To New Horizons

Oh the sick and twisted future... a film from General Motors in 1940 entitled 'To New Horizons' talking about the world twenty years later.  Yes indeed, "Man continually strives to replace the old, with the new!" 

Spotted on one of my favorite new sites - Copenhagenize.  Check it out.

Siftings: 01.11.12

"“All great art is born of the metropolis.” - Ezra Pound

 :: image via NY Times


A great little snapshot on urban serendipity from the NY Times that looks at the accidental 'curation' of spaces that the urban environment yields, such as the framed view from the subway to the Brooklyn Bridge.  Perhaps the uniformity of the grid is part of the magic, as the NYT also talks about the 200th Anniversary of the Manhattan Grid, along with the exhibition at the Museum of the City.  And speaking of paving here in Portland, local group Depave got some nice coverage on OPB for their continued work on rolling back pavement in the city.  As for making money on the urban agriculture and gardens - a study in Vancouver, BC finds that it is still a challenge to make a living wage farming, even in the city.  Perhaps we can lobby for urban farm subsidies?

:: image via Museum of the City

Nate Berg at the Atlantic Cities sums up Los Angeles Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne's year-long project to explore his city through its literature, and some of his conclusions on where we stand.  As quoted in the Atlantic article:

"“What the books have suggested to me,” Hawthorne argues, “is that we really don’t have – and need – a new framework for understanding the city at this moment in its history as it undergoes this transition.”

A review of his most recent reading of 'Los Angeles Plaza: Sacred and Contested Space' can be found here - which is an interested exploration of the role of space, and the role of social status, on the way we interpret urban histories.  Related, and probably not big news, but people are less enamored with the suburbs, and are re-urbanizing, in this case, Philadelphia along with living in more dense types of housing. 

:: image via Philly.com

More on Occupy, with the recent flurry of Global and US occupations bringing into question the 'limits' of how public spaces are.  As mentioned in the story:

"The Occupy Wall Street movement showed there are often limits to how long one can stay in the town square of a “free” state to express one’s opinion. Various kinds of force were used to get people out of New York’s Zuccotti Park."

An interesting article from The Dirt on the $50 million!!!!! dollars of planning documents and designs for the Orange County Great Park, which has failed to yield much in terms of output.  It brings into question the time-scale on these massive endeavors, and how much needs to happen to create a 'park' in a traditional sense to satisfy some - while allowing space (and budgets) to evolve over decades.

:: image via The Dirt

Finally, a new competition from the Land Art Generator Initiative asks how renewable energy can be beautiful with a planned site at the Freshkills Park - which has a similar time-scale to the Great Park above.  And Freshkills may be an apt model for Mexico City, who is planning to close their massive landfill... And for the squeamish, a new report from the National Research Council changes the tune of reclaimed wastewater (aka toilet to tap) from a 'option of last resort' to a viable strategy that poses no more health risks than other sources.  Drink up!

Purge Sculpture

Filed under 'random' this sculpture was spotted the previous weekend along the waterfront just north of the Olympic Sculpture Park in Seattle.  A pile of vegetated 'cans' with the word 'Purge' punched into them - alas a web search has yielded little in terms of info beyond this.  Anyone have any info?

UPDATE (02/12/14):  Buster Simpson dropped a line with some background info:

"The galvanized steel  barrels or oil drums  are the work of Buster Simpson,   The work is part of an ongoing community streetscape   project,    Growing Vine Street.   The barrels  are placed on both sides of Vine Street and  serve as a entry marker,   threshold or gateway  as one enters Vine Street from  the Alaskan Way  waterfront  and  connects a community garden,  Cistern Steps and Beckoning Cistern.  

The barrels are strapped to galvanized steel pallets   implying product in transit and a reference to the Seattle working waterfront.  The planters are  sited adjacent  the historic location of the American Can Company  and next to the RR tracks  where now shipping containers roll by.    PURGE is pierced into the base   of the barrels,    and allow excess water to drain,  perhaps purged  by plants and the limestone within  neutralizing the acid rain.    

These barrels were originally shown at the Capp Street Project,  in 1993  at an alternative art space,  in San Francisco  as part of a urban watershed reclamation installation.   

(all images copyright L+U)

Chutes and Ladders

Hear this transit authorities, we need more of these in the urban realm... the 'Transfer Accelerator' is real life chutes and ladders, in this case a slide as a bypass to crowded stairway at the train station of Utrecht Overvecht designed by Utrecht-based firm HIK Ontwerpers.  Function and whimsy.  Gotta love it.

:: image via Dorpspomp Overvecht

Check the video too for the experience...

Kunstler on Landscape Urbanism

James Howard Kunstler joins the LU/NU 'debate' with a completely Kunstlerian commentary with some rhertorical tidbids like LU displaying "a complete lack of interest in the basic components of urban design"... "incorporates lots of high tech 'magic' infrastructure for directing water flows and requires massive, costly, complex site interventions" and is "...against density and vehemently pro-automobile'" and much much more.  This is going toward the realm of satire in it's silliness... enjoy!  (via CNU - quoting Orion Magazine, date unknown)

"The mandarin headquarters of Modernist ideology, Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, having gone to war with the New Urbanist movement, is now pushing a dubious new practice they call “Landscape Urbanism.” Don’t be fooled again. Under the fashionable “green” rubric, it’s another version of “nature” as the default remedy for cities, a rejection of genuine urban form. Landscape Urbanism affects to be concerned with site planning, but it displays a complete lack of interest in the basic components of urban design: street and block systems.  Instead, it incorporates lots of high tech “magic” infrastructure for directing water flows and requires massive, costly, complex site interventions that amount to little more than art stunts. Landscape Urbanism is explicitly against density and vehemently pro-automobile. In effect, it’s just super high-tech suburbia. It’s designed mainly to generate big fees for site-planning firms while it does nothing to prepare this society for a post-oil economy. Naturally, it comes with heaps of opaque theory, designed to mystify and impress the non-elect.

Harvard has been battling the New Urbanists for two decades on the grounds that traditional urban design is insufficiently avant-garde, intellectually unadventurous, backward-looking, lacking in sex appeal, un-ironic, square. But the USA doesn’t need more architectural fashion statements or art stunts. It needs places to live that are worth caring about and compatible with the capital and material resources that we can expect to retain going forward, which are liable to fewer and scarcer than what we’ve gotten used to. The USA doesn’t need any more mendacious ideologies meant to confound the public about the operation of cities and the things in them so that star-architects can appear to be wizards.

The USA does need a body of principle and skill that will allow us to assemble places with a future, and the New Urbanists have retrieved this information from the dumpster of history – where it was carelessly tossed by two generations in thrall to the phantom of limitless expansion. They recognize the resource limits we are now up against and the threats posed by climate change. They’re keenly aware of the need to re-integrate local food production into the landscape in an appropriate relationship with the places where people live. They’re the only group of design professionals on the scene right now who are capable of delivering a vision of the future that is consistent with the reality of the future."

Tales from Portlandia

As it is always important to laugh at oneself  - the 6-part IFC Original short-based comedy series PORTLANDIA, created, written by and starring Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein will premiere January 21, 2011 at 10:30 PM ET/PT. Each episode's character-based shorts draw viewers into "Portlandia," the creators' dreamy and absurd rendering of Portland, Oregon.



Bloody brilliant... Can't wait for more.

Black Friday

Let's make the shopping experience a bit more dangerous... Asphalt Spot in Tokamashi, Japan by R&Sie(n).

:: images via Space Invading

City Turkey

In honor of US Thanksgiving, a snapshot stories about of the urban turkey.  As habitat shrinks due to the spreading of cities, urban turkey's much like their more domesticated brethren, the urban chicken, has begun to move to the cities (many stories such as here, here, and here) and develop a certain air of cosmopolitanism.

:: image via Boston Globe

As you can see, they have learned to assimilate to certain city rules in order to improve survivability.

:: image via Weather Underground

Sometimes, when a bright eyed newcomer isn't familiar with these customs, conflicts can arise.  From the USA Today, 'Booming turkey population ruffling feathers in urban communities' the explosion of turkey populations has inflitrated cities, such as this interloper in Cleveland: "A wild turkey holds up traffic on April 2 near Cleveland, Ohio. An animal warden was able to lure the turkey off the street to safety."

:: image via USA Today

Pittsburgh turkeys seem to occupy the green open spaces in neighborhoods (sort of a more suburban oriented breed).  In 'Turkeys turning into new pest on neighborhood block' showed that although docile, sometimes around Thanksgiving the birds can get surly: "Wild turkeys are not dangerous, but they do have occasional aggression issues. Last June the Pennsylvania Game Commission was called to Panther Hollow in Oakland, where wild turkeys were attacking bicycle riders. There were no reports of injuries to people."

:: image via Post-Gazette

The impacts of these new visitors can be both welcome and disdained, sort of reminiscent of the 'second-rate urbanism' necessary to not ruin the urban ideal.  These laid-back urban birds, being coddled by the locals, are from Eugene, Oregon:  "The local wild turkey population in urban areas has ballooned in recent years, but this is a case of turkeys, turkeys everywhere, but not a bird to eat. Visit the south hills of Eugene and you'll likely see them: wild turkeys in flocks, plucking berries, crossing streets, just hanging out. "Chris Yee of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife says the problem won't stop until people stop feeding wildlife. Yee says turkeys normal habitat is 4 square miles but, "When fed inside the city limits they can limit their use to one or 2 square blocks in a residential area."

Lest we worry about being over-run by the 'farm-grown' varieties, you see the adaptations of the native turkeys (the one to the left, sort of bad ass looking, and reading for blending into the urban realm) the heritage varieties, which have maintained their native camoflague, versus the wimpy, white varieties who are woefully ill-equipped for the urban environment, and will likely end up on somebodies table - sort of a short trip from field to fork.

:: image via Washington Post

Happy Thanksgiving!

Second-Rate Urbanism

Reading through some old articles, I just had to post this quote from Duany - published in the Atlantic - you know the one with the great title 'The Man Who Reinvented the City'... :)  Asked about a May report from the Brookings Institution on The State of Metropolitan America (also check out the interactive map here), the response definitely piqued the interest of many - which I imagine may make recruiting for the CNU a bit more difficult in years to come... (underlined passages by me)

"There's this generation who grew up in the suburbs, for whom the suburbs have no magic. The mall has no magic. They're the ones that have discovered the city. Problem is, they're also destroying the city. The teenagers and young people in Miami come in from the suburbs to the few town centers we have, and they come in like locusts. They make traffic congestion all night; they come in and take up the parking. They ruin the retail and they ruin the restaurants, because they have different habits then older folks. I have seen it. They're basically eating up the first-rate urbanism. They have this techno music, and the food cheapens, and they run in packs, great social packs, and they take over a place and ruin it and go somewhere else.

I've known for 10 years about this destructive monoculture that's condensed in the suburbs. These people would normally be buying real estate by now. And we designed for them. We kept saying, "Aha, these kids, between 24 and 35, will be buying real estate." Guess what? They aren't. Because they can't afford it. But they're still using the cities--they're renting and so forth. The Gen-Xers also discovered the cities; they're buying in a proper way. The Millennials are the ones we're talking about. And they love cities desperately. And they're loving them to death."

Rather than sounding like a cranky senior (you kids today with your loud techno-music?) it's interesting to criticize an entire generation, especially one that, unlike their parents generation who hollowed out many of the US cities, seems to have rediscovered the City for it's life and culture, even after being battered by childhoods in the suburbs.  Hampered by an economic situation that was none of their making, they see opportunity in cities, but have little of the money (or perhaps desire) to make things happen in a traditional sense.  That's why they are the cutting edge in art (although rarely selling), the guerrilla gardeners, the urbane musicians (often playing in the streets or in a club for free), the community designers (doing more with labor in lieu of money) and the remainder of a rag-tag, creative class (not Richard Florida's version, but the real creative class) that makes cities vibrant and interesting.

:: Burnside Skatepark

Simply, they represent the undercurrent of urban life that gives cities a flavor unlike a homogeneous and expensive quasi-suburb - which they have perhaps grown up in but fled, never to return.  Perhaps they will evolve a differing urbanism that is more youth-oriented and affordable, allowing this 'lower-class' to have some space without ruining the 'first-rate' urbanism due to their differing habits and economic strata?.

We may enjoy this Second-rate Urbanism?

Alien Urbanism

De-Urbanization as Defense Against Alien Invasion

The previews for the new Rogue movie 'Skyline' made me think of a possible benefit from the general dispersion of urban populations.  As shown in the film, the prototypical invasion is preceded by.the traditional 'parking' of ships above all of the 'worlds cities' that has been echoed in sci-fi genres since, well, forever.

:: image via shockya.com

This focus on urban areas - and the concept of dense aggregation of populations makes us vulnerable to attack by aliens due to the ease in which they can focus their energy in a few areas, versus trying to conquer and occupy the globe 'block-by-block' if you will.  The energy to root out the distributed population around the world would have been difficult, if not impossible.

:: image via coming attractions

With the ever increase move towards cities, we have tipped the scales as to our virtual ease of invasion, which has likely caught the attention of alien cultures.  Long written off as rural 'hicks' the massive move towards an urban culture has definitely put us on the radar in terms of planets with considerable natural resources, able-bodies worker/slaves, and comparably low-tech weaponry, gleaned from historical accounts, such as 'War of the Worlds'.

 :: image via What If

As seen in Independence Day, the ability to concentrate on a few cities gives a competitive disadvantage.  A survey of world cities shows that from the largest (Tokyo, Japan 32.4 million) to the 100th largest (Napoli, Italy 3.0 million).  Given the impact of destruction on the top 100 or even the top 50 would wreak serious havoc on the world economies and peace of mind.

:: image via Top 10 List

A breakdown of the top fifty shows the geographical distribution - and although only 4 of these are US cities - they seem distributed throughout the area nicely for maximum impact - being able to keep an eye or remaining, less dense zones.  Hollowing out of larger US cities and megalopolitan agglomerations of multiple cites and edge cities will make it harder to define a 'center' in which to hover.  This has reduced our vulnerability, and massively expanding super-metropolises in Asia will be greater targets.

1. Tokyo, Japan - 32,450,000
2. Seóul, South Korea - 20,550,000
3. Mexico City, Mexico - 20,450,000
4. New York City, USA - 19,750,000
5. Mumbai, India - 19,200,000
6. Jakarta, Indonesia - 18,900,000
7. Sáo Paulo, Brazil - 18,850,000
8. Delhi, India - 18,680,000
9. Õsaka/Kobe, Japan - 17,350,000
10. Shanghai, China - 16,650,000
11. Manila, Philippines - 16,300,000
12. Los Angeles, USA - 15,250,000 
13. Calcutta, India - 15,100,000
14. Moscow, Russian Fed. - 15,000,000
15. Cairo, Egypt - 14,450,000
16. Lagos, Nigeria - 13,488,000
17. Buenos Aires, Argentina - 13,170,000
18. London, United Kingdom - 12,875,000
19. Beijing, China - 12,500,000
20. Karachi, Pakistan - 11,800,000
21. Dhaka, Bangladesh - 10,979,000
22. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - 10,556,000
23. Tianjin, China - 10,239,000
24. Paris, France - 9,638,000
25. Istanbul, Turkey - 9,413,000
26. Lima, Peru - 7,443,000
27. Tehrãn, Iran - 7,380,000
28. Bangkok, Thailand - 7,221,000
29. Chicago, USA - 6,945,000
30. Bogotá, Colombia - 6,834,000
31. Hyderabad, India - 6,833,000
32. Chennai, India - 6,639,000
33. Essen, Germany - 6,559,000
34. Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam - 6,424,519
35. Hangzhou, China - 6,389,000
36. Hong Kong, China - 6,097,000
37. Lahore, Pakistan - 6,030,000
38. Shenyang, China - 5,681,000
39. Changchun, China - 5,566,000
40. Bangalore, India - 5,544,000
41. Harbin, China - 5,475,000
42. Chengdu, China - 5,293,000
43. Santiago, Chile - 5,261,000
44. Guangzhou, China - 5,162,000
45. St. Petersburg, Russian Fed. - 5,132,000
46. Kinshasa, DRC - 5,068,000
47. Baghdãd, Iraq - 4,796,000
48. Jinan, China - 4,789,000
49. Houston, USA - 4,750,000 
50. Toronto, Canada - 4,657,000

New York City is an obvious target, as well as being a world center - it is the identification of the American ideology of cities... the showdown in 'The Day the Earth Stood Still' making Central Park a 'landing strip' for first contact.

:: image via Entertainment Wallpaper

:: image via Box Office Mojo

The phenomenon is not relegated to the cinematic, but permeates animated features - like this tri-valent attackers about a San Francisco-like urban area in 'Monsters v. Aliens'.

:: image via Box Office Mojo

The worlds icons perhaps will be the next wave, as shown in this photo op from 'Mars Attacks' - taking down the Taj Mahal.  This is more of a strategic destruction left for

:: image via Electronic Dragonfly

Another recent film, District 9 shows a more dystopian view, the disabled ship hovering over the ever sprawling shantytowns outside of Johannesburg, South Africa.

:: image via Sound on Sight

The television series 'V' shows that although special effects and technology evolve - the focus on world cities is not variable... hovering over 1980s (and then returning in the 2009 for more.  Sure they act nice, but they park their ships about all the world's series ready to turn us in to lizard people.  You definitely don't see these parked over Grand Forks, North Dakota (maybe due to the still remaining nuclear arsenal in the Dakotas - or maybe because they are scared of this.)

:: V (1980s version) - image via Automopedia

:: V (2009 version) - image via AstroNerdBoys Ramblings 


As with many of these films and series, the escape from cities is the only hope - rendezvous with other survivors in the desert (hopefully one with a large collection of planes and Jeff Goldblum & Will Smith).  While the occasional film will show aliens in the cornfields of the Midwest, or the sacred natural spaces in the middle of nowhere - but odds are, they will soon be hovering over a large city near you.

With this news, we may rethink our flight to the cities and look for a sprawling alternative - evenly covering the globe in groupings no larger than a few thousand - not calling attention to our agglomerations.  It may be our only hope.

Reslience

A tree at Lime Kiln Point State Park on San Juan Islands.

Soon, if this tree has its way - trespassing will again be allowed on this property:

(images (c) Jason King - Landscape+Urbanism)

Island Life

Greetings from sunny, partly cloudy Friday Harbor, where we are taking some late summer refuge from the urban areas of Portland.



Life on the San Juan Islands gives one an opportunity to relax and live a more confined life -because you are literally confined with access either via plane, boat, or car (via ferry)... the preferred choice of the island hopper.



The cycles become less about mass transit and 9 to 5 than the lead time to queue for the ferries heading to the mainland or other islands. The concept of hurry up and wait is no more evident in these cycles of escape. The lifeline becomes a schedule (and in our time of modern technological wizardry), the simple web ferry cam to give you an 'oh, not a problem' to a 'we're screwed' reaction, even before arrival. The open lanes mean freedom, but also a wait after the car is firmly planted in the lineup and you have an hour or two to kill.



While anywhere new, but especially in something more isolated, the origins of how a place came to be are often at the forefront. What drew folks to these islands, aside from solitude? A quick history lesson in this case reveals the obvious, fishing, at the forefront of industry. Still practiced (as seen from the purse seiner below pulling record numbers of King Salmon this season). This has alas become more of a secondary industry now.



Much like the canneries that were the major industry (along with Limestone quarries and lime kilns, and farming, which seems productive if indicative of the weekly farmer's market and the San Juan Islands Agricultural Guild). Some are still persistent but mostly idle, either post-industrial remnants or transformed into post-modern shopping experiences or interpretive exhibits. This view from our rental across a lagoon is stunning and remote enough to be less tourist-friendly... working now as a boat launch and fishing beach.



The main industry now being tourism, as seen on a idyllic coastal downtown (right up from the ferry terminal) which has that neo-traditional charm of a CNU wet-dream with a number of seasonal shops and restaurants that I imagine rely heavily on the holiday and weekend droves of tourists coming for escape.



Is it about new experiences or quiet. Perhaps both, and things that take you away from the typical cycles of life. A chance to learn about the infamous 'Pig War' of 1859' in sharp contrast to 'War Pigs' from 1970, dine on hyper-local seafood you may have seen being caught, or just to sit on a deck overlooking a not-so distant view of Canada.



:: War Pigs - image via Wikipedia

Alas, even seeing a breaching Orca from 150 yards quickly shifts from high-drama to 'wow, another whale' after a couple of hours. Amazing how we must continually look for greater and great stimulation to tantalize... perhaps our fascinating, as we've all commented this weekend, on electronic gizmos to entertain.



On this whale watching trip, no fewer than half of the passengers sat starting at blackberries, sleeping, or shooting rapidfire with overly expensive cameras, versus just soaking it in. All this as we zoomed through an amazing history lesson akin to the Island of Dr. Moreau (or more likely a precursor to the modern Jurassic Park) on Spieden Island (now owned by the owner of Oakley), where in the island was stocked with wildlife for big-game hunting Safari. Via the Seattle Times:

"It's a modern tale that began in 1969, when a group of investors bought this uninhabited 556-acre, three-mile-long island and stocked it with hundreds of grazing animals and nearly 2,000 game birds from around the world and renamed it "Safari Island." Hunters paid to visit and shoot everything from Asian fallow deer to African guinea fowl... Several species of exotic animals have thrived in the 22 years since hunting was stopped. Today, the more than 500 European Sika deer, Asian Fallow deer and Corsican Big Horn sheep are part of what makes the island special."

Spotting them on our island drive by was perhaps more interesting than the Orcas - although not to the majority of our fellow travelers, who had tunnel vision on seeing one thing and could care less for the journey.


:: Moufflon Sheep - image via Five Star Whale Watching

In the spirit of the fallow deer and corsican big horns, we always seem to adapt to whatever is put in front of us - maybe because we aren't staring at a screen or from behind a lens as life moves past? Perhaps, as I chill on a lazy Sunday, it's time to reconnect with the slow life... and not worry about catching that ferry or check that email. It's about as anti-urban as you can possibly get and perfect timing. Back here soon with more posts... cheers.


(all images (c) Jason King - unless otherwise noted)

Animurbanism

I thought this was pretty funny (and ridiculous) when first heard on NPR, then seen in multiple locations. The story centers on the layouts of these planned Sudanese cities, shaped like indigenous animals and even fruit from the region. This has been all over the place lately in media snippets, with a reaction of surprise, outrage, skepticism but mostly downright amusement. Ideas include the rhinoceros (seen below), as well a giraffe which form the urban outlines for these cities to be filled with a mix of uses fueled by southern Sudan's oil profits.


:: image via New Sudan Vision


:: image via BBC

While the form of the cities are getting the most attention, it's interesting to see how the debate has become one of appropriateness of any large-scale urban endeavor in a country with so much instability. The geo-politics of Sudan come to bear when you consider that the country is on the verge of a split - cleaving the oil-rich south into potentially a new country (and leaving many parts of both the old and new in poverty). Does that mean those less fortunate get the butt-end of these new urban areas? Probably, as these are planning these animal-cracker cities in the rich south, but it means those less fortunate don't get to live in these spots at all.


:: image via Blast magazine

Politics aside, why is it so strange to use formal shapes (ala Dubai's Palm Islands or the more abstract Ciudad Evita) to delineate our spaces, if the alternative is placeless suburban sprawl. While we can debate the appropriate urban form and spatial arrangement, nothing says that can't be a hippo versus a human profile versus a new urbanist community layout. They are all constructs, no? Think of the wayfinding possibilities with living 'near the ass' or 'in left rear legpit'... or in the case of Evita - 'on the outskirts of the nostril'... the street naming could be equally fun.


:: Ciudad Evita - image via Taringa!

As a formal exercise, perhaps there is some merit in the biomimicry or animism (or whatever it is) fueling these proposals, as they potentially offer opportunities for form-making that is based on something biological that could be a basis for sustainable communities. For instance, in one giraffe-shaped proposal, it was noted that ""the sewage treatment plant is appropriately placed under the giraffe's tail" - making it a fine analog for outputs - and potentially a framework for a self-sustaining organism as city? Does food enter the city through the mouth, or is that a bit too literal?



:: image via Buy Cheap Toy

The plans however look more like traditional layouts fitted within the chosen shape, making them more form over function. But, as we seem to debate the gridded versus organic forms of urban areas, we really don't have a clear delineation of a right answer - and it varies widely based on context and culture, among myriad other variables. All urbanism is contrived to a degree either in whole-cloth, through zoning and land use, or through time, accretion and evolution. And for the most part, all of these more or less decontextualized as they are forced upon a topography that is far from flat in both physical and social terms.

Plus, like cloud-spotting, animal forms can be derived from a number of constructed abstractions - or is it just me that sees a distinct elephant in this new urbanist community?


:: Providence Creek - image via Felts and Kilpatrick

Are any of these human-made forms more or less authentic - or can a giraffe-shaped city have all the elements we seek in good urbanity? Is an elephant shaped burb less intriguing or useful than one with more random curvilinear forms of streets and open space?

This WILL Cut Down on Blogging Productivity

Aside from the (at least impending) fact of summer, and general busy-ness at work - I thought I'd share my primary reason for the recent decline in blogging.



Recipe: Take one laptop. Add one dog running by and catching the cord bringing the works to the ground. The result - one really beautifully broken lcd screen (and luckily nothing else). It's been interesting to see how the crack has evolved over time - from a sharp 'v' originating at the point of impact to a much more smooth organic form. The only consistency is one postage stamp sized areas in the upper left corner that offers a hint of the screen activity below.

While I do have a setup with a monitor at work - most of the blogging is done at night - and my now importable laptop makes me a stationary being. Problem hopefully to be fixed soon!

Landcast by Christian Barnard

Dubbed with simple terms as 'the voice of contemporary landscape culture' - LANDCAST is a new series of podcasts from fellow landscape architect and blogger Christian Barnard that approaches landscape media in a brand new way. With the help of radio documentarian Adrien Sala, the podcasts aim to be an irreverent and informative way to discuss landscape, architecture, nature and development.



The first episode featured Debra Guenther Landscape Architect and Principal at Mithun from Seattle - in a varied and engaging exploration of Living Buildings, vertical farms, the future of cities, and other cutting edge sustainable strategies the firm is working on worldwide.

I have yet to hear episode 2 - which should emerge around May 6th and features what (to me) is a familiar voice... but to others may register as a nasally drone... but don't let it turn you off... check it out.

Earth Day Humor

As a staunch advocate of Earth Day Every Day - the actual date of the big historic 40th anniversary is somewhat unimportant. Much like volunteers rushing to soup kitchens on Thanksgiving - then leaving them abandoned the remainder of the year - the day (or week) offers myriad opportunities for getting out to do service projects, which is great, but isn't just a one-off activity.


:: image via Treehugger

Alas Earth Day is a reminder of how we should live all the time, so as special as the day is, the actual spirit should live on much longer. Treehugger linked to a great site SomeeCards - that offers up a wonderful slice of tongue-in-cheek references to this fine Earth Day worthy of a chuckle or two.


:: image via Treehugger