Bob Luther

Sprawl is the dream… the wife and 2.5 kids in a house in the burbs with a dog, a cat, and a white picket fence. How do you change the dream?

I once had faith in the ability of science and industry to design systems to work, to identify the potential problems and develop solutions for these problems, no matter how unlikely they appear to be. I felt that drilling responsibly for oil was a good idea, now I am not so sure. I grew up in Alaska, an oil rich state, I watched the pipeline…[Read more]

It is not that new urbanism or agrourbanism or agriburbia are bad ideas, it is more the fact that those concepts work for the people that want them. The general public (rightly or wrongly) has a vision of what they want and that is what they are going to buy. Most new urbanism works in the vacuum of philosophy but fails in actual practice, the…[Read more]

I thought that during Katrina the government should have opend up a couple of closed down military bases which are plug-in cities, once abondoned the only thing prohibiting occupation is a padlock, permission, and power, the rest is there, stores, restaurants, mess halls, mass housing, gas stations, etc. If the government wants to find a place…[Read more]

The tent idea is a real solution where my parents live on the west shore of Oahu, Hawaii. Here is an article you may like…

THE NEW YORK TIMES December 5, 2006 By JANIS L. MAGIN

When the home she had rented for 30 years for $300 a month was sold, Alice Greenwood and her 6-year-old son joined an estimated 1,000 people living in tents along the…[Read more]

While in college at Oregon State , our experimental turf farm was one of the first to use rubber crumb mulch at a top dressing on turf. One of the uses that have since bee used with the research that was done has been as a top dressing at the end of cartpaths on golf courses where the cart path transitions to turf ( a high impact area). The ground…[Read more]

Landscape Plants for Western Regions: An Illustrated Guide to Plants for Water Conservation by Bob Perry
California Native Plants for the Garden by Carol Bornstein, David Fross, and Bart O’Brien

the problem is people do not use LOCAL stone, they want greek marble, french limestone, lunar moon fragments, or rose quartz, or xyz exotic granite… concrete can provide those “exotic” looks with materials that are already available. The question was to find other alternatives to quarried stone, I agree that if you can find a responsible quarry…[Read more]

Concrete countertops with “seeded” agregate polished to represent granite
broken concrete stepping stones or retaining walls
stamped and stained concrete rather than stone
local agregate (lava rock, pumice, granite, etc.) in road surfaces (concrete or ashpault)
Recycled rubber tires in road surfaces
reused recycled stone.
Native stone
HiMacs…[Read more]

ahh I found one I did with grass brush and cloning… here is my input to the visual discussion the first is the photo of the site the second is the proposed landscape with meadow in the mid and foreground all “painted” along with all other landscape in photoshop.

Yeah I think Nick hit it on the head, the key is brushes, especially grass brush that you can “scattter” and “jitter” the hue/saturation for variation. You can also use the clone stamp from an existing image and “stamp” it into your image but this require more practice and a keen eye to get it to look natural.

The users of these trees are not trying to provide wildlife shelter or species diversity, they want a fast growing fiber crop. California Oaks grow Sloooooooowwwwwwwlllllyyyyy….. the lack of understory plants is a good thing for the “crop system” nothing to mow mulch, or spray, as for flammable yep they will burn, and yes they do use water, but…[Read more]

these trees are not to be harvested for cheap plywood, in fact eucalyptus has little timber value, the first eucalyptus was brought to the US for railroad ties, but the wood was found to be too brittle to use for ties. These trees are to be grown for wood fiber fuel to power powerplants as our society moves away from coal and petroleum. Cellular…[Read more]

And your substitute tree? Lets come up with a solution rather than just complaint that we are being ignored. Why the trees need to be genetically modified is a good question, can’t a cold hardy species be developed through cross breeding alone? I understand the water issue, they do require a decent amount of water, but they are a fast grower and…[Read more]

WOW!… That is a lot of dislikes and very few upside benifits. Not to be snippy or snarky but you should just teach. What would/do you teach? It seems like you like/love all the whimsy of the profession with none of the tangible aspects of Landscape Architecture. I know you love the history aspect of Landscape Architecture because we have had a…[Read more]

look at you getting real world experiences! 🙂

have you ever tried to lay down on a seatwall? One of the reasons I was told to use seat walls is that “bums” cannot sleep on a seatwall, the fall off, a bench with a back allows a bed for people to sleep on in public spaces, this is also the reason for backless benches and curved top seat benches in public spaces.

THANKS!

looks like they moved the pages.

I am very happy! one of the things that I have been fortunate enough to do this past few months is to take a new job with a firm that is managed by two “old dogs.” These two guys have seen the ups and downs of the iindustry since the 1960’s and have thousands of stories that are great preparation for whatever lies ahead. They know that they will…[Read more]