Gardens & Landscapes posts, articles, and infographics

A Garden City for the 21st Century

February 1, 2012 by The Dirt ASLA
with 186 views

Aberdeen, a city in Scotland, is not only transforming its urban center into a garden and cultural center, but also making sure the proposed designs suits the needs of the public. An upcoming referendum will gauge public support for the designs created by landscape architects OLIN, architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro, and Scottish... [read more]

The Price of Public Green Space

February 1, 2012 by the polis blog
with 118 views

A New Orleans public housing development on the verge of demolition. Source: The Bag Is it possible to assign a monetary value to public green space in cities? Alex Lo recently published an assessment of methods based on choice modeling and cost-benefit analysis. He focuses on the contingent value method (... [read more]

How Greenways Create Healthy Communities

January 31, 2012 by City Parks Blog
with 199 views

This post explores using greenways as the connector to parks, neighborhoods, schools and mixed-use centers, allowing for urban and rural ideas to merge and produce a superior hybrid community form. [read more]

Jaime Lerner: 'A City Is Like a Family Portrait'

January 27, 2012 by The Dirt ASLA
with 164 views

“A city is like a family portrait. You may not like the nose of your uncle but you don’t tear up the whole family photo. You don’t do this because the family portrait is you. In the same way, we just need to make those uglier parts of our cities more attractive. We can’t tear apart our cities,” argued Jaime Lerner, former Governor... [read more]

A Rating System for the Built Environment

January 25, 2012 by The Dirt ASLA
with 152 views

The Sustainable Sites Initiative™ (SITES™) has announced the first three projects to be certified by the nation’s most comprehensive system for rating the sustainable planning, design, construction, and maintenance of built landscapes. The corporate headquarters of an international manufacturing company, a new university green... [read more]

How a rain garden cleans industrial pollution

January 25, 2012 by Kaid Benfield
with 206 views

(Note: Today’s post was conceived and largely authored by my friend and frequent collaborator, Lee Epstein. Lee is an attorney, land use planner, and sustainability advocate working in the mid-Atlantic region.) As NRDC’s water program rightfully emphasizes, one of the most vexing conundrums in highly urban areas is how to... [read more]

Why Trees Make For Safer Streets

January 19, 2012 by Bob Leonard
with 745 views

Urban Forestry is a growing trend in cities looking to actively clean their air and water while making streets aesthetically pleasing for pedestrians, bike riders, and drivers as well. While I could list any number of benefits trees in urban areas have been shown to produce, there was one advantage that I didn’t expect to see: safer,... [read more]

A spiffy green waterfront begins to take shape in DC

January 19, 2012 by Kaid Benfield
with 117 views

Washington, DC is finally getting a green waterfront development to be proud of. A 42-acre redevelopment along the Anacostia River, The Yards will comprise some 1.8 million square feet of office space, 400,000 square feet of retail and cultural spaces, 2,700 rental and for‐sale homes, and a significant riverfront park... [read more]

South Korea Uses Architecture to Reignite its Publishing Industry

January 19, 2012 by This Big City
with 56 views

In 1989, construction began on a development 30 kilometres (19 miles) from the South Korean capital of Seoul, aiming to create an urban region which specialised in print and publishing. And what better place to embark on a project like this than South Korea – an area of the world which saw the invention of print some 200 years... [read more]

How to Make the Most of Water

January 18, 2012 by Planet Forward
with 61 views

Water is often called the "canary in the coal mine" of climate change--how we use, save and clean our water will be a big indicator of how well we adapt to the changing climate. [read more]

BioMilano Dreams of a Lush Metropolis

January 10, 2012 by Kaid Benfield
with 175 views

Italian architect Stefano Boeri dreams big and green. He has created six bold, transformational "ideas for a bio-diverse metropolis” that could be installed in and around the city of Milan, to establish “transitional states between the city, nature and agriculture” and provide “energy sources for a new model of urban... [read more]

Breaking New Ground

January 9, 2012 by The Dirt ASLA
with 148 views

Diana Balmori and Joel Sanders’ new book, Groundwork, is “an appeal to designers to overcome the false dichotomy between architecture and landscape.” Balmori, FASLA, and Sanders are both founding principles of New York-based design studios: Balmori Associates, a landscape and urban design studio, and Joel Sanders Architect, an... [read more]