – October 2. Like the competition two years ago (see earlier post), teams of architecture and landscape architecture students from universities around the world compete to design, build, and then operate the [...]

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