Thomas J. Johnson

The term “cities of resilience” sounds as if it’s the “man vs nature” school of thought dating back to Genesis. Why not use a term like “adaptive cities” or “considerate cities” or “cities of mindful modification”? While there were some great sources sited, and I found those excerpts to be the most informative, I’m not sure what one is supposed to…[Read more]

Well said Ace…

Andrew, this is the #2 google hit for “landscape urbanism”. I don’t know if you can use this in your dissertation or not but it might help you develop “the vocabulary” of your thesis:

http://www.ruderal.com/bullshit/bullshit.htm

In all seriousness, I rather like wikepedia’s definition: “Landscape Urbanism is a theory of…[Read more]

Yeah, but I don’t recommend spending the last of your student loan money to move yourself halfway across the country to work for a big name firm where you will work 80hrs a week only to be laid off after four months of soul crushing, mind warping, body ruining work… nope, not fun at all… You might want to wait and see if you can find something…[Read more]

ME.

You never cease to surprise me T1! For someone who dislikes lengthy posts, your enjoyment of Wolfe’s loquacious prose seems out of character. Granted, my writing hardly measures up to his. Though, without knowing anything about him, he sounds stereotypical of a brilliant NY intellectual drunkard who rambles on just to hear himself talk. While it…[Read more]

They’re looking for 6-8 years experience… that shouldn’t be grunt any more. Besides, I’d rather have a revolving door than no door at all…

Unfortunately I’ve never been good at groveling… Sometimes I wish I was…

Sasaki is hiring!

That’s an interesting piece. It has a number of valid points. Though those concerns have existed since the beginning of our profession. I don’t think you can say “this” is landscape architecture, nor should we be able to. Within the profession there are a number specialties and focuses, each unique, specific and part of the whole. As a landscape…[Read more]

OK, here we go… in the name of brevity, morning coffee and humor…Well, I may have come up short on the humor bit again, but you get the gist…

An Ode to the Granny Flatters

Working class citizens
your homes are so close
to the business district
I prefer the most

They are well built
of brick and with yards
your neighborhood has parks
and…[Read more]

“Agriculture should be local, end of story” is the most idealistic and naive thing you could say. Should agriculture be local if you live in an arid climate without local fresh water sources? Should agriculture be local if you don’t have the right soils? Agriculture is destroying the rain forest and agriculture in poor soils created the dust…[Read more]

Maybe they are trying to vertically integrate their practice / create a multi-disciplinary team. Maybe they also hire civils and interior designers. For example, for larger firms, it’s often times cheaper to have a lawyer on staff than it is to hire one sporadically. Maybe that’s the approach. If you have an architect on staff and they design one…[Read more]

Thanks G and Ace, I don’t know how well written or well grounded it is. I just needed to purge my brain a bit. It’s a little disjointed and ranty but sometimes that’s what you need to clear out the ol’ RAM…

T1 – Dams ARE bad. Bad in just about every way imaginable. They are devastating to river systems and everything associated with them such…[Read more]

That’s an interesting design competition. Similar to what we did in Urban Design Studio in school… I think our school project was more rooted in reality though. I’m growing increasingly weary of these super abstract entries that appear to be the result of a hallucination that wishes to impose itself on the world, rather than a true, thoughtful…[Read more]

Here are a couple of school projects. The first one uses dried thistles as trees. For the second one I stripped wire for trees, spread the wires and the insulated section becomes the trunk. I cut foam for hedges and evergreens and spray painted it all black… Please disregard the title block…. Part of making vegetation is having your own style.…[Read more]

F3?

Thank you for the thread! Much appreciated!

I would look to the materials that were used to build in that region, say, 100, 200, 500 & 1000 years ago. People used to naturally build with the principals of sustainability, ecology and respect for the environment by using the materials that were readily available to them. The forms of their structures were informed by the environment as well…[Read more]

– Legalize and tax cannabis (stop spending billions on persecuting non-violent / no victim offenders / release those in captivity at huge cost to tax payers) I don’t smoke the stuff but also don’t believe in wasting money on a substance less harmful than alcohol or cigarettes.
– Revamp our education system to compete with China / India / Europe…[Read more]