Building Public Places for a Covid World — 09/11/20, The New York Times
“Walter Hood’s landscape architecture firm, Hood Design Studio, has created major parks and museum gardens in Oakland, San Francisco and New York. He is also doubling down on the work he has been doing for 20 years: helping historically African-American communities rediscover history that’s been erased through abandonment or demolished by urban renewal.”
University of Oregon Experts: Wildfires across Oregon Herald One Possible Future — 09/11/20, University of Oregon
“The large, fast-spreading Holiday Farm Fire east of Springfield is a wake-up call for how quickly even worst-case scenarios for wildfire risk can be overwhelmed by reality, said Bart Johnson, a professor of landscape architecture who studies climate change adaptation planning.”
Nine Fall Gardening Tips From a Texas Landscape Architect — 09/10/20, Texas Monthly
“Dallas-based landscape architect David Hocker says the coronavirus pandemic has led to a huge increase in demand for his work, as public health guidelines have pushed us out into nature for safer socializing, dining, and exercise.”
Beyond Complete Streets: Could COVID-19 Help Transform Thoroughfares Into Places for People? –09/07/20, Planetizen
“By changing the way we traditionally use streets, people are expanding the way they think about cities in real-time. In a relatively short period of time, cities have announced plans to permanently close some of these ‘COVID streets’ to create new recreational spaces in combination with mobility corridors—essentially, linear community commons, or places for people.”
Building Bans and Affordable Housing: A Construction Conundrum — 09/03/20, The Washington Post
“Seeking to curtail gentrification and displacement, Atlanta and Chicago put construction and demolition moratoriums in place early this year.”
The Case for Making Virtual Public Meetings Permanent — 09/02/20, Governing
“The question, as has been asked in many contexts through 2020, is why can’t this COVID-19-era innovation become permanent? Rather than return to the hassle of holding most public meetings in person, why not continue to make them remote?”
Statue Suggestions Roll in for Trump’s National Garden of American Heroes — 09/02/20, The Architect’s Newspaper
“Suggestions for ‘lifelike or realistic’ representations of ‘historically significant Americans’ that could potentially populate the Trump administration’s planned National Garden of American Heroes have now been submitted by officials in various states, territories, and counties.”