Stats, Kind Words + Aggregation

I've been somewhat busy, and haven't had a chance to see who has actually been reading the blog and commenting on it elsewhere - so a change for some interesting highlights I discovered in a recent search.

Our recent review of the fantastic 'The Infrastructural City' caught the attention of the folks at Varnelis.net and resulted in some kind words ... "A really insightful and beautifully illustrated review of our book [link]. It’s great when reviewers get what we were after. The blogosphere is coming into its own with a better—and deeper—appreciation and understanding of our books than print periodicals. Things are changing in architectural journalism…and they’re changing very, very fast."


:: image via The Infrastructural City

We also received a nice email comment from contributing author Barry Lehrman (who wrote the fantastic chapter on Owen's Lake found in the book as well as taking the eerie pic of the dry lake bed).

Another that I must have missed was a pickup by one of my favorite conceptual aggregators - prss release nabbed one of the L+U posts from November 2008. Materiality and Light led off the issue of prss release #23 with the visual tour of some projects related to building skin that had was perforated to allow for and celebrating light.






:: images via prss release #23

Aside from these features and a good number of readers (many thanks to the 1000+ that register on my counter), there are also some interesting stats I found - in addition to the fact that readership just recently crested over 200,000 visitors and almost a half-million page views in a bit over a year:

:: Google PageRank: 5
:: Google Links: 382
:: Yahoo Links: 5,210
:: MSN Related: 109
:: Technorati Links: 7,743
:: Google indexed pages: 459

What does this mean? I actually have no earthly idea - and probably not much... as I've never been a big one for stats, but obviously it means something to someone (perhaps the same people who like memorizing batting averages or somesuch).

Mostly I tend to appreciate the comments (both direct, sometimes very direct and any other) that expand the dialogue about landscape+urbanism. And it's interesting to find that L+U has appeared linked on a number of sites, on more than one syllabus, a couple of CVs, a few articles, and many posts. Many thanks to all.

Veg.itecture: VIA Roofs

As the dialogue around green roofs shows that we've come a long way in vision and implementation. There seems a veritable cornucopia of projects and thinking on the subject. Read this interview with green roof plant expert Ed Snodgrass via Skygardens, and some more reinforcement of habitat potential for rooftops via Treehugger for some applied knowledge. Haven Kiers and Linda Velasquez offer some green roof hot ideas for 2009 - which are compelling but lacking in great detail... as a complement to my 2009 predictions as well.

As for projects, Treehugger swoops in with the obvious that green roofs are not new - stating that Europe has been vegetating rooftops for centuries... so yeah, there is a difference between these older models and the modern equivalents. Utterly shocking :)


:: image via Urban Greenery

They go on to point out a wonderful example from the 1950s by architect Richard Neutra for this sod-rooftopped, mid-century modern gem in Bozeman, Montana.




:: images via SpaceInvading

A Daily Dose of Architecture offers a variation on the theme, with earth-sheltered bunkers tucked into the hillsides or laced with subterranean tunnels, which has also been making quite a resurgence in our terror-prone times. A couple of cooler examples.


:: Federal Reserve Communications and Records Center - image via Archidose


:: Library of Congress - Packard Campus - image via Archidose

And the partially earth-sheltered, for instance this Mies van der Rohe Award finalist for this green roofed Multimodal Centre in Nice, France.


:: image via Bustler

Urban Greenery has been hard at work with some images of older green roof projects in North America, including these pioneering varieties:


:: LDS Convention Center, Salt Lake City - image credit American Hydrotech


:: Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Reseach Center, Connecticut - image credit American Hydrotech


:: Library Square Building, Vancouver, BC - image credit American Hydrotech

And another project that is reminiscent of Mountain Dwellings by BIG, which was recently awarded a Forum AID Award) for Architect... is an older project from Tadao Ando for the Awaji Yumebutai Conference Centre in Japan.




:: images via SpaceInvading

Finally, another shot or two of these infamous Mountain Dwellings a few weeks back I made the distinction, similar to Edouard Francois' Eden Bio building - the the reality left us feeling a bit, lacking. Follow-up, here's some other angles that show the brief emergence of green and a bit of redemption in this author's mind... still a ways to go, but heading in the right direction.




:: images via Arch Daily


:: image via Bustler

Veg.itecture: VIA Walls

As I recently mentioned, there is a steady parade of visuals promoting the veg.itectural - which make sense. The distance from idea to implementation is a common theme, and requires an amazingly large amount of coordination, client will, and ingenuity. We are constantly underwhelmed by the result - but more often amazed by what is actually available when the all of the stars align. A pair of posts, starting here, looks at the updated walls and roofs in the Vegitecture series.

WALLS
Walls... living, green, vegetated? Where to start. Jetson Green goes retro in an advert/post for Green Screen the old standby trellis system used on many a project. Urban Greenery drops a few old projects from Patrick Blanc in both Thailand and France. And for some newer content, first, via Inhabitat, is from Mexico City's El Japonez Restaurant, by Serrano Cherrem Architects‘ project with an inventive solid wall of vegetation. The wall, aside from being stunning, has purpose: "More than decorative in nature, the wall helps keep the thermostat steady throughout the year while infusing the interior spaces with fresh air." See some images and details below.

:: images via Inhabitat

Following up, a more more intricate (and less real fo sho) project by bluarch Architecture that for The Greenhouse Nightclub provides alternating discs of vinyl 'vegetation', LED lights, and wood - which oddly enough are supposed to "...convey the dynamic richness of nature as a living system." Read and see much more at Contemporist.

:: images via Contemporist

So you decide. Is the 'living system' or the artificial 'dynamic richness of nature' more successful? I guess they are both relevant, but real vs. metaphorical nature is one of those easy ones to get polarized about... Another hybrid is the Mossenger, spotted via VULGARE in the post Mossenger. The project entitled 'Sporeborn' by Anna Garforth uses moss as ink for wall-mounted writing.

:: images via VULGARE

Finally, I mentioned an interior living wall to go along with the Flowerbox building, and here's a pic - design by pulltab, image via Contemporist.

:: image via Contemporist