What a cultivated way to spend a Sunday morning! Lyndale Avenue was closed down to autos for Sunday in Minneapolis. Biking up and down the Avenue one would experience music, laughter, and even yoga.
Imagine the cultivated landscapes streets could become if the automobile was a secondary form of transportation.
This year, the International Horticulture Expo is being held in Xi’An, China. Featuring commissioned landscapes from some of the most innovative landscape architects, including Adriaan Geuze, International ASLA, at West 8 and Martha Schwartz, ASLA, the expo has already brought in more than one million visitors and is expected to attract 12 million before it closes in October. A 418 hectare site in the Guangyun Lake area of Xi’An, one of China’s great ancient cities, was developed for the event.
A night filled with grace at the Lake Harriet Bandshell. Wonderful music and an attentive audience on a Sunday evening in Minneapolis.
Witnessed a beautiful moment today. While biking around the lakes in Minneapolis a wonderful group of people were directing a mother duck and her ducklings down Lake Street towards Lake Calhoun. I regret not having my camera.
Nothing better in the spring then Iris blooming in the crevices of a stone outcropping
The Office of Urban Transformations (OUTR), a non-profit organization at the School of Architecture and Design at RMIT University, Melbourne, has launched a design competition and event called Landscape Urbanism 72 Hour Urban Action. The idea: 100 international and national architects, landscape architects, designers, craftspeople, and artists will “race the clock to design and construct exciting new public space projects in just 72 hours in a real-time design challenge aimed at transforming Melbourne’s Docklands.”
02/15/2011 by asladirt
At the National Building Museum, Patrick Condon, ASLA, a professor of landscape architecture at the University of British Columbia, gave a run-through of his new book, “Seven Rules for Sustainable Communities,” which argues that bringing streetcars back is the smartest thing cities can do become more sustainable. For older cities, unearthing “barely submerged” streetcar networks may be easy, but relatively new communities can also invest in laying streetcar infrastructure at a cost significantly less than subways or light rail. To get to a 90 percent cut in greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs), transportation emissions must be zero. Making communities walkable and bikeable are crucial, and electric vehicles will also help, but 40-50 percent of the U.S. urban fabric is already set-up for the “Streetcar City” so it’s just a matter of investing again in an old model that worked well.
Watch an animation from ASLA’s “Designing Our Future: Sustainable Landscapes” online exhibition that explains how to transform a car-centric community into one that enables active living. Learn how designing communities for walking, biking, and increased social interaction in open green spaces improves health:
