Alaska has been in the news a lot lately, thanks mainly to the exploits of Sarah Palin and Ted Stevens. While I'm happy to let them drift away from memory, one news show comment that has stuck with me is that Juneau, the capital city of Alaska, is inaccessible by road. And it's certainly not alone. Many cities and towns in Alaska have no roads that go to them or have seasonal ice roads. So much of the United States has boundaries and roads demarcated by the rigid Jeffersonian grid (explored so nicely in James Corner's "Taking Measure Across the American Landscape") that you can feel confined in it. Environmentalists who opt to live "off the grid" could in many ways be referring to the Jeffersonian grid instead of the utility grid.
I think the rise of Google Earth and Google Maps has had a similar impact on our sense of the known, except on a world scale this time instead of a country scale. Sure the images aren't always the highest resolution, and they can be years old, but they do make the whole surface world feel very knowable. There is no uncharted Africa of Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness".
So where do people go to really escape to the unknown? They need to shift vertically to underneath the aerials and the roads. The oceans remain largely un-surveyed. There are still caves to be discovered, and underground urban infrastructure to be reclaimed. Eventually, though "off-the-planet" may become the new "off-the-grid".
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Monday, September 08, 2008
Infrastructure as Art
I found this link on a comic images blog that had some photos of Brazilian stormwater gutters that inject a bit of whimsy into the urban fabric, something that I certainly enjoy.
I don't know if this was a commissioned art project or just an extensive art graffiti undertaking. It reminded me of research I did on art bollards for a public plaza space that I was working on for my previous job. There was money in the budget for artist-created elements in the plaza, and at the same time there was a need for bollards to control circulation. Plus, maybe a unique bollard would catch the eye and keep cyclists from accidentally hitting it. Anyhow, here are a few samples that I found during a more recent online search.
I think with this sort of commissioned personalization of standard landscape element you get a couple of positive things out of it. First off, it helps to establish the identity of the location as someplace unique. The Baywalk Bollards in Australia certainly have become something that people photograph, sketch, and probably know well in the community as a landmark. Of course, there are over a hundred of them, so that scale of things certainly ratchets up the impression made. The second benefit connects more to community involvement, and it is predicated upon a certain development process that not only involves artists, but also community members. If you can get those people directly involved in producing objects that are part of the space that they will use, then they will have a personal connection to that place and are more likely to be protective of it. This can translate to spaces that are better maintained because of that sense of ownership. There were several projects at my last job where this process was brought to fruition. One of them was a playground renovation where local high school students created art tiles that were then incorporated into seatwalls and the paving.
I guess what I really like about the art becoming the infrastructure or vice versa is that the art does not become just an object in the space. It becomes a functional component of the space. Certainly as a designer, I want my design to be the thing defining the space, and the art should work with me, not against me. So, I guess the goal should be to either be the landscape artist yourself in the design or do your best to develop a constructive collaborative relationship with the artists involved as early as possible.
Where does the graffiti art fit into this? My favorite graffiti art by Banksy and others seems to have a dialog with the space where they have implemented it. But how would I feel if they decided to comment on my space I designed and add to it? Should I prepare for this? Should landscape architects purposefully create blank canvas spaces for such work? Is it even possible to do so? Can the spontaneity of graffiti be anticipated? That's probably a hard thing to do, but what about going back later to a space and responding to such things in a spontaneous redesign? That's one funny thing about landscape projects... that they end, but certainly the landscape keeps changing. Maybe the contractor gets a 2 year contract to keep plants alive, but the landscape architect may never be involved again once they sign off on the final punch list. I guess that's why some landscape architects and designers work more on personal estates and gardens where they can have this long term relationship. For the rest of us, it's just landscape architecture one night stands.
I don't know if this was a commissioned art project or just an extensive art graffiti undertaking. It reminded me of research I did on art bollards for a public plaza space that I was working on for my previous job. There was money in the budget for artist-created elements in the plaza, and at the same time there was a need for bollards to control circulation. Plus, maybe a unique bollard would catch the eye and keep cyclists from accidentally hitting it. Anyhow, here are a few samples that I found during a more recent online search.
I think with this sort of commissioned personalization of standard landscape element you get a couple of positive things out of it. First off, it helps to establish the identity of the location as someplace unique. The Baywalk Bollards in Australia certainly have become something that people photograph, sketch, and probably know well in the community as a landmark. Of course, there are over a hundred of them, so that scale of things certainly ratchets up the impression made. The second benefit connects more to community involvement, and it is predicated upon a certain development process that not only involves artists, but also community members. If you can get those people directly involved in producing objects that are part of the space that they will use, then they will have a personal connection to that place and are more likely to be protective of it. This can translate to spaces that are better maintained because of that sense of ownership. There were several projects at my last job where this process was brought to fruition. One of them was a playground renovation where local high school students created art tiles that were then incorporated into seatwalls and the paving.
I guess what I really like about the art becoming the infrastructure or vice versa is that the art does not become just an object in the space. It becomes a functional component of the space. Certainly as a designer, I want my design to be the thing defining the space, and the art should work with me, not against me. So, I guess the goal should be to either be the landscape artist yourself in the design or do your best to develop a constructive collaborative relationship with the artists involved as early as possible.
Where does the graffiti art fit into this? My favorite graffiti art by Banksy and others seems to have a dialog with the space where they have implemented it. But how would I feel if they decided to comment on my space I designed and add to it? Should I prepare for this? Should landscape architects purposefully create blank canvas spaces for such work? Is it even possible to do so? Can the spontaneity of graffiti be anticipated? That's probably a hard thing to do, but what about going back later to a space and responding to such things in a spontaneous redesign? That's one funny thing about landscape projects... that they end, but certainly the landscape keeps changing. Maybe the contractor gets a 2 year contract to keep plants alive, but the landscape architect may never be involved again once they sign off on the final punch list. I guess that's why some landscape architects and designers work more on personal estates and gardens where they can have this long term relationship. For the rest of us, it's just landscape architecture one night stands.
Saturday, September 06, 2008
Artifical Hippo
The Australian Institute of Landscape Architects just announced their 2008 National Award winners, and I spent some time perusing through them last night. There's lots of EDAW in there, incidentally. Anyhow, the one that I was most interested in was project by Urban Initiatives that developed a wetland infrastructure design for the Kubu River Hippos' Exhibit at the Werribee Open Range Zoo. Traditional zoo water enclosures use a huge amount of energy in their constant water recirculation, and Urban Initiatives came up with a bio-filtration system that not only provided a more energy efficient solution but also helped connect the design conceptually to the Okavango Delta wetland in Botswana that is the natural habitat of the hippos housed in the exhibit. Here's a constructed view of the wetland followed by a design diagram of the system:
Now, the rest of the exhibit starts to look like Disney's Jungle Cruise Adventure as they delved into replicating some of the human cultural elements of Botswana region, but I guess zoos aren't that far away from theme parks to start with.
Anyhow, this project's water filtration system connected with my interest in this type of plant-based human infrastructure. It's a popular landscape architecture topic these days as cities try and tackle non-point source water pollution. Portland, OR is the poster child for this with their Sustainable Stormwater Management Program. But while you see bio-swales (aka. planted water filter ditches), water quality ponds (aka. larger planted stormwater holding basins) and the like all over the place, few places take the infrastructure to that next level, such as purifying sewage. And the hippo pond is, of course, treating a lot of hippo poop. When I was in Spain last year I picked up a book called "Waterscapes" by Helene Izembart and Bertrand Le Boudec that presents a lot of conceptual examples and specific case studies of mainly European projects that use plants systems to treat wastewater. So, if the hippos example interests you, I recommend checking out that book.
Now, the rest of the exhibit starts to look like Disney's Jungle Cruise Adventure as they delved into replicating some of the human cultural elements of Botswana region, but I guess zoos aren't that far away from theme parks to start with.
Anyhow, this project's water filtration system connected with my interest in this type of plant-based human infrastructure. It's a popular landscape architecture topic these days as cities try and tackle non-point source water pollution. Portland, OR is the poster child for this with their Sustainable Stormwater Management Program. But while you see bio-swales (aka. planted water filter ditches), water quality ponds (aka. larger planted stormwater holding basins) and the like all over the place, few places take the infrastructure to that next level, such as purifying sewage. And the hippo pond is, of course, treating a lot of hippo poop. When I was in Spain last year I picked up a book called "Waterscapes" by Helene Izembart and Bertrand Le Boudec that presents a lot of conceptual examples and specific case studies of mainly European projects that use plants systems to treat wastewater. So, if the hippos example interests you, I recommend checking out that book.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
luaka bop bicycle racks
CityRacks is a design competition in NYC to develop a new standard bicycle rack that will replace the old standby loop rack that is currently used throughout the metropolis. David Byrne was involved in the competition as a judge (who knew he was a big cycling enthusiast?), and he also got in on the design work, creating temporary, bicycle rack art pieces:
I think that some of these could be much more fun as clustered objects, such as a group of the people bicycle racks standing around or the same with the cars. And shouldn't there be at least a pair of shoes? One of my main complaints with bicycle racks is the lack of quantity. In San Francisco I felt like I was always hunting for the one bicycle rack on the block, and this would be in areas like the Lower Haight where you have a ton of bars, bicycles, and, of course "The Wiggle". My other pet peeve with bicycle racks, especially with commercial box developments, is that they put them in stupid, out of the way places. Or if they don't do that, then they only leave about foot of space between the rack and the wall of the building. Clearly the people designing these things don't ever park bicycles themselves.
Anyhow, back to CityRacks. I'm not blown away by the finalists, but then again that's the case with most racks I ever see in site furnishing catalogs. My favorite was this one:
They did a good job with the NYC branding, and they thought about locking folding bikes and even unicycles for god's sake. What's your favorite? And do you have any favorite bicycle rack designs you've seen or perhaps you have a gripe about bicycle parking? Please share.
I think that some of these could be much more fun as clustered objects, such as a group of the people bicycle racks standing around or the same with the cars. And shouldn't there be at least a pair of shoes? One of my main complaints with bicycle racks is the lack of quantity. In San Francisco I felt like I was always hunting for the one bicycle rack on the block, and this would be in areas like the Lower Haight where you have a ton of bars, bicycles, and, of course "The Wiggle". My other pet peeve with bicycle racks, especially with commercial box developments, is that they put them in stupid, out of the way places. Or if they don't do that, then they only leave about foot of space between the rack and the wall of the building. Clearly the people designing these things don't ever park bicycles themselves.Anyhow, back to CityRacks. I'm not blown away by the finalists, but then again that's the case with most racks I ever see in site furnishing catalogs. My favorite was this one:
They did a good job with the NYC branding, and they thought about locking folding bikes and even unicycles for god's sake. What's your favorite? And do you have any favorite bicycle rack designs you've seen or perhaps you have a gripe about bicycle parking? Please share.
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Map Your Mind
I took a seminar workshop called "Groundworks" my last year of graduate school with Professor Jennifer Brook that explored the concept of "site". It was a small group of us, and during several class sessions we were presented with short exercises to complete, present, and then discuss in relation to the day's lecture topic. One exercise that I enjoyed most was a simple cognitive mapping task. Jennifer asked us all to draw a map of California. We had about five minutes to do so, and when we taped them all to the wall they were totally different. Some people focused on geographic features such as mountain ranges and rivers. I had an awful lot of structure defined by freeways (a result of my time spent driving the roads of Los Angeles, perhaps?). Most everyone had some political boundaries with other states, and many of them, including mine, were very poorly located. I still don't know if I could place where Nevada ends and Arizona begins.
So try it. Next time you have some friends over for drinks or something have them all draw a map of the town you all live in. If you want to keep drawing, borrow some ideas from the Surrealists.
So try it. Next time you have some friends over for drinks or something have them all draw a map of the town you all live in. If you want to keep drawing, borrow some ideas from the Surrealists.
Garden Zombie Attack
This is a link that I found over on boingboing for a Zombie Garden Sculpture in the Toscano catalog. It's a shame there's only one variety. Zombies usually attack in large groups. And what exactly would a group of zombies be called? A gaggle? A herd? A brood? A mob?
Friday, February 15, 2008
There's lakes, and then there's "lakes"...
A recent Scripps Institution of Oceanography/UC San Diego article about the possible drying of of "Lake" Mead above the Hoover Dam had me curious about the fate of Arizona and the rest of the southwest, but mainly it got me thinking again about what bodies of water we call "lakes". We need some better word that describes large manmade, reservoirs and other engineered water features that, generally speaking, have ecologically dead (if existent) shorelines. This characteristic is a shame, as the wetland transitions between land and water that should exist are very richly diverse in terms of ecology. Sometimes these "lakes" are not as arid or artificial looking as Lake Mead or Lake Powell, but they never look quite right. Lake Merritt, in Oakland, CA, for example, has a hard-edge shoreline that just drops off into the water.
There's one little swatch of beach that I can recall around the mile plus perimeter, and then there's the backflow dam to prevent tidal flux from affecting the water level too much and to let stormwater push its way out.Anyhow, I don't know these constructed Fake-Lakes, Flakes, etc. should be called, but don't try and confuse people into thinking they're lake ecologies because you can drive a jetski in them. We shouldn't take for granted such large engineering feats, or else we start to forget about them as artificial, and the next thing you know we assume the water will always be there. Then you wake up one day and the "Lake" is dry.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Dr. Eugene Tsui's Eighth Wonder of the World
A co-worker of mine used to work at Eugene Tsui's office, which is in Emeryville, CA. Judging from the text on the Tsui Design & Research website, Tsui is definitely a character, and it's hard for me to tell if there's any validity in some of his ideas because that constructed persona gets in the way. Anyhow, when he's not playing flamenco guitar, winning senior gymnastics medals, and designing sci-fi clothing, this renaissance man is developing biomorphic architecture. The planning project that caught my eye is for a bridge spanning across the Strait of Gibralter. Here's an aerial view of a model of what it would look like:
The spans are actually underwater, arched tunnels linked by a floating island in the middle. Here's a section view:
These fish-shaped tunnels would not only have car lanes and train tracks but linear parks for people to move through, complete with trees, pools, waterfalls, and areas for music and dance performances. The whole project would, according to Dr. Tsui, double Spain's tourists, increase Morocco's by 2600% and would "no doubt be the Eighth Wonder of the World".
The spans are actually underwater, arched tunnels linked by a floating island in the middle. Here's a section view:
These fish-shaped tunnels would not only have car lanes and train tracks but linear parks for people to move through, complete with trees, pools, waterfalls, and areas for music and dance performances. The whole project would, according to Dr. Tsui, double Spain's tourists, increase Morocco's by 2600% and would "no doubt be the Eighth Wonder of the World".
Thursday, January 24, 2008
The (Landscape) Architecture of Happiness
About a year after I received the book as a gift, I finally got around to reading Alain de Botton's "The Architecture of Happiness". The main idea in the book as I read it was summarized in one of the photo captions that states "The buildings we call beautiful contain in a concentrated form those qualities which we are deficient." Earlier in the book, the author writes that "what we seek, at the deepest level, is inwardly to resemble, rather than physically to possess, the objects that touch us through their beauty." And what of the notion of what is beautiful? Is that not subjective, or are there universal patterns which our minds strive to see realized? In Ray Kurzweil's "The Singularity is Near", he talks a lot about the great facility for the human mind to recognize patterns. Something in the parallel structuring of our brains allow for this. In his book, de Botton suggests that these patterns of beauty are not universal, but rather cultural constructs. He cites the extreme difference between western ideas of beauty to those found in the Japanese idea of "wabi". In wabi there is a"a love of irregularity rather than symmetry, the impermanent rather than the eternal and the simple rather than the ornate." Decay and weathering are not shunned, and this reminds of J.B. Jackson's essay "The Necessity of Ruin". In it, Jackson (one of the father's of the study of cultural landscape), writes about how there must be an interval of neglect to provide the incentive for restoration. He says it is "religiously and artistically essential". This is more of a linear view of things than the parallel existence that I interpret from the eastern idea of wabi, but still there is a connection. Maybe the eastern and western ideas are not always so different.
Near the end of "The Architecture of Happiness", de Botton writes that "we owe it to the fields that our houses (and our landscapes?) will not be the inferiors of the virgin land they have replaced." I think this is true, although I also think we should strive to improve our non-virgin land in a similar fashion. There's no excuse for bad public design, and our decisions on how we construct the public realm can have a lasting impact. The author also states that "the same kind of banal thinking which in literature produces nothing worse than incoherent books and tedious plays can, when applied to architecture, leave wounds which are visible from outer space." So go out there an strive to create beauty. It will make people happy.
Near the end of "The Architecture of Happiness", de Botton writes that "we owe it to the fields that our houses (and our landscapes?) will not be the inferiors of the virgin land they have replaced." I think this is true, although I also think we should strive to improve our non-virgin land in a similar fashion. There's no excuse for bad public design, and our decisions on how we construct the public realm can have a lasting impact. The author also states that "the same kind of banal thinking which in literature produces nothing worse than incoherent books and tedious plays can, when applied to architecture, leave wounds which are visible from outer space." So go out there an strive to create beauty. It will make people happy.
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
Ha Ha Funny, Not "ha ha" Cow Barrier
For some reason I got it in my mind that it was important to develop some landscape architecture jokes, so here's what I've got so far:
How many landscape architects does it take to screw in a light bulb?
-How many?
-We have a very qualified electrical sub-consultant for that.
What's black, white, green & striped all over?
-What?
-A Peter Walker landscape.
What do landscape architects call a Brazilian wax?
-What?
-A Roberto Burle Marx
Why did the landscape architect cross the road?
-Why?
-To get to the other bulbout.
Your momma's so fat she can't fit in paper space.
Knock, knock
-Who's there?
-Kobori Enshu
-Kobori Enshu who?
-Enshu glad I gave you this borrowed view?
wakka, wakka, wakka....
How many landscape architects does it take to screw in a light bulb?
-How many?
-We have a very qualified electrical sub-consultant for that.
What's black, white, green & striped all over?
-What?
-A Peter Walker landscape.
What do landscape architects call a Brazilian wax?
-What?
-A Roberto Burle Marx
Why did the landscape architect cross the road?
-Why?
-To get to the other bulbout.
Your momma's so fat she can't fit in paper space.
Knock, knock
-Who's there?
-Kobori Enshu
-Kobori Enshu who?
-Enshu glad I gave you this borrowed view?
wakka, wakka, wakka....
Saturday, September 29, 2007
3 Quotes from Isolarion
My friend Levi sent me a book by James Attlee called Isolarion. It's the author's extended, personal pilgrimage down Cowley Street in Oxford. There are lots of tangential ramblings of thought to go with the physical pilgrimage. Here are three short parts that I dog-eared as they captured my fancy:
p.199 "I am usefully reminded that sometimes, when there is no train or plane fast enough to transport you beyond the reach of your troubles, a long walk may be your only way out."
p.273 Quoting Claude Levi-Strauss's Tristes Tropiques: "Humanity has taken to monoculture, once and for all, and is preparing to produce civilisation in bulk, as if it were sugar-beet. The same dish is to be served to us every day."
p.26 Quoting from A.C. Grayling's The Meaning of Things: Applying Philosophy to Life: "--for our moods are like tunings on the wireless, picking up truths at different frequencies, so that if we don't know the gamut of human feelings, neither can we know the gamut of human truth."
p.199 "I am usefully reminded that sometimes, when there is no train or plane fast enough to transport you beyond the reach of your troubles, a long walk may be your only way out."
p.273 Quoting Claude Levi-Strauss's Tristes Tropiques: "Humanity has taken to monoculture, once and for all, and is preparing to produce civilisation in bulk, as if it were sugar-beet. The same dish is to be served to us every day."
p.26 Quoting from A.C. Grayling's The Meaning of Things: Applying Philosophy to Life: "--for our moods are like tunings on the wireless, picking up truths at different frequencies, so that if we don't know the gamut of human feelings, neither can we know the gamut of human truth."
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Sustainable Play Structures
Landscape Structures is one of the main manufacturers of play equipment in the U.S. It was encouraging to read this article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune that highlighted how they're family run, and now that's transitioning to being owner operated. We talk a lot in landscape architecture about sustainability, and social sustainability is certainly part of that. Sure, just because someplace is owner operated doesn't mean they have values that promote green building practices, but individuals do have ethical standards. In private, publicly-traded corporations ethical standards are something that can suffer as accountability becomes muddy. So, it does make me feel a bit better to specifiy a product in a playground that is produced by people who have a personal stake in things.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Hundertwasser Wine
The NY Times just had an article on the Quixote Winery in Napa Valley which was one of Friedensreich Hundertwasser’s last buildings he worked on. Hundertwasser was an eccentric Austrian artist turned building designer whose felt the mechanization of building was killing modern homes. His structures try to integrate the built form and nature more closely, including all of the messiness that comes along with complex natural systems. The grid was to be scorned, as were right angles and solid swathes of color. I had never known anything about him before, but I had seen pictures of his Hundertwasser House in Vienna, and I really enjoyed the integration of the plant material into the building with vines, trees, etc. high up from the ground. His “Forest Spiral” building in Darmstadt, Germany doesn’t intrigue me as much. The scale of the green space doesn’t feel as personal as the house in Vienna. Still, I like the idea that you could walk up the height of the entire building. That ground floor to roof green access is nice. 
Hundertwasser House in Vienna
The "Forest Spiral" building in Darmstadt, GermanyChicago's Deep Tunnel
How could I live in Chicago at one point and not know that there were 109 miles of tunnels being built under it? Not just small tunnels, but big ones, 9 to 33 feet in diameter. It’s all part of the Tunnel and Reservoir Plan (TARP) also known as “The Deep Tunnel”. It is pretty deep, as much as 350 feet below the surface, excavated through limestone since the 1970’s using similar equipment to the machines that drilled the Chunnel between the UK and France. But this tunnel system does not transport people. It carries and stores sewage and storm water overflow from the area to reservoir sites until water treatment plants can catch up with the peak flow during big storms.
It’s curious to me to read different descriptions of the project. The Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago who runs the Deep Tunnel thinks it’s the best thing ever, and touts all the engineering awards it has won. Most of the $4 billion in funding has come from the EPA, and the project has helped improve the water quality of Lake Michigan and the Chicago River by keeping storm runoff from going directly into those bodies of water. Chicago has a mixed sewage and storm water system (like many cities) so that means sewage isn’t overflowing into the river or lake as well.
Then we’ll have to think of some NEW use for the Deep Tunnel. Fresh water storage for drought? Future “L” routes? Underground linear museum? What else?
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Zinfandel
A diocese in Hayward, CA has converted some of their surplus cemetery space into a vineyard, growing Zinfandel, Chardonnay, and Pinot Noir grapes. The nearest graves are about 60ft from the grape vines, which would worry me a bit if I was the grower. This is mainly because god knows what embalming fluid and other preservative chemicals might migrate underground through the soil. I would generally think that formaldehyde does not go well with food. Another consideration is how the breakdown of the bodies affects the soil. What nutrition is added? What unusual chemical concentrations are created? A British Environmental Agency report gets into great detail about this, including nice tables like this:
Maybe this will produce some unique wines with unusual flavor qualities. It’s about time the blood of Christ had some competition.
Saturday, January 27, 2007
The Naming of Things
This Thursday I went to the Castro Theatre to see Mike Judge and Don Hertzfeldt’s The Animation Show, which consists of a number of animated shorts from the past year or so. It’s traveling around the country, so if it makes it to your town, I’d recommend it.
The first short was a piece called “Rabbit”, which is actually posted on Atom Films. It brings to life a bunch of 2D images form a children’s vocabulary book, with all of the objects in world of the film being labeled. "Rabbit" brings to life a bunch of 2D images form a children’s vocabulary book, with all of the objects in world of the film being labeled. You can get an idea of what I’m talking about from this image:
It’s a darkly funny piece, and it got me thinking about how when you have a bunch of nouns presented to you the verbs that they engage in can be quite unexpected. There’s a lot of creative potential in not being too limiting in your expectations of how an object will act or, if it’s inanimate, how it will be used. Lars Lerup describes this in his book Building the Unfinished: Architecture and Human Action. In it, Lerup uses the example of a staircase that a child plays on and imagines as a mountain to climb or a cascading waterfall when sliding down the stair in a box. An elderly woman may put flowerpots on the stairs and think of it as a plant stand. Lerup describes the stair as a “lump” that has “inherent patterns common with many things.” By naming it and only thinking of the object or noun in one way, as a staircase, we limit the object. Lerup states: “the singular designation by the culture reduces the object to a one-dimensional concept, when in fact the object is a lump of material… in order to know an object we must embrace and study all its sides… we must also act if we want to see.”
This concept connects to another idea I remember from a landscape architect on a review jury of mine who said that you shouldn’t start with defining what objects a client wants, instead you should start with what verbs they want to engage in. For example, if they say, “I want a bench”. Then you should counter with, “so, you want a place to sit?” This strategy leads to a lot more constructive questioning of desires and activity in a space. It also allows for more flexibility of use, and that can be very important in the design of public spaces where you have various groups of people with different desires and wants.
The first short was a piece called “Rabbit”, which is actually posted on Atom Films. It brings to life a bunch of 2D images form a children’s vocabulary book, with all of the objects in world of the film being labeled. "Rabbit" brings to life a bunch of 2D images form a children’s vocabulary book, with all of the objects in world of the film being labeled. You can get an idea of what I’m talking about from this image:
It’s a darkly funny piece, and it got me thinking about how when you have a bunch of nouns presented to you the verbs that they engage in can be quite unexpected. There’s a lot of creative potential in not being too limiting in your expectations of how an object will act or, if it’s inanimate, how it will be used. Lars Lerup describes this in his book Building the Unfinished: Architecture and Human Action. In it, Lerup uses the example of a staircase that a child plays on and imagines as a mountain to climb or a cascading waterfall when sliding down the stair in a box. An elderly woman may put flowerpots on the stairs and think of it as a plant stand. Lerup describes the stair as a “lump” that has “inherent patterns common with many things.” By naming it and only thinking of the object or noun in one way, as a staircase, we limit the object. Lerup states: “the singular designation by the culture reduces the object to a one-dimensional concept, when in fact the object is a lump of material… in order to know an object we must embrace and study all its sides… we must also act if we want to see.” This concept connects to another idea I remember from a landscape architect on a review jury of mine who said that you shouldn’t start with defining what objects a client wants, instead you should start with what verbs they want to engage in. For example, if they say, “I want a bench”. Then you should counter with, “so, you want a place to sit?” This strategy leads to a lot more constructive questioning of desires and activity in a space. It also allows for more flexibility of use, and that can be very important in the design of public spaces where you have various groups of people with different desires and wants.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Interchange
There’s something that’s very grand about freeway interchanges in the US. It’s the scale combined with the overlapping planes and the curving shapes, and the motion of the vehicles. Actually, I think even if you took the vehicles away they’d still work well… maybe even better because you’d have some silence instead of constant traffic drone. These ramps and interchanges are very photogenic, as you’ll find in this flickr group on Highway Overpasses and Ramps.
I was doing some research the other day at work on the development of city forms, and I came across this image in Gallion & Eisner’s The Urban Pattern.
I was doing some research the other day at work on the development of city forms, and I came across this image in Gallion & Eisner’s The Urban Pattern.
I had never seen a diagram that broke down the different type of interchanges, so I thought the image intriguing. Doing a web search after that pulled up several other images that are pretty great. This site has aerial images of Los Angeles interchanges.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Greenroof Gardening
One thing that is amazing to me is that Germany has had legislation encouraging greenroof development since 1989, but it’s just now that the thing is catching on in the US. I guess we finally paved enough that stormwater management costs have opened the door for this “natural” technology with its additional benefits of energy savings, habitat value, heat island reduction, etc. It seems like the value-add of alternative infrastructure is an area where landscape architecture can continue to grow.
Anyhow, back the greening of roofs. The most popular green roof option these days is the extensive green roof. That is one with waterproof barrier, topped by a shallow growing medium profile, and capped with planted plugs of low water use plants. The plants fill in after about a year or so, and succulents are a very popular variety because of their suitability for the conditions on top of roofs: increased wind, little shade, etc. But, rooftop gardening still captures the imagination (and stomachs) of many city dwellers. If you think about how global populations have been shifting away from rural areas into more concentrated urban environments, it makes sense that a desire to grow some food in cities might travel with that migration. But where do you find the space available? How about flat roofs? Of course, there are challenges: not only the climatic ones mentioned earlier, but access, structural integrity, and water sources are also big questions. How do you get on the roof? How much weight can it hold? Is there a water faucet or will you be hauling up buckets?
The Rooftop Garden Project in Canada has come up with some innovative, low-cost solutions to rooftop gardening. Most of their plantings are hydroponic for the main reason that it combines low weight with high moisture and nutrient delivery, perfect for lettuce and vegetables. Two of my favorites involve pipes and tin cans:
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Green Those Bus Shelters
A link to these Soviet era bus shelters has been floating around, and I enjoyed browsing through the photos. They range from very modern concrete form to folk-art mural inspired to Route 66 attraction marker. Looking at them, the shots make the landscape around them so lonely, although some of them show some obvious care and maintenance from people in as much as the paint looks to be in pretty good shape. There is only one picture with a shot of a person in it, and I do wonder more about how the shelters get used. How often does the bus come? How long do people wait there? What do they look like in the winter?This got me thinking to bus shelters in general, as they're one of those small sturctures that I feel as a landscape architect I could probably design without killing someone. It's kinda' like a trellis or something, after all. They let me build those. But I don't think landscape architects often do design these shelters. Reading on the industrial design site Core77, sounds like industrial designers and architects duke it out for the chance to build them. But I think landscape architects should step into the ring more often.
After the Rebar Group here in San Francisco had their Park(ing) event, I started thinking about what other elements of the urban environment were under-appreciated. Bus shelters soon came to top my list. They're a place to sit and wait, to step out of the rain, etc. Clearly their visual impact has a value or else advertisers would not pay good money to advertise on them. What if some more of that money was put back into making them more hospitable? They also are good potential placemaking structures for a neighborhood. Each district could adopt their bus shelters in a city and the unique design elements would represent place.
Where specifically do landscape architects get into this? Well, what I have found to be pretty rare is a bus shelter that has any plantings or greenery at all. Not that landscape architects are around just to shrub things up, but I think plants can be used to help differentiate areas, provide seasonal change, shelter from wind, shelter from sun, allow some sun in, etc. Here are a few examples from the Project for Public Spaces photo gallery:
Plants:
http://www.pps.org/imagedb/image?image_id=20147&image_id=20147
http://www.pps.org/imagedb/image?image_id=25408&image_id=25408
http://www.pps.org/imagedb/image?image_id=20034&image_id=20034
Vines:
http://www.pps.org/imagedb/image?image_id=39821&image_id=39821
Beyond aesthetic purpose, maybe each shelter has a mini-greenroof that mitigates a little bit of stormwater impact. If you add up the surface area of all bus shelter rooftops in a city, that's probably a decent amount of runoff slowed captured and/or slowed down. Maybe on top of that you get some habitat value, some visual value, etc. There are options. We just need to explore them further.
Monday, January 08, 2007
A Road Ain't Supposed to be Sometimes Thing
According to a recent AP article, during construction of a train line in the Netherlands, a section of the ancient Roman "limes" were uncovered outside of the town of Houten.
"The Limes" were ancient Roman fortified roads, with this stretch operating from A.D. 50 to A.D. 350. Other stretches are found throughout Germany, into Israel, etc. This ancient border line is Europe's largest archeological monument, and it has been a UNESCO-World Heritage Site since 2005. The path of many limes are known from medieval copies of ancient maps, but the changing course of the Crooked Rhine near this Netherlands site has made the location of sections there difficult to locate.
The Latin noun "limes" (the plural is limites) has the root of "limit", and "limes" has many meaning around the idea of path, limit, and boundary. Wikipedia has a pretty informative entry which gets more into the etymology.
There are a few intriguing ideas to me in this story. The first of them is the idea that a road can be lost. It's like the physical reverse of a Richard Long art project, although conceptually it's a very similar thing. A road or path is the result of action and movement. If this human impact is taken away, then the road vanishes. I guess it's just that roads feel so permanent in many ways, or somehow in my mind it seems more likely that destination will change, but roads keep on going.
Another thing that interests me is that "The Limes" have this "world heritage" designation. It's seldom that I think of infrastructure as something deserving such a title. I suppose the Roman Empire did shape Europe in lasting ways, and these roads were its limit. But is a road really something worth preserving in this way? I like the idea of the train taking the same path, so the road comes back to life in some different way, but I don't like the idea of some tourist stop while driving on some other road. And what about all of the roads we build in modern times? Will the American freeway system someday be equally important? Or are there just too many roads now for it to matter? A shift seems to have happend in how roads define posistive and negative space. It used to be with a few roads that the line itself was the positive space, and that was important. Now there are so many roads, that they define the negative spaces, or land parcels, which are the important space. At least that's how it seems to me.
"The Limes" were ancient Roman fortified roads, with this stretch operating from A.D. 50 to A.D. 350. Other stretches are found throughout Germany, into Israel, etc. This ancient border line is Europe's largest archeological monument, and it has been a UNESCO-World Heritage Site since 2005. The path of many limes are known from medieval copies of ancient maps, but the changing course of the Crooked Rhine near this Netherlands site has made the location of sections there difficult to locate.
The Latin noun "limes" (the plural is limites) has the root of "limit", and "limes" has many meaning around the idea of path, limit, and boundary. Wikipedia has a pretty informative entry which gets more into the etymology.
There are a few intriguing ideas to me in this story. The first of them is the idea that a road can be lost. It's like the physical reverse of a Richard Long art project, although conceptually it's a very similar thing. A road or path is the result of action and movement. If this human impact is taken away, then the road vanishes. I guess it's just that roads feel so permanent in many ways, or somehow in my mind it seems more likely that destination will change, but roads keep on going.
Another thing that interests me is that "The Limes" have this "world heritage" designation. It's seldom that I think of infrastructure as something deserving such a title. I suppose the Roman Empire did shape Europe in lasting ways, and these roads were its limit. But is a road really something worth preserving in this way? I like the idea of the train taking the same path, so the road comes back to life in some different way, but I don't like the idea of some tourist stop while driving on some other road. And what about all of the roads we build in modern times? Will the American freeway system someday be equally important? Or are there just too many roads now for it to matter? A shift seems to have happend in how roads define posistive and negative space. It used to be with a few roads that the line itself was the positive space, and that was important. Now there are so many roads, that they define the negative spaces, or land parcels, which are the important space. At least that's how it seems to me.
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