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Uplifting urban view from the meadow on the roof top of the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, Chicago.
The landscape design notebook of Loretta Bosence
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Brilliant use of roof top space in Beijing and Hong Kong. Urban farming on roof tops is not a new thing anymore, but the enthusiasm of these two is infectious.
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+ La grande cantine, Forme Publique, La Défense, Paris. (Talking Things, 2012) http://www.jbhardoin.fr/La-Grande-Cantine
Clever sticks
(Source: tumblr.thisbigcity.net)
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![t
landscape-a-design:
KIDS WHO GET DRIVEN EVERYWHERE DON’T KNOW WHERE THEY’RE GOING
It turns out vehicular traffic does something else too, more subtle but equally pernicious: It changes the way children see and experience the world by diminishing their connection to community and neighbors.
In the Heavy [traffic exposure] neighborhood, the children frequently expressed feelings of dislike and danger and were unable to represent any detail of the surrounding environment. Newell Avenue, the main road in front of the school, is a tree-lined street and yet few of the trees were drawn; instead, red (danger, cars) and orange (dislike) dominated. Participants from the Light [traffic exposure] neighborhood, on the other hand, showed a much richer sense of their environment, drawing more of the streets, houses, trees, and other objects, and including fewer signs of danger, or dislike and fewer cars. The children also drew many more places in the street where they liked to play and areas that they just simply liked: they noted playing in 43 percent more locations in their streets relative to the children in the heavy-traffic-exposure neighborhood.
Appleyard worked with children in two suburban communities. One had light traffic and infrastructure that allowed children to walk and bike on their own. One had heavy traffic and children traveled almost exclusively by car. Using a technique called cognitive mapping, Appleyard asked groups of nine- and 10-year-old kids to draw maps of their neighborhoods, showing destinations such as school and friends’ houses, and marking places they liked or disliked. The results were revealing:
In sum, as exposure to auto traffic volumes and speed decreases, a child’s sense of threat goes down, and his/her ability to establish a richer connection and appreciation for the community rises.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/1fa56166420c5bed141d0437b537c574/tumblr_mhdap0T4TJ1rs5eudo1_500.jpg)
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t
KIDS WHO GET DRIVEN EVERYWHERE DON’T KNOW WHERE THEY’RE GOING
It turns out vehicular traffic does something else too, more subtle but equally pernicious: It changes the way children see and experience the world by diminishing their connection to community and neighbors.
In the Heavy [traffic exposure] neighborhood, the children frequently expressed feelings of dislike and danger and were unable to represent any detail of the surrounding environment. Newell Avenue, the main road in front of the school, is a tree-lined street and yet few of the trees were drawn; instead, red (danger, cars) and orange (dislike) dominated. Participants from the Light [traffic exposure] neighborhood, on the other hand, showed a much richer sense of their environment, drawing more of the streets, houses, trees, and other objects, and including fewer signs of danger, or dislike and fewer cars. The children also drew many more places in the street where they liked to play and areas that they just simply liked: they noted playing in 43 percent more locations in their streets relative to the children in the heavy-traffic-exposure neighborhood.
Appleyard worked with children in two suburban communities. One had light traffic and infrastructure that allowed children to walk and bike on their own. One had heavy traffic and children traveled almost exclusively by car. Using a technique called cognitive mapping, Appleyard asked groups of nine- and 10-year-old kids to draw maps of their neighborhoods, showing destinations such as school and friends’ houses, and marking places they liked or disliked. The results were revealing:
In sum, as exposure to auto traffic volumes and speed decreases, a child’s sense of threat goes down, and his/her ability to establish a richer connection and appreciation for the community rises.
(via plotscape)
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![A interesting point from the GDS Design Principles: DESIGN WITH DATA
“Normally, we’re not starting from scratch - users are already using our services. This means we can learn from real world behaviour”
DESIRE PATHS
A desire path (also known as a desire line, social trail, goat track or bootleg trail) can be a path created as a consequence of foot or bicycle traffic. The path usually represents the shortest or most easily navigated route between an origin and destination. The width of the path and its erosion are indicators of the amount of use the path receives. Desire paths emerge as shortcuts where constructed ways take a circuitous route, or have gaps, or are lacking entirely.
Ex: http://www.flickr.com/groups/desire_paths/pool/
PARKS AND NATURAL AREAS
In Finland, planners are known to visit their parks immediately after the first snowfall, when the existing paths are not visible. People naturally choose desire lines, which are then clearly indicated by their footprints and can be used to guide the routing of new purpose built paths.
Social trails sometimes cut through sensitive habitats and off-limit areas, threatening wildlife and park security. However, social trails also provide to park management an indicator of activity concentration. The National Park Service unit at the Yosemite National Park uses this indicator to help establish its General Management Plan.
Trampling studies have consistently documented that impacts on soil and vegetation occur rapidly with initial use of desire paths. As few as 15 passages over a site can be enough to create a distinct trail, the existence of which then attracts further use.[3] This body of scholarship contributed to the creation of theLeave No Trace education program, which, among other things, teaches that travelers in nature areas should either stay on designated trails or, when off trail, distribute their travel lines so as to not inadvertently create new trails in unsustainable locations.
Land managers have devised a variety of techniques to block the creation of desire paths. These can be seen alongside many trails and include fencing, dense vegetation, or signage. However, social trails still penetrate these barriers. Because of this, state of the art trail design attempts to avoid the need for barriers and restrictions and instead seeks to bring trail layout and user desires in line with each other - both through physical design and through persuasive outreach to users.
OTHER USES OF THE CONCEPT
The image of a user created path, in seeming defiance of authority, across the earth between the concrete, has captured the imagination of many as a metaphor for, variously, anarchism, intuitive design, individual creativity, or the wisdom of crowds.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/f508aa38581b98ba257bac95ebda1169/tumblr_miq8kdvjis1r3y6k5o1_500.jpg)
View high resolution
A interesting point from the GDS Design Principles: DESIGN WITH DATA
“Normally, we’re not starting from scratch - users are already using our services. This means we can learn from real world behaviour”
DESIRE PATHS
A desire path (also known as a desire line, social trail, goat track or bootleg trail) can be a path created as a consequence of foot or bicycle traffic. The path usually represents the shortest or most easily navigated route between an origin and destination. The width of the path and its erosion are indicators of the amount of use the path receives. Desire paths emerge as shortcuts where constructed ways take a circuitous route, or have gaps, or are lacking entirely.
Ex: http://www.flickr.com/groups/desire_paths/pool/
- PARKS AND NATURAL AREAS
In Finland, planners are known to visit their parks immediately after the first snowfall, when the existing paths are not visible. People naturally choose desire lines, which are then clearly indicated by their footprints and can be used to guide the routing of new purpose built paths.
Social trails sometimes cut through sensitive habitats and off-limit areas, threatening wildlife and park security. However, social trails also provide to park management an indicator of activity concentration. The National Park Service unit at the Yosemite National Park uses this indicator to help establish its General Management Plan.
Trampling studies have consistently documented that impacts on soil and vegetation occur rapidly with initial use of desire paths. As few as 15 passages over a site can be enough to create a distinct trail, the existence of which then attracts further use.[3] This body of scholarship contributed to the creation of theLeave No Trace education program, which, among other things, teaches that travelers in nature areas should either stay on designated trails or, when off trail, distribute their travel lines so as to not inadvertently create new trails in unsustainable locations.
Land managers have devised a variety of techniques to block the creation of desire paths. These can be seen alongside many trails and include fencing, dense vegetation, or signage. However, social trails still penetrate these barriers. Because of this, state of the art trail design attempts to avoid the need for barriers and restrictions and instead seeks to bring trail layout and user desires in line with each other - both through physical design and through persuasive outreach to users.
- OTHER USES OF THE CONCEPT
The image of a user created path, in seeming defiance of authority, across the earth between the concrete, has captured the imagination of many as a metaphor for, variously, anarchism, intuitive design, individual creativity, or the wisdom of crowds.
(Source: digitalbydefault)
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The garden of 10,000 bridges. Created by Dutch landscape design firm West 8 and DYJG, Bejing, for the 2011 International Horticulture Exhibition in Xi’an, China.
(Source: west8.com)
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Red Ribbon Park, Qinhuangdao City, China - designed by Turenscape, Landscape Architects.
The 500 metre long structure made from wood and coloured fiber steel winds through the riparian zone of the Tanghe River. It incorporates a boardwalk, lighting, seating and environmental interpretation, as well as animal crossing points.
This project demonstrates great use of hard landscaping materials to preserve an ecologically sensitive area whilst enabling access and enjoyment to an ever expanding local population. The area has been transformed and rescued from the twin pitfalls of rapid urbanisation: neglect and misuse of ecologically important areas (often as dumping grounds), on the one hand and overzealous, unsympathetic redevelopment on the other. This must be an incredibly hard trick to pull-off, but it seems this elegant design has done it.
I don’t know much about the background to this project, but in the back of my mind there are niggling questions of displacement and homelessness that I feel always need to be asked when a large suburban area becomes the subject of gentrification and development.
(Source: turenscape.com)
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Kastrup Sea Bath by White Arkitekter
Inspiring design on the one hand - BUT complete waste of resources on the other?
Call me a traditionalist nostalgic, but, is it SO bad to get your toes a bit sandy and change your clothes under a towel? Might save a few quid, lots of CO2, plenty of trees and rock and a great deal of effort which could be expended doing something really worthwhile?….
There are (many) times when the best design decision is to do nothing.
(via landscapearchitecture)
Theme: Linear by Peter Vidani
