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The GSD is not a fad, its been around a loooooong time. But some of the academic drivel that is a result of the “research” going on there is, and in academia as a a whole. Being active in academia myself (but I am PAYING to be there) I’ve been reading a bunch of LA theory lately, and can find logic flaws in almost all of it. Many of the authors…[Read more]

Thanks, Thomas, but that is not where I live..I am in the central valley..

I just came back to edit previous comment – Barry Lopez saw native cultures as treating nature as I- thou, and we treat it as I- it, NOT “I – me”, as I wrote…We see nature as all “I- it.” But all cultures thoughout time say nature as “I – Thou” , with great respect, an…[Read more]

lets use another overused phrase to describe it…jumped the shark. Yes, even “jumped the shark” has, well, jumped the shark.

T1 – You guys have some of the best highway medians / plantings in Southern California! I’ve never seen the two color aggregate, separated into flowing designs, used anywhere else. They are beautiful and sparsly planted… Maybe the few I’ve seen (on the 5 or15? can’t remember) are the only ones around and it’s more difficult to do that kind of…[Read more]

and I have to add, how or why is landscape urbanism’ different that Landscape Architecture, as it has been practiced for 100 years, with some very gorgeous examples..How is it different than landscape architecture in any way, as Nick Aceto pointed out?

why do we need these words at all?

Fairly annoying – sort of like ‘meme’ – everything is a…[Read more]

I am saying that I am not fine with ‘landscape urbanism”..I means nothing, it has no immediate relevance, and reminds me of the democrats tring to stand up the the republican branding machine – the republicans say ‘man up’ and the dems are flatfooted and try to talk policy..
Landscape urbanism is to me a meaningless opaque portmanteau of…[Read more]

Good design starts from the general and works toward the specific. First you have to address the general concept of the project and make sure you understand client/budget/regulation/end user/and the site to do so. Good design takes care of the macro as it works toward the micro. The micro should always support the macro. Great details mean nothing…[Read more]

Cost of living does affect pay scale. No one anywhere wants to pay more than they have to for employees or anything else. When the cost of living is high, it takes more to get employees to come and work for you if they have any other choices. It is not because someone says “we should pay more because the cost of living is high”, but because when…[Read more]

Nicely said Vanessa!

Along those same lines, from one of my favorite books, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance:

“The result is rather typical of modern technology, an overall dullness of appearance so depressing that it must be overlaid with a veneer of “style” to make it acceptable. And that, to anyone who is sensitive to romantic…[Read more]

Are you saying that The GSD is a fad or that the terminology coming out of the program is a fad? I’m fine with the term landscape urbanism. It’s all of the “soft”, wordy, dribble that loosely defines the term that I take issue with. It’s as good as saying nothing at all, which actually, might be better.

It seems that many of these buzz words are…[Read more]

Being in a well designed space reminds me of hiking through the mountains. Often plant material, a stone, or some other object catches my eye and draws me over to experience it. Out of curiosity I pick it up, feel its weight, its texture, its consistency…discovering the properties of such an object is naturally very pleasing to me. It is such a…[Read more]

Wow then I am glad, glad I didnt take the California job. I feel bad, bad for those who work in California.

I am with Jason on this – ‘landscape urbanism..” ? What sort of gobbledygook is that? how about urbane landscapism – the use of thatched hair in very svelte and fashionable figures..
It’s a silly portmanteau of ideas, and not worth pursuing unless you want to become a vacuous academic..

I will never forget reading one of my high school classmates…[Read more]

I like McHarg’s word, “fit’…. fitness…

For me the word encompasses all the different levels at which a design should be judged..

And it is not in the golds Gym sense of fitness..

Thanks again for your comments, they are all valid.

You make an interesting point Jason, sometimes its easy to become short sighted and a potentially a bit carried away when a ‘new’ topic arises. As I see it theres almost two sides to theories such as LU the somewhat confused branding and defining of a topic which is not yet fully understood…[Read more]