ecology

One hundred ninety two national governments and the EU have signed the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), pledging to work towards its three objectives (see here).  In reality, much of the onus falls on local governments although, often, neither level is aware of this nor how it should take place.  In fact, local...[read more]

The Venetians built a remarkable city made up of close-knit island neighborhoods within a briny lagoon, centered on fresh ground water cisterns in the middle of sand filled public plazas called campi. There are few cities where one feels so in touch with nature, in the stone of the buildings, the light bouncing off the remarkable...[read more]

Detail from Romare Bearden's "The Block" (1978). Source: Harlem WorldIn "Ecology and Inclusion" I recently argued that ecology — as the study of relations between organisms and their environments — is limited in addressing today's most urgent problems because it rarely includes theory and methods designed to illuminate human...[read more]

New York State’s Department of Environmental Conservation is poised to make a long-awaited decision that will determine if and how High Volume Horizontal Hydraulic Fracturing (or fracking) should proceed.[read more]

Across the world, cities are bringing back nature to helpaddress urban challenges. We are healthier when we are closer tonature. We have a greater respect for the environment that sustainsus. We are more adaptable to change when we let nature do its work.[read more]

Credit: XEROMAX © Future Cities Lab (Johnson/Gattegno)It’s a sunny day as I step into the offices of the Future Cities Lab, and the Bay is visible from the windows. For Nataly Gattengo, co-founder of the experimental design and research office, it’s an appropriate view. A native of the seaside city of Athens, Greece, the relationship...[read more]

This post was originally published on The Dirt. Nina-Marie Lister, MCIP, RPP, Affiliate ASLA, is Associate Professor of Urban & Regional Planning at Ryerson University, and Visiting Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design (GSD). She is a contributor to “Ecological Urbanism” and...[read more]

Last week I attended the ‘Brownfields and Land Revitalization’ 2011 conference here in Spokane, WA. A ‘Brownfeild’ is piece of land which has been polluted or contaminated, making further development ‘complicated.’[1] Historical land-uses are the primary culprit of why sites become brown.  Mining practices in Idaho’s ‘Silver Valley...[read more]

According to MillionTreesNYC, the purpose of its 2010 research symposium, which will be held March 5-6 in New York City is to showcase “research and projects that contribute to knowledge on urban landscapes, green infrastructure, and public health in cities and urban areas.” The organization is soliciting papers on research that is...[read more]

As part of an ongoing mapping project of green building and sites being conducted through a group of local architectural and environmental groups, a small side-committee of Oregon ASLA members is looking at dissecting the idea of sustainable sites. To this end, we are using the Sustainable Sites Initiative (as well as some other systems...[read more]

MVRDV's proposal from a few years back (2001) for 'Pig City', a set of towers with pigs raised in the ultimate high density strikes a more recent chord with our current fascination with all things urban gardening and vertical farming - and perhaps a dischord in the recent Swine Flu pandemic. While the tongue-in-cheek nature of this...[read more]