New Blogs

It's been a while since I posted a list of new (or at least new to me) blogs that I've stumbled across in my travels. I'll add them to the sidebar soon. There are definitely a good amount of upstart Landscape Architecture and related blogs - which is good to see - and I'm hopeful that these will start to occupy some individual niches of content that can expand the electronic reach of the profession.



:: Landezine
:: People's Parking Lot(s)
:: hugeasscity
:: Critical Terrain
:: faslanyc
:: Fresh Kills Blog
:: Emergent Urbanism
:: textURA
:: endlessfield

Do You Rule the Sewer?

I've been remiss in posting about the interesting WPA 2.0 competition and it's alluring tagline: "whoever rules the sewers rules the city" as I was debating about entering because it is just amazingly compelling in idea. So alas, due to summer and time constraints (I know, lame, but I'll explain later) I'm passing on the opportunity. A recent nudge from the folks at CityLAB reminded me that I hadn't ever posted about the competition itself. (They were also nice enough to pass along one of my posts that was referenced on their Facebook page)


:: image via WPA 2.0 Facebook Page

A summary statement from the organizers at CityLAB:

"With the Recovery Act on the minds of everyone concerned with the future of our cities, cityLAB, a UCLA urban design think tank, is providing a unique opportunity for designers worldwide to contribute infrastructure proposals that re-envision the new American metropolis. Beginning with a competition that encourages designers to "take back the streets," WPA 2.0 sets the stage for a new generation of Working Public Architecture.

The competition will be followed by a symposium at the National Building Museum in November 2009. In Washington, cityLAB will convene leading researchers, practitioners, and policy-makers to expand the enlivened discourse on urban infrastructure and promote implementable options that imagine our physical environment as more livable, more beautiful, and more sustainable."

It's pretty awesome that the competition site itself is the Infrastructure Matrix, which includes a number of typologies including a language of points, lines, landscapes, and ecologies. For instance, the idea of 'Stormwater' is broken into the following elements:

POINTS

detention basins
retention basins
rain gauges

LINES

spillways
stormwater sewers
levees
dykes
seawalls
crib structures

LANDSCAPES

spreading fields
river management

ECOLOGIES

beach storm hazard mitigation
wetland storm hazard mitigation
climate control
windbreaks

This breakdown had me curious, and quickly led to a a reference to Stan Allen (one of the star-studded jurors) and his book "Points+Lines: Diagrams and Projects for the City" I saw this recently and it reminded me to mention a new blog by Nico Wright called MicroGeography, where he references the book as an investigative strategy for the competition. I haven't read it, but this post alone made me want to pick it up sooner than later.


:: image via MicroGeography

Although I'm sitting this one out, I'll be watching closely to see what comes out of the first round - and follow up with the second phase as well. Good luck!

Bat Yam 2010

I posted here about the 2008 Bat-Yam international biennale of landscape urbanism, and was pleased to get an email annoucing the upcoming 2010 version focusing on Urban Action. The Bat-Yam Biennale functions as a laboratory through which attitudes in and towards urban space are examined. A variety of sites throughout the historic city of Bat-Yam are on the table for ideas... a chance to participate in the ephemeral.



The 2010 version, Urban Action, will focus "...on the tension between the temporary and the permanent, between the planned and the experienced. The Biennale examines the occasionally tense relationships between the city’s attempt to create order through long-term plans, and the everyday chaos that is the product of that process. Our goal is to encourage spaces and situations that function from within the state of a given temporality, drawing energy from this very flexibility.... The Biennale will examine whether it's possible to encourage urban situations that use temporality and change as their raw materials. The Biennale asks whether the state of temporality can become a statutory classification. Urban actions will strive to change patterns and attitudes, promoting partnership of the residents with the city. The Biennale also redefines relationships between residents, planners, stakeholders and the municipality."



There is an open call for entries on the site... and if the last version is any indication, the project interventions will be innovative and inspirational. Check it out here.

Paradigm Shift?

I was frankly a bit thrilled by this little news nugget on Designboom announcing that uber-firm West 8 had replaced Frank Gehry for the the Miami Lincoln Park project. "The 2.5 acre park will serve as an entrance to the gehry designed new world symphony scheduled to open in january 2011. it will also provide an outdoor venue for concerts and expansive green space. "


:: simcoe wavedeck (toronto) - image via Designboom

The article mentions fee and other issues, but who knows the real story. Sign of the times...? Well maybe it just makes sense for a landscape architecture firm design the park. But I still had to laugh on the inside a bit.

Two if by Land, None if by Sea

Just last month, a strange site appeared in Portland, docked at Waterfront Park. The area, chain-linked off from anyone getting too close, gave a vision of a spectacle equal parts Rose Festival Fleet Week and kitschy episode of the The Love Boat, spawned from gigantism of the engineering prowess and the ego that could only yield something as warped in size and concept as 'The World'.


:: Portland, Meet the World - image via Google Images

This thought stuck in my head - why? While life at sea on the move, from port to port, may at least give one a feeling that there is a different destination looming, adventure around the corner, or least a feeling that if you're on a boat, your life can't be standing still - life on the static 'floating island' must come from those willing to stay put. This is the concept of 'Seasteading' is just that - homesteading on the sea. This is not a houseboat... think more like an oil derrick with buildings on top.


:: Club Stead - image via Wikipedia (copyright TSI, used by CCR)

The main group behind this concept is The Seasteading Institute - and the winners of the "...first Seasteading Architectural Design Contest ...invited participants to design the floating city of their dreams. " ...were recently unveiled, via a post on Bustler. I filed this under Veg.itecture due to the inclusion of images of rooftop greenery - but thought better even though I guess if the entire 'field' on which the design is placed is a giant (patent pending?) floating platform, then it's all on structure. Here's some of the notable entries - but read more at Bustler.

The Swimming City by András Gyõrfi won top prize - and really seemed ok, but not necessarily conjuring up visions of innovative sea life - more like a new urbanist development in a bustling suburb of florida. Even the greenery seems pastoral - like someone's front yard.


:: images via Bustler
On the flip side, there were definitely those with the aquatic theme in full speed, sporting fins and other such ichthymorphic features that I thought would dominate the competition, such as the Winner of the Prize for Aesthetic Design: SESU Seastead by Marko Järvela


:: image via Bustler
A lot just look like some new modern buildings (albeit sometimes with an icing of the Veg.itectural) photoshopped onto a square surrounded by water. The water in this could be the surrounding street in the urban block - as removed from an seasteading context as these are.




:: images via Bustler

These could literally be floating anywhere - so not necessarily contextual. Then again, if you place something out in the sea, what is the context? The most contextual I think really captured 'oil derrick'... motif was Resort by László Szabó...


:: images via Bustler

Also, the most innovative idea I thought may go to: the Cultural center, Designer: Mark McQuilten, Robert Davidov and Ben Attrill... featuring a floating scene of contextual destruction with a 'Planet of the Apes' apocalyptic scene moored next to the current Statue of Liberty. Sort of a post-global warming Ellis-island welcome to the new world.


:: images via Bustler
A goodly portion of these are just plain awful - but enough interest to think: 1) of the technical problem solving to make these ideas work on a floating, seaworthly platform, 2) do these operated similar to small island nations with 95-100% imports of practically everything, aside from fish?, and 3) what would motivate someone to live on one of these - aside from the random assorted Bond villian? So curious.

Tackling Suburbia

The latest competition out there challenging entrants to envision visionary designs is Reburbia: A Suburban Design Competition that focuses on the suburbs as the venue for exploration. Sponsored by Inhabitat and Dwell, the premise is open and relatively simple:

"Show us how you would re-invent the suburbs! What would a McMansion become if it weren’t a single-family dwelling? How could a vacant big box store be retrofitted for agriculture? What sort of design solutions can you come up with to facilitate car-free mobility, ‘burb-grown food, and local, renewable energy generation? We want to see how you’d design future-proof spaces and systems using the suburban structures of the present, from small-scale retrofits to large-scale restoration—the wilder the better!"


The entry qualifications are relatively open-ended, and include 5 images and a brief statement - meaning there is going to be a wide variation of ideas and innovations - but a lot of it is going to hinge of zoomy graphics and provocative design. While not quite the star-studded jury for the WPA 2.0 competition (more on that soon), it's a great and lower-input way to generate a range of opportunities for a part of our development world that is dire need of it.

There's really no excuse not to at least have a quick brainstorm and submit. Deadline is August 1, 2009.

Interim Vacancy - Pt 2

A followup to the idea of interim use of vacant lands, the SF Chronicle surprised with expanded coverage of some ideas for these sites... and they are all pretty fun. King continues: "...a quartet of local designers see something else: a site that could become a sculpted realm of green folds spiked by artistic birdhouses - an evolving semi-natural terrain up to the moment when the 41-story tower slated for the site someday is ready to begin construction."

More on the article, but a glimpse or two of the visions by these groups. First, artist Ned Kahn - whose vertical work is amazing, gives a horizontal treatment - evoking Mono Lake. The "...Sebastapol artist... would turn an empty construction site at 535 Mission St., now covered by gravel, into what he calls "Memory of Water" -- a lakebed of sorts, created by shimmering metal discs. This is an aerial view from the roof of 560 Mission"




:: images via SF Gate

Another proposal from a great group (and instigators of Parking Day), REBAR, with 'The People's Public Workshop', which offers a suitable alternative and interactive use, in the form of "...a carnival midway with infrastructure as the theme. The pit would offer an array of ad hoc nooks where people could explore the nuts and bolts of city building. Explorers might encounter a workshop on pothole repairs, celebrations of public servants, participant games and artists-in-residence - all amid surplus piles of such urban arcana as backhoes and orange cones."






:: images via SF Gate

The final version, 'Vegetated States: Growth Between Booms' obvious has my heart with ample use of vegetation. Envisioned by a group including Sarah Kuehl and Adam Greenspan from PWP Landscape Architecture and Owen Kennerly and Sarina Bowen from Kennerly Architecture & Planning this multidisciplinary visage focuses on urban habitat. " A fence would still corral the long site - but with poles of varying heights topped by bird shelters tailored to local species. There'd still be a descent from Harrison Street - but steep forms churning up from the sidewalk would plunge deep into the site, native shrubs taking root. Jutting from the highest point: trussed sections of building cranes, clad in vines."





:: images via SF Gate

Interestingly enough, the comment stream seems to suggest that the property owners would never go for such a thing - as they would be sued when they wanted to actually get around to building on their site... it's a funny thing, isn't it. Leave it fenced and weedy and blighted - a-ok. Do something to improve it temporarily - lawsuit. I'd say it's a valid fear, but why don't we put the lawyers to use in the beginning of the process rather than use them as leverage towards the end - hammering out some agreed upon future use where everyone is happy and no-one is sued. These don't have to be long-term investments - but more along the lines of the ephemeral Pop-Up Park or temporary installations like PS 1 (which is really furry this year!)

We've become enamored with a fixed end use of any site and unable to see the potential forest amidst the potential buildings - happy to keep valuable land fallow, polluted land toxic, and open space fenced - until the price is right to put up another building.