Thomas J. Johnson

That’s great… and you haven’t walked in my shoes either. Wanna share sob stories?
In my experience, being flat f*ing broke sucks no matter where you are or who you are with. 8 hours is 8 hours. Man up and do the job until you can afford to make a change. Not everything you dislike can be classified as “life passing you by”.
If you have a trust…[Read more]

Chris – Really?

That’s why it’s small… Like, maybe just me and a partner or two who have a vested interest. I don’t want to have to deal with people / employees. At a certain point it becomes baby sitting instead of designing. When I need something done, I’d rather hire a local individual on a contract basis.

hhhhmmmm… that’s fun to think about…
My head is all over the place so my ideal set-up would be a mad-scientist type workshop. Part art studio, part wood-shop, part metal fabrication, part design/drafting, part patent office. Sometimes I’d design landscapes, sometimes tools, other times truck bumpers…sculpture, furniture… I find inspiration…[Read more]

Despite lessons of relative magnitude learned from early tragic events it’s impossible to deny the basic need for money. You might not be doing exactly what you want but you’ve got food in the fridge and a roof over your head… without a plan “something different” will entail moving in with your parents or becoming homeless. I suggest you stick…[Read more]

A couple other thoughts… you won’t need the yellow liner / permeable setup leading to the cistern because one good rainfall on that roof will fill up the reservoir. You should be more concerned with handling overflow…
Are you going to use the cistern to water the whole site? It seems overkill for a small greenwall…

A) A green wall in MN!? What species do you intend to use? Regardless, you will have to tear it down every fall and rebuild it every spring. Based on your design you’re going to have a barren, ugly, grid as the focal point of your design for 8 out of 12 months.
B) Water storage that close to foundation is sketchy at best, especially in an area…[Read more]

In a nutshell, yes, having a crappy job is better than no job at all… wanna trade?

Yeah, it has to be interesting at the GSD getting the LandArchs, Archs and UrbPlanners to play well together… not to mention the new research based programs they have. If everybody is on the Landscape Urbanism page then it could be quite powerful and carry a lot of momentum, truely reshaping the way we approach design. If, on the other hand,…[Read more]

Yup, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Environmentalism isn’t about protecting the earth, it’s about preserving the human race. We can wipe ourselves off the face of the earth and it won’t matter one bit. In a few thousand years, you’ll hardly be able to tell we existed. The earth will heal itself. We just won’t be around to see it… Or…[Read more]

At first I scoffed at your suggestion that they are close in price but they really are… an 8′ 4×6 (treated) is about $20. It looks like there were about 14 used to build those landings. That’s about $280. A ton of 6″ sandstone block is $120. You could buy 2 tons of sandstone, which would be more than enough, for the same price. 
The sandstone…[Read more]

Yeah, I thought you were kidding when you said “extruded shale”. Then I poked around on the internets and that stuff popped up. My mom actually has some in the garage that she uses for drainage in her flower pots. It’s nice and round but is too light for sling-shot ammo. I tried using it to chase squirrels off the bird feeder but it just goes all…[Read more]

Like this?
http://www.hydroponics.net/i/260002

extruded shale, eh? 😉

Isn’t he a designer not a builder? 😉

Great interview! Excellent and inspiring responses… though personally, I didn’t go through a five year LA program and incur mounds of student debt to do a job typically reserved for illegal immigrants. I’m sure it’s wonderful and fulfilling work but for those of us lacking a trust-fund and carrying debt, it doesn’t begin to cut it…
Then again,…[Read more]

“What you’re seeing is the New Urbanism about to swallow the landscape urbanists,” Duany said. His plan now, he said, is to systematically “assimilate” the language and strategies that have made his opponents such a white-hot brand. “We’re trying to upgrade ourselves.”
Duany pretty much sums it up right there… he essentially wants to turn New U…[Read more]

Tough call…
It’s hard to know the real motives behind business decisions. There is a lot going on behind the scenes that people on the production side are unaware of… It could be a couple of things:
1. With everybody on reduced salary they can afford to hire somebody which will increase productivity and profits while lightening your load. 6…[Read more]

Have you tried inverting the light/dark on the green screen? I think it would make the composition read better as well… make the screen dark, a different pattern than the adjacent shrubs, and make the letters light. Everything else in the drawing can stay the same. It will make the entryway draw the viewer into the space and the lettering will…[Read more]

Honed granite, chiseled granite, cast-in-place concrete/custom pre-cast (all kinds of finishes), cor-ten steel, I-Beams, Cedar, Redwood, teak, Ipe, boxed steel, old chrome car bumpers w/ used bearings for the field :), brick, glass-block, logs (vertical or horizontal), PVC-sheet(creative fabrication required), mini-gabion, engineered lumber, dry…[Read more]