[Mark Warriner]

Design / build is a good way to break in. Try Esterline Landscape in Lakeland, Florida.

[Mark Warriner]

Walter,

Good work.

You sent me a nice weclome-to-Saudi-Arabia note about a year and a half ago and then we lost touch. I’m in Dammam currently.

[Mark Warriner]

If in France:
1. Monet’s Garden
2. Parc de la Villette
3. The Loire Vally chateauxs

Spain:
1. la alhambra
2. Barcelona
3. bilbao guggenheim museum

If your open to Italy there is too much to see to list here…so just go.

[Mark Warriner]

Based on?

[Mark Warriner]

William,

Please click on the hyper links and the link to the rest of the post at the bottom of the launch post.

 

Thanks,

 

Mark 

[Mark Warriner]

Thanks, Tanya.

“…magical thinking is when we take our projections so far that our worst nightmares or best dreams are the only forseeable end game.”

I like your second definition of Magical Thinking, the first reminds me of Mystical Thinking, which many people incorporate into spiritual beliefs and that’s fine. However, neither of them should be considered legitimate support for their position in this topic. Unless you can actually provide hard evidence, rather than a belief then its Magical Thinking. Its interesting to note that what Glidings is not part of the doomsdayers: 

“Feeling despair and a sense of futility is not just an emotional response driven by personality type. According to some seriously wise and highly informed people [such as James Lovelock in the Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning or Clive Hamilton in Requiem for a Species], it is a rational conclusion, drawing on human history and the scientific evidence. While I have absolutely been in that space, I have now come out of it, and I think they are wrong.”

The hope lies in doing what human’s do the best, working on the solution to a problem. And, yes, I believe that adaptation is Mankind’s strongest suite. We will probably come out of this stronger and better equipped to “move forward”. 

 

 

 

[Mark Warriner]

When the end comes, I want to be partying with Tanya like its 1999. 

Granted, even considering these dim views of the future, one needs to compartmentalize it so you can go merely on with your life like nothing really bad could ever happen to the US. No, wait, that’s actually what we’ve done quit a lot of regarding terrorism, communism and The Cold War. And what do we do when we vote or debate politics? We consider different complex plans and platforms, including economics, ecology, social systems and yes, world affairs. Then we try to predict which of these complex plans and platforms will effect the future. Is this magical think? 

Now, if visions of the Apocalypse equate to magical thinking then lets review the other scenarios associated with topic and leave the magical thinking to those in the loony bin. 

Most people believe the end of the Oil Age is coming but we disagree on when and how hard a landing it’s going to be. Here is a good description of the groups in the debate:

The Polyanna Scenario

The Optimistic Scenario

The Plateau Scenario

The Pessimistic Scenario

The Head for the Hills Scenario

Which group do you fall in, Tanya?

 

[Mark Warriner]

Bert,

Here’s my plan. What’s yours? 

 

Alternative Energy

Local:

Once localized energy programs, such as hydropower, will have to be used again. Other areas will need to investigate the best types of alternative power, i.e., wind, wave and thermal. All local waste needs to be used as a fuel.

State:

All states need to start algae harvesting programs for oil. All states need to build nuclear plants.

Regional:

Regions that are mountainous: hydro power, flat regions wind, costal regions and the great lakes: wave motion. 

 

Architecture

All building construction needs to be sustainable and energy efficient. All roofs need to be green or solar. Building codes will have to rely on the sustainable, passive energy efficient techniques that have been developed over the past 3000 years.

  

Community Planning

We have to organize our communities better. Our communities should no longer be dependant on the personal vehicle but have the versatility to encompass different ways of getting around. In other words, living should not depend on using large amounts of gasoline. Communities should be arranged where work is closer and where doing errands are close enough not to requiring a personal vehicle. We have to stop building new roads…all new transportation construction and budgets need to be allocated for mass transit. Multi-modal systems will need to be a requirement in all major population areas, highly integrating long distance high speed trains, light rail, bus, vehicular, bike and pedestrians access. 

 

Food

All cities need to develop a diverse agricultural belt with large systems of farmers markets throughout the communities.

 

Schedule

This massive undertaking will have to start today. Moblization should rival WWII. 

[Mark Warriner]

Well, there are several question that come to mind:

1. Will we be able to get our heads out of the sand before its to late?

2. To what extent will the Great Disruption/Long Emergency occur? 

3. How will mankind dig their way out, i.e., what new systems will emerge?

Or we could just start with obvious question:

4. Will the Great Disruption/Long Emergency ever happen in the first place and why?   

[Mark Warriner]

I am a son of a son of an architect. I’m married to an architect as well as being in landscape architecture. Needless to say I’ve been in and around design all my life.

In the early 60’s my father moved us to a little known Florida town called Winter Park. He bought a lot on the corner of Park Ave and Swoop where he built his first apartments. He setup his offices in a quaint Mediterranean style courtyard called Greenada Court. I would visit him on Friday afternoons where he would let me sit at his drawing board. I would go around the corner to Irvine’s Drugstore to buy the latest comic books and bring them back to draw. Little did I know this small traditional town setting would become one of Andres Duany’s models for the New Urbanism movement.

As a designer I’ve lived, studied and traveled throughout Europe. I studied in Tuscany, lived in Paris, owned a home in South-Central France and traveled to see most all the greatest art, architecture and landscape of the Western World. Designing the built environment is one of my life’s passions.

While my father worked in a traditional town, we lived in a nearby standard suburban development that was built in the 50s. The community was filled with families that had moved there from all over the country, a true American melting pot. You’d be hard pressed to find any Florida natives, although there were a few. We all were from families who had traveled from other parts of the country to permanently settle in a subtropical vacation land. While a bit homogeneous, this afforded me the opportunity of growing up in diverse American environment. It also instill in me the knowledge of how traditional town designs compare with standard suburban development.

While diverse in an American sense, my suburban upbringing left me hungry to experience other more exotic cultures with distinct and different identities. Having grown up in a relatively bland, Wonder Bread, suburban surrounding, things European appear to me rich with culture, design and overall flavor and texture. Before I could read I would pour over my encyclopedias and wonder about places like Mount St. Michele. In school, I was fascinated with ancient art history and enamored with what I learned in by humanities class. I vowed that I would someday actually experience firsthand these beautiful places and works of art.

My chance came when I enrolled in the University of Georgia’s Study Abroad Program in Cortona, Italy. The first day, without getting any sleep on the redeye to Rome, I jump on a bus that led me to St Peter’s Square. I’ll never forget walking into St. Peter’s Cathedral, astonished by the immensity, the exquisite details, knowing that Michelangelo’s and Bernini’s designs where all around me and then looking to my right to see the Peita… I was in love.

After the summer studying in Italy and traveling throughout Europe I raised my fascination with Europe to a new level, I wanted to someday live there and learn as much as I could about the culture and rhythms of the people and these societies. Why they lived as they did and how did they arrive at to this point.

Later, during the stock boom of the late 90’s and early 2000’s and then the real estate runup I was able use my investments to realize my dreams. I moved to Paris and lived there for a year. Then, after the Internet stock market bubble burst, I bought an old house in an historic part of Cahors, France, one hour north of Toulouse.

During this time I visited some of the greatest built designs in western culture, i.e., Alhambra, Piazza San Marco, Versailles, the Hagia Sophia, and cities such a Prague, Amsterdam, Brugge and so many more. I recorded my observations and published it on the web along with my thoughts on European politics, current events and culture. While living in France and renovating the house I owned, I totally immersed myself in their culture.

I realize this deviates from the current modern career track most people have accepted as the norm but it also gives me an advantage and/or side most professional in my field no longer have. Like the tradition of the late 1880’s and early 1900’s, my experience hearkens back to traditional educational tracks that requires a certain amount of travel to study antiquity. The pilgrimage of artist and designers to Europe is legendary and something I tried to emulate and conversely benefit from.

[Mark Warriner]

I would like to know the top ten firms in all the countries represented here in Land8Lounge. I would love to work over seas and am interested in this information.

[Mark Warriner]

Both, plus book stores.

[Mark Warriner]

Land F/X

[Mark Warriner]

“But, to anounce that the rest of us are in control of our clients and are empowered to add green roofs and solar panels is either completely naive or very pretentious.”

I was refering to building codes.

[Author]

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