Roland Beinert

Wow, I’ve never seen a discussion on land8 get this sarcastic. It’s kind of funny, except for the subject.
I think I saw some treehugger article about Kevin Costner coming up with a solution to the oil spill. I didn’t bother reading it at the time but now I might track it down and post a link.

Good article. It’s certainly one of the main keys, although I’m not sure it’s THE key. I think a number of factors need to be combined. The role of density and diversity is downplayed in the article, but I don’t think the number of intersections cannot bring about walkability without those factors. You can have a residential area with lots of…[Read more]

This oil spill is just the tip of the iceberg. We are truly #ucking up our oceans. There are huge areas of floating plastic debris from all our junk and dead zones from all the agricultural pollution that ends up in rivers. And, of course, we’re overfishing. Oil use is not the only thing we need to change.

Sorry Trace. I guess I joined the discussion late, so I don’t have the full picture.

Alec,
I’d recommend you look into constructed wetlands rather than swales or raingardens. These might be more along the lines of what you need for the splash pad. I found this article on BMP’s and bacteria removal, though: http://www.stormh2o.com/may-2008/bacterial-research-bmps.aspx
To summarize the article, rain gardens are somewhat effective at…[Read more]

Yes, it’s a good point that old neighborhoods need to be reclaimed. By now many of the older neighborhoods are just older sprawl. Neighborhoods that existed before sprawl are rare, because a lot was torn down to make way for car-oriented development and growth was so fast. If you want to reclaim the older suburbs, then it makes sense to change…[Read more]

I think ultimately people need to realize that sprawl doesn’t really fit all people’s needs, and then the American dream will start to change and include other living situations. There is nothing wrong with wanting a single family house or with living in the country. The problem is that people are convinced by real estate agents and others that…[Read more]

One thing I’ve noticed is that critics of smart growth don’t really make any effort to understand it. They love to characterize it as “utopian” without realizing how much utopian thinking went into the sprawling development we see today. Go back a few decades and you see the architects you compared Duany to (especially Corb) talking about a…[Read more]

Jason,
Everything you said about concrete vs. local stone is true. I prefer local stone. But urbanite, which is blocks of broken concrete from old roads or buildings, is still a good alternative if there is no local stone available. It ends up in the landfill if it isn’t reused.
http://www.terranovalandscaping.com/blog/2007/02/07/90/

I agree with Bob. Recycled concrete is probably the best option. It’s called urbanite. Here’s a link that to an article on it: http://blog.sustainablog.org/the-recycled-post-industrial-green-building-material-urbanite/
Stone found on site is even better, but there’s no guarantee it will be flat enough to work as paving stone.

Ah yes. The old “it’s too expensive” objection. I wonder how much extra money some of Gehry’s more outlandish designs have cost his clients. How much does it cost to make a building look like an ameoba? When exactly does that start to pay for itself?
How expensive a green building or landscape is depends entirely on what methods you use to make it…[Read more]

What’s the context? Who would be using the space?

Thanks Trace. I’ll look for the article.

Brittany and Shengyi Yue,
Thanks for the advice. I wanted to make sure I wouldn’t regret not applying for the job. It’s been a year or two since any firm has been interested in me. But it sounds like staying in grad school is definitely the better choice for now.

I agree. It always concerns me when people say something like “Nothing man touches is sustainable.” It implies the situation is hopeless and we should resign ourselves to having a negative impact on the environment. I think permaculturists make a pretty strong case that you can change your environment and manitain those changes without having a…[Read more]

I remember seeing a subdivision in Boise where the sidewalks were wavey just to be wavey like Trace and Tanya describe. I don’t mean the sidewalk just curved around a corner. It actually curved back and forth for no apparent reason. My first thought was that no one would want to walk like that.
I think the use of curves definitely has its place.…[Read more]

Thanks Robert. I’ll take a look.

Guess my reply was too boring. Let me rephrase:
I think a lot of Tea Party participators in the US don’t really understand composting. If you explain a compost pile or worm bin to Tea Partiers, they often just say “EEEEEEEWWW!”, even if it would probably keep their garbage from smelling and attracting fruit flies and lowering their land value. Tea…[Read more]

I don’t think it’s just extremist conservatives working against that sort of policy in the US. I think a lot of people in the US don’t really understand composting. If you explain a compost pile or worm bin to them, they often just say “EEEEEEEWWW!”, even if it would probably keep their garbage from smelling and attracting fruit flies. They just…[Read more]

There was an interesting blog entry on this on the Original Green: http://www.originalgreen.org/OG/Blog/Entries/2009/12/31_the_Green_Country_to_the_Green_City.html
It’s hard to really say any of this for sure, beacuse I’ve only been to a few places in Europe and that was a long time ago. But, in general, I think the Europeans do a better job of balancing…[Read more]