The Best Ways to Apply Environmental Psychology

We take a look at what makes people tick when it comes to environmental psychology. I invite you to face a little challenge: Take a minute to bring to mind three public places from your daily life that you consider successful. Maybe they have some obvious features in common, or perhaps they are successful in different ways. But they all seem to attract people so naturally. That’s because of environmental psychology – a holistic perspective developed in the 1960s around a key statement: People experiment and have an effect on the environment, while the environment influences people through the different senses. As landscape architects, we can take advantage of the principles involved in this relatively new science to effectively implement our designs. Environmental Psychology Encourage Soci...Read More

Top 10 Autodesk Revit Basics in Easy to Follow Youtube tutorials to help get you off to the best start. Jumping into new software can often be intimidating. Autodesk Revit certainly has its challenges for landscape architects, but it is ultimately highly rewarding and can significantly increase productivity. Revit is still relatively unused, especially in small offices. However, it is slowly becoming more and more popular. It can provide much more information than an AutioCAD drawing, with the luxury of having plans, sections, and visualizations all located in one file. In the near future, we may see more of a transition from AutoCAD to Revit as the popularity of BIM increases. BIM is undoubtedly the future for landscape architecture, and Autodesk Revit is one of the leading forms of BIM t...Read More

10 culturally significant plants that have shaped how we see the world. Plants are all around us. Their relationship with humans is a long one, so it is not surprising that people have always adored plants and had a special connection with some of them. This relationship is sometimes so strong that people turn to plants to honor some of the most important moments in life: birth, marriage, death. Plants are also used in many cultural ways — in medicine, as religious objects, as subjects in mythology, as food, and in many festivals, celebrations, and traditions. Some plants symbolically represent a country as the national symbol. Although it could be said that all the plants are culturally important, here is a look at the Top 10 most culturally significant plants from around the world....Read More

Winter Bay Culture Park, by Thorbjörn Andersson with Sweco Architects, in Liljeholmen, Stockholm. We all know world-famous Alfred Nobel, the Swedish chemist, engineer, innovator, and inventor of dynamite and Nobel Prize. Perhaps you wonder, what relation can there be between Alfred Nobel and a landscaping project? In this article, we take a closer look at Winter Bay – the place where Alfred Nobel established his factory and research lab, in which he invented an enormous revolution for armaments and explosive manufacturing, dynamite. How is Nobel related to the project we are about to discuss and how did the history of his life and work affect the design solution of Winter Bay Culture Park? To answer these questions, we’ll take a journey looking back on the past, then we’ll get to the prese...Read More

21st Street, by SvR Design Company and Cannon, in the City of Paso Robles, California. Sustainability, ecological balance, climate, social interactions, community involvement, health and economic benefits, and aesthetics are the challenges an architect struggles with when deliberating the design of a project. It’s like a brainstorming exercise to incorporate all of these multidisciplinary yet integral aspects into a single project. When successful, this process can produce a project such as the 21st Street Complete and Green Street Project. In 2011, the City was awarded a $1 million grant and hired Cannon, a full-service, local engineering and landscape architecture firm, to take the concept plan through design development and prepare construction documents. SvR was retained to work with C...Read More

Nadia Amoroso, Director of Nadia Amoroso Studio and adjunct Professor in Practice, at University of Guelph shares with us her insights into Geodesign the solution. Cities around the world are striving to improve the quality of life for their citizens, creating great places to live where people can feel safe, healthy, happy and engaged in the community. Urban and regional planning plays a vital role in this effort as design of spaces, comprehensive planning, zoning regulations, creation and monitoring of special districts, multi-modal transit, enhancement of the public realm, historic preservation, permitting and overall design factors impact a community’s sense of place. These all affect the city’s vibrancy, sustainability and ability to flourish with changes over time. Planning has become...Read More

Qian’an Sanlihe Greenway, by Turenscape, Qian’an, Hebei Province, China. As children, we grow up listening to fairy tales in which the main character goes through a series of adventures until reaching the top of the mountain. These stories teach us that many things are possible in life; all you have to do is believe. When talking about Sanlihe Greenway, it is practically impossible not to be reminded of Cinderella and her final happily-ever-after ending. Bearing the trademark signature of Turenscape, the Sanlihe Greenway went from a landscape that had lost its purpose to an amazing green infrastructure, demonstrating once more that landscape architecture is capable of genuine miracles. Qian’an Sanlihe Greenway From Pauper to Prince: A Space Revived to Perfection When the team of talented l...Read More

A book review of Ecodesign for Cities and Suburbs, by Jonathan Barnett and Larry Beasley. In their new book, “Ecodesign for Cities and Suburbs”, co-authors Jonathan Barnett and Larry Beasley use real-world examples to show how ecodesign can be combined with generally accepted business practices and standard development regulations to create successful city planning designs. They prove that our built environment can be designed to adapt to a changing climate and to a rapidly expanding world population while also creating places that are more desirable for living and working Ecodesign for Cities and Suburbs The book is comprised of six chapters, all of which are filled with illustrations that help to explain and back up the easy-to-follow text. Each chapter also contains real-world examples ...Read More

Agodi Park and Gardens, by Earthworks Landscape Architects, in Ibadan, Nigeria. When we think of large, inner-city parks, we immediately visualize scenes such as New York City’s Central Park, with its rolling lawns, park benches, manmade lakes, and sporting venues. The purpose of these parks is to create an escape from the city and an ideal sense of nature. While these sorts of parks succeed in providing function and green beauty in an urban context, they often fail to place themselves in a specific cultural context. In Africa, one cannot afford to separate culture from the natural environment. In Africa, parks need to provide recreational green space, but also address multiple community and environmental concerns. These projects are not about prescriptive design, but rather involve workin...Read More

Place Lazare Goujon, by In Situ, in Villeurbanne, France. The renovation project of the Place Lazare Goujon square is located at the entrance of the “Gratte-ciel” (skyscraper) district. Some of you already imagine a project in the heart of New York City amid its many towers, but it is far away from that. Place Lazare Goujon is located in France, in the town of Villeurbanne. It’s in the neighborhood called “Gratte-ciel” that we discover a large pedestrian square at the end of a street leading to two towers of 18 floors. These two towers give their name to the district and create the entryway. Extending away from the towers is a series of buildings, ranging from nine to 11 floors and arranged in a graduated manner. Designed by architect Morice Leroux, the buildings’ design ...Read More

Cities around the world are striving to improve the quality of life for their citizens, creating great places to live where people can feel safe, healthy, happy and engaged in the community. Urban and regional planning plays a vital role in this effort as design of spaces, comprehensive planning, zoning regulations, creation and monitoring of special districts, multi-modal transit, enhancement of the public realm, historic preservation, permitting and overall design factors impact a community’s sense of place. These all affect the city’s vibrancy, sustainability and ability to flourish with changes over time. Planning has become complex and multi-layered, resulting in the need for multiple design programs and strategies. As designers of the built environment, we are faced with new challeng...Read More