Blog

Everyone loves a good film, right?  Here are five of my personal favs recently made about urban agriculture and the local food movement, as well as, landscape architecture and urban design. They are all inspiring and informative and have one common thread: landscape architects have the power to change the world.  Hope you enjoy the show! #1: Edible City: Growing the Revolution (2012) Main Topics Covered: Local food movement, transforming the food system, food education, grassroots activists, societal and health benefits, and community farms. Quick Summary: If you’ve ever watched Food Inc. you’ll know that in reality, the movie is quite depressing… thankfully so, this movie is far from it. Edible City offers the glass half full version of our current food system (primarily focus...Read More

Landscape architect Laurie Olin has been named a recipient of the 2012 National Medal of Arts, a tremendous honor shared amongst other distinguished artists including George Lucas and New Orleans legend Allen Toussaint. President Obama will be presenting the awards on Wednesday. (White House) (photo by OLIN) LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE LAM snaps photos of Ken Smith’s landscape arrangement at the Rockefeller Center in honor of Independence Day. (Landscape Architecture Magazine) Garden historian Tom Turner releases his next Garden Design video, this time taking viewers around the world to study the overlap between garden design histories and the future of landscape architecture. (Garden Visit) Last week we heard about The Guide to New York City Urban Landscapes upcoming book launch. Until t...Read More

Suzhou, a mere 45-minute ride by high-speed bullet train from Shanghai, is a common day trip for tourists; some come for a quiet retreat from city life and others for Suzhou’s tasty dishes, but most, like me, came for the landscape architecture. Nicknamed ‘Venice of the East’ for its canals and stone bridges, Suzhou’s real clame to fame is the collection of UNESCO World Heritage Classical Gardens. Founded in 514 BCE, China’s garden city is seated on a fertile alluvial plain at the mouth of the Yangtze River, a strategic location that not only sowed the seeds for agricultural success, but also anchored the city on a major trade route that would secure a long future towards economic prosperity.   Suzhou’s wealth and stability gave rise to garden-making and...Read More

  Fellow Land8 writer Tony Ignacio and I attended Dwell on Design at the Los Angeles Convention Center June 21st through the 23rd. Our own summary of this annual design extravaganza can be found here. As promised, we now provide you with an entirely subjective (and in no particular order) list of what we believe were the Top Ten Talks of the weekend. We also believe that it is fitting for our list to be rather landscape centric.   1. Keynote Address by Michael Graves:  The thread that ran through Michael Graves’  address was his recollection of the two years he spent in Rome at the American Academy as a Prix de Rome Fellowship recipient and the influence that time has had on his life’s work. He spoke for almost an hour and a half; seemingly with no notes or cue cards. At almost 80 years ol...Read More

(A collaborative article by Jessica Wolff and Cortney Kirk)   By breaking the rectangular frame (implying the photograph), the viewer is drawn into the frame. This is at the heart of the Composite Landscapes Show: by drawing the viewer into the image as intimately as possible, the hope is to produce a greater understanding of the fact that the way we draw and represent the landscape is a direct representation of the way we experience it – the things we see, touch, smell and hear are difficult to abstract on paper, but through the development of expressive photomontage techniques, these and other images attempt to express a highly individual yet publicly accessible interpretation of the complex, ever-changing landscape.  – Andrea Hansen, Curator of the Composite Landscapes exhib...Read More

Just as birds were built to fly, humans were built to walk. The former mayor of Bogotá, Colombia, Enrique Peñalosa, said it best. He stated, “God made us walking animals, pedestrians. As a fish needs to swim, a bird to fly, a deer to run, we need to walk, not in order to survive, but to be happy.” However, this concept does not hold true everywhere. Take for instance auto-centric cities such as Houston and Jakarta. As Jan Gehl, Danish architect and urban designer, believes, cities are meant for people, not cars. Since summer is in full swing for a majority of the world, why not plan a trip with walkability in mind? Before booking, have a look at our most walkable destinations! 10. Boston, Massachusetts As one of the oldest cities in the United States, it’s no surprise that Boston ranks as ...Read More

Now more than ever, landscape architects and designers are heavily dependent on computers for both rendering and technical drawings. As a designer, owning a computer or laptop is basically a necessity. When faced with the task of purchasing one, the number of choices can range from overwhelming to downright confusing. First and foremost is deciding which way you swing – are you to be an “Apple Fan” or a “Windows Loyalist”? We aim to help you out with this feature article on Mac vs PC Myths & Misconceptions Both stereotypes are rather comical and, to a large degree, untrue – I own a MacBook Pro, but I’m not exactly the Vespa-riding art school dropout that common clichés would have you believe. My roommate owns a PC laptop, but this doesn’t somehow make him dull and nerdy. The two comput...Read More

(A collaborative article by Mitch Howard and Tony Ingacio) The annual Dwell on Design (DoD) conference and exhibition held at the Los Angeles Convention Center on June 21st-June 23rd, was a designer’s paradise and high-end consumer’s extravaganza. It is considered the largest modern design event in the U.S., and for anyone with a modern tilt, it was a must attend event. Buzz on the floor was that the size and scope of this year’s event signaled a momentum of confidence; a strong belief in the solar powered LED at the end of the tunnel. This may be the case for the high-end consumer – we’ll keep our fingers crossed that this confidence translates throughout our industry. Just a few numbers…300 vendors, 200+ speakers, 21 hours, and 4 stages in 3 days. All this, and architect and design...Read More

Throughout my studies I was taught that there is nothing more important than a landscape architects medium of visual communication. As landscape architects we need our visual communication nearly as much as we need food or a place to rest our heads. The authors of Visual Communication For Landscape Architecture understand this and are clearly lecturers applying their trade. The pocket-sized book, starts with explaining the basics of sketching and the importance of taking good site photographs- something I learned the hard way. Its great for a book to explain the benefits of sketching. When I started in college I wasn’t fond of hand drawing, but slowly came round to the idea. What can we learn from this book? From the opening chapters its clear that the book is based around analytical...Read More

Dr. Diana Balmori, FASLA, Ph.D, was declared #3 on the list of “100 Most Creative People in Business” in the June issue of Fast Company Magazine.  Balmori has advanced innovative design ideas that comingle landscape, architecture, art, and engineering.  After glancing through the four prior years of this list, it appears to be only the second time that a landscape architect has been named, after Piet Oudolf in 2009 (there have been more than a few architects on the list in previous years).  This is an exciting endorsement of the talent and potential that can be found in the landscape architecture profession.  In the Fast Company article Balmori says, “Landscape architecture is an agile tool kit for dealing with the complexity of the city,” which is an astute approach that is easily r...Read More

Bradley Cantrell is the most recent winner of the Rome Prize Fellowship in Landscape Architecture and newly appointed head of the Louisiana State University Robert Reich School of Landscape Architecture. His research interests involve the art of ecological design through computing, responsive technologies and data visualization, and has explored these subjects as Director of the Terrain Kinetics (TiKi) Lab. With a promising future ahead of him, Bradley shares with us his goals for these next monumental steps in his career. Figure 01 . Sediment Deposition Patterning Utilizing Autonomous Sediment Drones Credits: Fall 2011 Responsive Systems Studio, Bradley Cantrell. Students: Charlie Pruitt, Robert Herkes, Brennan Dedon   First of all, congratulations on winning the Rome Prize! What inspired...Read More

Landscape Architect Bernard Trainor designs pastoral and coastal projects on the California coast and countryside. His projects use native plant palettes, recycled materials, and a ever-so delicate touch that almost makes you think that a stunning view of a rocky coastal bay had been that way all along. His appropriately titled book, LANDPRINTS, takes us on a tour of Trainor’s ten most ambitious projects. The landscapes are indeed beautiful and reflect how working with nature, instead of imposing a strict design, can ultimately yield a wonderful result. Growing up in Australia, Bernard Trainor was influenced in a way that has carried throughout his work. The wilderness, with its innate honesty reflected in texture and pattern, resonated with him and thus Trainor, “made it his l...Read More