2009: A Year in Preview

It's funny reading the breakdowns of 2008, and the masses of predictions for 2009, (and a great one for 2010) specifically as the economy still reels due to wide-spread mismanagement, and there seems to be a non-stop (yet perhaps slower) parade of amazing, crazy, and just plain wrong projects - as witnessed in 2008. What will be the next big thing? It won't last, of course, but will be etched in our history - at least as a sidenote - with importance determined by font size, as in this diagram from "Modern Movements in Architecture” by Charles Jencks (1973).


:: image via In The Belly of an Architect

So, in lieu of predictions, I will offer a manifesto and guiding principles which will direct Landscape+Urbanism for the upcoming year, sort of. I'm still planning on more of the same, as I don't particularly care what others think of my blog, because I'm not writing it for anyone except me. Solipsism is good. This in mind, as always content is subject to the whims of culture, of course, and my personal schizophrenic nature when it comes to focus - but at least some form of predictions - which will of course, like new years resolutions - be forgotten by Groundhogs Day. So for now, here's some random musings, and an excuse to drop a bunch of links.

Veg.itecture will die of its own excesss and will be replaced with a world where every building image will be draped in shrubbery - with the exception of Modern architecture - which still views landscape as a blank field in which to drop the objet'd'art. This will mark the subsequent death of some other words in the lexicon - as evidenced by this 'dead-words' post from Lebbeus Woods. Designers will be able to design any building, and then apply the Vegitecture filter in Photoshop to make them look green.


:: image via Archispass

Metaphorical monumentality will be replaced with true monumentality - on a scale not seen since the construction of the pyramids, we wil mobilize, through economic-induced 'slave' labor - to construct monuments to our excess that are physical, rather than merely being paper - to show our true colors. See this post from Life Without Buildings for more.


:: The Colossus of Rhodes (Dali) - image via Life Without Buildings

Green will be replaced with blue as the color of choice for sustainability - due to climate change, air quality issues, water scarcity, and water quality issues. Green will be seen as a blight - and will be summarily eradicated from discussion, work, and our general pysche. It will be easier.


:: Waterflux - image via Arch Daily

Anyone using the words 'LEEDing the way' or its many variations will be killed... nuff said.

:: image via WebUrbanist

Relaxation will be the new 'work'. Think about it... how much time is spent working on crap, or crap we don't like, whereas a relaxed spirit and mind allows us to tap into our untapped creativity - making even crap somewhat lovely. And, if it's true our construction moratorium is good for sustainability, then non-building is good building. Let's all take a nap.

:: Oliver Bishop-Young’s SkipWaste project - image via Dezeen

Streets will be cool again: Forget Green Streets, as we've killed sustainability and the use of the word green - so these linear transportation networks will merely be known as streets... stormwater, pedestrian safety, multi-modes, sustainable, safe, and other benefits included - it's called green infrastructure. They will be transformed on a monumental scale. We will dance on the graves of old streets.

:: image via Treehugger

Infrastructure will be replaced with megastructure. Megastructure is based on bottom-up design that is flexible, adaptable, and self-organizing... like cities. See more here and here.

:: Archigram's Plug-In City, prototypical Megastructure - image via urb

We are reaching an apex of sorts. The trip down is going to be exciting, but the bottom is gonna be really, really bad. Or good, I'm feeling optimistic. Oh right, this isn't a bell curve, it's linear...

:: image via Treehugger

A Dozen of the Best of 2008

Well, in the spirit of the impending new year, it's time for a look back on the 300+ posts from Landscape+Urbanism to glean what was new, provocative, innovative, and just plain awe-inspiring. In my biased opinion, reading through the archives and downloads from the year - is that 2008 was definitely the year of Veg.itecture - both in visuals, technologies, and built works. So in this vein - a totally random and unscientific look the best of the best for Veg.itecture, Landscape and Urbanism that will continue to inspire into the new year.

1. Best Veg.itecture Project
Hands down, the most amazing project of the year was the California Academy of Sciences Building in San Francisco. Photogenic, innovative, and inspiring, this project blew everyone away, causing me to proclaim, in hyperbolic fashion, that Piano et.al. had reached the pinnacle of veg.itecture... and I still stand by this.


:: image via Metropolis

2. Best Urban Agriculture Project (tie)
This is a tie between the practical and the visionary. First, these Agrotecture visions came from the Architecture Association of London (via Pruned), such as this airborne vineyard: "The audacious structure, the winery and the vineyard for red wine grapes are connected by a suspended transport network enabling the use of ground space for a public park. With a capacity to produce 10,000 bottles of red wine annually the project re-articulates private and public space blending productive infrastructure with quality areas to Londoners and tourists."


:: image via Pruned

And the tie comes from a radically different type of urban agriculture project, from What If, an architecture collective from the UK with a novel idea: "A formerly inaccessible and run-down plot of housing estate land has been transformed into a beautiful oasis of green. Seventy 1/2 tonne bags of soil have been arranged to form an allotment space. Within their individual plots, local residents are carefully tending a spectacular array of vegetables, salads, fruit and flowers. A new sense of community has emerged."


:: image via What If

3. Best Living Wall
This one is via Balmori Associates for their design for the 'World Mammoth and Permafrost Museum', located in Yakutsk, Siberia. These interior living walls are made up of vegetation from the mosses and lichens that draped the Siberian tundra - and also regulate interior temperature and air quality.


:: image via Balmori Associates

4. Veg.itect of the Year
James Corner of Field Operations... big surprise?... Nope.:)


:: image via Metropolis

5. Best Book
While the new Patrick Blanc book was amazing, and I am constantly turning to Meg Calkins book on Sustainable Materials - my vote for best book of the year goes out to The Public Chance: New Urban Landscapes by a+t architecture publishers which offers solid and graphical analysis from a broad range of projects from around the world. Check it out - it's one that will continue to inspire (and it has since I've wrestled it back from my students from Fall term).




:: images via a+t architecture publishers

6. Best Use of Materials
There were a ton of potential projects to choose from regarding inventive uses of materials, but in review, this project from Foster and Partners for the United Arab Emirates Shanghai Expo Pavilion utilizes patterns of Islamic art and culture as well as playing with color and light... as always - we shall have to see how it comes together in reality.


:: image via Atelier A+D

7. Best Magazine
I am pleasantly surprised to honor Metropolis Magazine with the best magazine of 2008, for a couple of divergent reasons. First, their expanded coverage of landscape architecture projects has been unprecedented, and will hopefully continue in 2009 with thoughtful and insightful features - not just blurbs about a range of projects. Second, the provocative Susan Szenasy's comments on landscape architecture have fueled some healthy and much needed debate internally - which makes us all better.


:: image via Metropolis

8. Best Blog
Spawned on March 09, 2008, Arch Daily seems like one of those blogs that has been around forever - and I'm constantly amazed by the amount and quality of imagery and posts from around the world. Plus this site is perhaps most low-key and informative in the trend towards vegetated architecture - showing built (yes, in the digital flesh) projects to show that yes, it is possible to do this stuff, and do it well.


:: image via Arch Daily

9. Best Project Graphics
Coming via Pruned, this project from Marti Mas Rivera, of Universitat Politecnica De Catalunya, Barcelona, a rainwater harvesting project for the Arabic Fortress Hill of Baza in Andalucia. In the time of wicked computer graphics and the lost art of hand-drawing, these fusion-graphics restored my faith in the beauty of the minimal...




:: images via Pruned

10. Firm/Collective of the Year

My vote goes to a collective of Spanish designers that make up the group Urbanarbolismo - and are constantly producing great and inspiring work around the concepts of veg.itecture, landscape and urbanism - reconnecting the natural to the built environments. Plus, their site can be instantly translated into Spanish for those of us who's bi-lingual skills leave something to be desired.

:: La Torre I-214 refrigerada mediante bosque - image via Urbanarbolismo

11. Best new resource
Land8Lounge is like Facebook for landscape professionals without all the annoying stuff I hate about Facebook. In addition to being a good social networking site, the L8L community provides opportunities for discussions of the profession, the ability to show and see new work, as well as the possibility of getting exposure to the world-wide professional community like never before.


:: images via Land8Lounge

12. New Idea for 2009:
My vote for best new idea of the upcoming year isn't a static technology or implementation, but a re-alignment of design with nature that will illicit a vibrant and change-provoking dialogue for years to come. PHWREE Urbanism was coined by Dave Brown (minusa 'silent or lispy W') to become PHREE Urbanism - which stands for POST HUMANIST REWILDED ECO ETHICAL URBANISM... remember those words...


:: image via Tomorrow's Thoughts Today

Again, Time to Get High

I'll try to keep my fawning at bay as I post some new info from the High Line (although my obsession is well known)... but sometimes I just can't resist. I recently plugged through some of the recent High Line Blog posts, and particularly appreciate the short lived 'What will grow here?' - which aimed to investigate some of the horticultural aspects of the HL, and I guess was weekly, even though it only lasted a couple of said week in mid-year. A tough call for a horticulturist to sit inside blogging at the height of summer indeed. Some highlights, from Melissa Fischer, the High Line horticulturalist:


:: Eupatorium rugosum (aka White Snakeroot) - image via High Line Blog

The first post discusses a trip to the Greenbelt Native Plant Center - where some of the plantings were being grown for Section 1... "...our exciting challenge will be to see the plants through their transition from ideal nursery conditions to the more rugged micro-climates of the High Line. Thirty feet above the street, the temparature can be up to ten degrees warmer or colder than on the ground, high winds often sweep off the Hudson River, and the sun beats down in some areas while others are fully-shaded by buildings that hug the Line."

"With this in mind, it’s interesting to consider the High Line planting plans, created by designer Piet Oudolf and Field Operations. With their intentional intermixing of species found on the High Line after its abandonment (such as the White Snakeroot pictured at top) and numerous other selections chosen for their bloom time, seed heads, foliar textures, and seasonal color like this Saliva nemerosa ‘Rhapsody in Blue,’ the High Line planting scheme is, at once, wild and intentional."


:: Salvia nemerosa 'Rhapsody in Blue' - image via High Line Blog

One interesting phenomenon is the use of the the 'indigenous' vegetation found on the High Line prior to development - which in one of those modern horticultural switcheroos uses plants and seeds collected from the site that are propagated off-site and brought back to the site for final planting. A follow-up post, perfect for those of use with the desire for planting-on-structure techno-nerdiness offers some in-progress construction photos of the waterproofing, drainage mat, gravel substrate, and other rooftop drainage flashing and other structures.




:: images via High Line Blog

Picking these apart a bit, this is pretty typical rooftop layering - providing a solid, well drained base to allow water to dissipate quickly, as well as, in this case, plenty of soil depth for some of the intensive vegetation and grasses that are planned for the final installation. Areas of drainage are wrapped in filter fabric to allow water passage but retain aggregates. Another interesting detail is how the railroad tracks are 'floating' prior to soil installation, which you can see in the next section of photos backfilled to finish grade.


:: image via High Line Blog

Another post from September shows some active planting and highlights the craning of vegetation, on-site layout of plant schemes, and installed vegetation within the cracks of the reinstalled train tracks. I still wonder about the train tracks and why these were put back in place - although there was some great pics of a rail-lounger... which I imagine will be up there somewhere... check these out.






:: images via High Line Blog

And to wrap it up, Tropolism featured some year end photos from Friends of the High Line from their year end newsletter of the current construction - where you can see these horticultural endeavors in action. Tasty.






:: images via Tropolism