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This is the “tree” they are referring to… Bacopa caroliniana… an aquarium plant…

It seems that they’ve got a long way to go before the London Plane Trees of NYC start glowing at night… thank God.
Plus, the trees would need to be evergreen otherwise you’d lose all of your nanoparticles of gold each fall, though it would encourage fall…[Read more]

Always had trouble in central VA with the city/town governments being fascinated by NU “town center” look for development, the public process in general (most public meetings are dominated by people with strong opinions and loud voices, quite often negative), the environmental needs -therefore approvals- (often neglected in NU).

Topics to look at…[Read more]

Sounds scientifically interesting, but not in the long term interest of tree health. Messing with photosynthesis to lose its dark cycle does not sound sustainable.

They aren’t coating the leaves with gold, as at that point the trees would not be able to absorb CO2, and die, and it wouldn’t be any different than putting out gold panels.

They are infusing leaves with a small amount of gold “nanoparticles” (particles of less than 100 nanometers) it behaves differently than gold, and is already used for things…[Read more]

nanoparticles, not bad.

so can they make them Dark Sky compliant?

Do you think in amounts comparable to coating trees’ leaves sufficiently to illuminate streets?

Gold is currently used in nearly all electric devices.

Using gold as an energy source. Makes perfect sense.

Good topic..Somewhat historical (getting dated?)..Do the ‘ecological urbanists’ also want to use charettes?

Why don’t you run a charette yourself? It can be fake, but still interesting..

And I think there are recent articles on the role of the professional vs. the role of the public in decision making – I have been frustrated for years by the…[Read more]

yes u doctor tree rna to produce hi energy bioluminescence like a squid but then tree may grab passing pedestrains with branches like the giant peach lol

I did some research on the subject a while ago, here is one of my sources
http://www.seasidefl.com/newsStory.asp?releaseId=1047
I modeled my argument around Seaside Florida

thanks for sharing!

http://www.landezine.com/
http://www.dezeen.com/
http://www.treehugger.com/
http://www.inhabitat.com/
http://www.swiss-miss.com/
http://www.ted.com/
http://www.materialicious.com/

‘sharing is caring’

Two articles to check out, if you haven’t, are:

Ellis, C. “The New Urbanism: Critiques and Rebuttals.” Journal of Urban Design 7, no. 3 (2002): 261-291.

Krieger, A. “Whose Urbanism?” Architecture 87, no. 11 (1998): 73-76.Krieger, A. “Whose Urbanism?” Architecture 87, no. 11 (1998): 73-76.

Ellis’s article might be a good starting point for…[Read more]

I think one of the most interesting phenomena surrounding (literally) new urbanist communities is their unintended consequences–the interaction/effect on the areas just beyond their borders.

I participated in charettes for a fairly large NU (now well under construction) development nearby. Many years later it appears to be a success and very…[Read more]

Thanks Adam! I appreciate it — if you think of any more, please tell me.

For quanitity take offs this sounds good. We use LandFX which could be similar. Kind off BIM for site (SIM).

We use data from past tenders. We want a tool to manage this data to use for new “estimates”. For example, we can extract a relevant rate for granite paving given a certain quanity based on rates from past tenders.

Zach,

A lot of people struggle because of the left brain-right brain thing, but a lot that don’t sometimes get a bit lax on the graphic part by making liitle drafting errors. Make sure to stay very precise and don’t get cute trying to tie your contours back artfully (we can’t help it, we are designers). They don’t give you a lot of room to…[Read more]

Jordan:

Yeah, Planting questions in D are always weird and subjective. To be honest, I can not really answer what type of planting is appropriate at the base on sculpture without knowing what type of sculpture it is, and what preferred visual sppearance, maintenance strategies are……lol. I always ended up choosing groundcover or perennials.…[Read more]