Trace One

sorry, I am always the slowest person in the room to get the irony! turf can be good for minimalism..But yes, the less turf the better..generally.

glad you like AE Bye! No-one of the 14 LA’s I work with, is familiar with his work! thank you.

I agree Chad, it definitely to me stands out conceptually that the memorial should use and respond to the building fascade rather than pretend it doesn’t exist..
When the jury calls me for my opinion, I will be sure to credit you with that thought..I am waiting by the phone today.
🙂

I am trying to think how this should be done, specifically the museum space..I finally remembered A.E. Bye – I think he is about the best ‘modernist’ LA I know.. Turf is good for minimalism, true, Tanya, but I like Ed Bye’s ability to make it still feel like mother earth, like a growing, live landscape, yet be incredibly simple..

Hard to see what exactly is going on. Looks ‘uninspired’ I want to say, a word I would be shocked to use to describe any Gehry..but so often architects are simply unable to translate their vision to the land..It is amazing..Hate the ‘curtains’ …big billboards. what is blue thing in the middle – a fountain with anything interesting happening? I…[Read more]

Ha! you’re nominated, Jason, if you want to be an arrogant starlarchitect..! hee hee! and yes, the deYoung is pretty wonderful, as is the American Indian in D.C…good points..!
so how does one go about boosting one’s arrogance credentials?
🙂

I agree, Jason..I just don’t understand how architects can continously ignore the ground plane, the world around their building as being opportunities for amazing landscape designs that live up to their buildings..The construction aspects of these super-stylistic buildings, like IM Pei in Wash DC that you mentioned, is absolutely correct..
But…[Read more]

here’s a better link

http://www.arcspace.com/architects/sejima nishizawa/ century museum/century museum.html

looked it up – I stand corrected – it is the height at which a building permit is required, that I am think ing of, Jim..which of course, residential builders don’t want to get permits, so avoid higher retaining walls..
You right, I stand corrected..

If I were you I would try to work in the field as an apprentice before going to graduate school. You really don’t know what you are in for, unless you have watched it happen..May be hard to do, but I think there is a lot of disillusionment on getting out of school, and it is better to have seen it before you sign up for school. Because depending…[Read more]

I don’t know what Italy is like, but you would not be allowed to build retaining walls 4 meters high in Virginia. I think the highest allowed by building code is 8 ft.. This height would require stepping back, in 8ft. sections..

May have nothing to do with italy, also your project may be a school project.

But I’m just sayin’..couldn’t do it in virginia..

Many thoughts on my own design process, but I just wanted to point out that it is currently fashionable among architects to take their inspiration from cells, microbes, bubbles, things like that, and to pretend the building is living, the exterior can function like a real skin of a living thing..

Personally think architects are still ignoring the…[Read more]

Longwood! Thanks Jason – really nice one! forgot about that..Bronx Botanic Gardens in new york also has really nice ones…

Have fun – fun to think about..

? What is your definition of a ‘public greenhouse”? Almost all the botanical gardens have greenhouses – BBG in Brooklyn, the National Arboretum in Wash D.C…The gorgeous one on the Mall in Wash D.C. – forget the name..
what is a ‘public greenhouse”?

I think the comment that this is about networking is interesting – to come up with something better, I think one would need to rely on the advantages specifically provided by internet connections. The experiment that NASA (I think?) conducted recently, with finding the red balls somewhere on the earth, takes specific advantage of internet…[Read more]

tanya, I feel bereft of ideas on this topic, and it is bothering me…I have been trying to think about it for 24 hours..what would work? A green design dream blog, a photomontage of twitter photos with landscape criticism – like/ don’t like…a mass charette on the design of – what?
how about a mass charette on the landscape implications of a…[Read more]

Vacant lots in Philly and New York have been co-opted by neighbors in a movement that started years ago,the
“Community Garden” thing..In the eighties I had a nice 12×8 foot raised plot for my veggies in a W. Philly lot that the neighbors had reclaimed, removing the rubble brick by brick..
Don’t know the legality of that lot, but I do know that…[Read more]

too many – you have to extend your stay! Bike through Central, or you will never see it – Prospect Park is a way better design, but you have to get out to Brooklyn,(also must bike through to see whole thing), Paley Park really famous, the High Line, walk across the Brooklyn Bridge, from Brooklyn to Manhattan, one of my favorite things in the world…[Read more]

Your mom? Who is your mom, Rico? Dona Flor and her three Husbands? (never seen that, just geussing!)

People like animals. I don’t like the idea of mixing uses – I say go for total prarie/ woodland restoration, with elevated decking paths through it, and use site for sculptural representations of animals appropriate for the site – have a competition for winning sculpture for each appropriate animal sculpture – …

?
Just a thought..And maybe if…[Read more]

great idea, Nick – do a biography on someone living, so you can get some first-hand stuff..I agree completely about the bored and confused masses…Agatha Christie has a murder story that revolves around a Lanscape Arch (forget what exactly he is called..) and his garden masterpiece in a quarry he is working on his whole life..

who would be good…[Read more]