LSU back in #1 - UK in the Top Ten (AP)

It was a weekend of upsets nationally, but 3 of the 4 teams I follow won. The good news for Rutgers fans is that they only fell to 38th in the Sagarin - they were at 32 two weeks back. There is lots of football left to play and they have plenty of talent.

LSU climbed to #1 in both the Sagarin and the AP. And Kentucky is 16th in the Sagarin which is probably more realistic but less exciting than their #8 in the AP and UPI. That is their first Top Ten ranking since 1977.

These graphs chart the change in the Sagarin ranking and ratings for each of these teams. They will continue to change.

Snakes stop developments

A news story this weekend has highlighted the role of 2 species of snakes
to slow or stop development in the Pinelands. It is interesting to guess how this reached the newspapers, but it sounds like the developer probably reached out to the media while the Pinelands was given a chance to respond. But is also raises the larger concerns about the complexity of these projects that interweave multiple interests:

Local officials said they were upset that the project had died, saying the development was tied to a deal that would have preserved nearly 400 acres of farmland - also endangered in New Jersey.

This all reminds me of a fun novel, called Rattled, published about a year ago by Debra Galant looking at how a fictional developer deals with snakes in NJ.

Witold Rybczynski Lecture at Cadwalader Park

A Visual Presentation, Lecture, and Book Signing

with Witold Rybczynski

A CLEARING IN THE DISTANCE

FREDERICK LAW OLMSTED

AND AMERICA IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Ellarslie Mansion, City Museum of Trenton

In the Olmsted Designed Cadwalader Park

Parkside and Bellevue Avenues, Trenton, NJ

Friday October 19, 2007 at 7 PM

Light Refreshments Served

Witold Rybczynski, nationally renowned architect, historian, and critic has written about the world of American architecture for The New York Times, Time, The Atlantic, The New Yorker and Slate.com. He is the author of the critically acclaimed Home, which has been translated into ten languages. A Clearing in the Distance, a biography of Frederick Law Olmsted, received the J. Anthony Lukas Prize. His current best seller, The Last Harvest, discusses how our communities will grow and change over time.

The recipient of the Christopher Award in 2000, and the Vincent Scully Prize in 2007, Witold Rybczynski and his wife live in Philadelphia. He is the Martin and Margy Meyerson Professor in Urbanism at the University of Pennsylvania.

Witold Rybczynski Examines Olmsted's Life and Times

Witold Rybczynski illuminates Frederick Law Olmsted's role as a major cultural figure at the epicenter of nineteenth-century American history.

Known today through the legacy of his stunning landscapes; New York's Central Park, Stanford University campus, Boston's Back Bay Fens, and Cadwalader Park, Olmsted's contemporaries knew a man of even more extraordinarily diverse talents.

Rybczynski's passion for his subject and his understanding of Olmsted's immense complexity and accomplishments make his book a triumphant work. In A Clearing in the Distance, the story of a great nineteenth-century American becomes an intellectual adventure. (Scribner)

CADWALADER PARK ALLIANCE

Preserving a National Treasure in the City Of Trenton

The Cadwalader Park Alliance is a non-profit organization that works in conjunction with the City of Trenton to insure the future of Cadwalader Park. The organization raises funds through grant programs, corporate donations and private individuals in order to support park projects. The Alliance invests in park restoration, maintenance, and events.

Cadwalader Park Alliance PO Box 7308 Trenton, New Jersey 08628 www.cadwaladerpark.com

(Posted directly as written from press release)

The DC of the Future?

The History Channel has renewed its design competition for the city of the future, this year focusing on DC, Atlanta, and San Francisco. Last year's competition was a big success, both as a TV/publicity event and as an exploration of LA, NYC and Chicago. At this rate I am hoping that Newark or Trenton can get in on the action by about 2075.

Lecture: Severe Clear: Metaphor and the WTC Site

Amy Weisser, senior exhibit developer at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, spoke about metaphor (and the occasional lack thereof) at the former World Trade Center site as it is transformed into the site of the 9/11 memorial, Reflecting Absence and museum. Unlike other memorial museums, which are often built in neutral space, this museum is in a charged space - the emotional connections cannot be ignored.

The selection of the ~350 trees (primarily swamp white oaks) was made with the intent of projecting an impressive sense of longevity. The trees are being treated gingerly to prevent dead trees in the memorial. There is a ramp reminiscent of the temporary construction ramp that dominated the site for the last few years. There will be two tridents on site as a metaphor the Twin Towers. Timelines and narratives emerge as a way of ordering the experience and structuring it parallel to the events of 9/11. But, without intrusive interpretive materials, these symbols and experiences are offered on a basis of "whether you get it or not, it is there."

The design was initiated by Michael Arad who was later joined by Peter Walker. Halka has been preparing the trees for their trip to the City.

Temporary Memorials

Bill Thompson has written an editorial note for LAM on temporary memorials after his visit to Shanksville. The temporary memorial is so powerful that he asks whether a permanent one will be as successful.

PPGIS web links

Janel Bisacquino, from Stony Brook-Millstone, sent me links to a few recent web projects that relate to her GIS/PPGIS work. They are:

• The Center for Community Mapping
• GIS4Kids
• Sourland Mountain Region project

Surprisingly, it wasn't the GIS work that caught my attention (although I added these as links on my PPGIS page) as much as the Sourlands project. Aside from regularly visiting the Sourlands for the Audubon winter birdcount, Marc Knowlton and I taught a design studio in 2003 that tried to develop a vision and strategy for saving open space on and around the Sourlands. It is a special place for both history and nature and worth some extra effort.

You can view past PPGIS posts at: http://epd372.blogspot.com/search/label/PPGIS

Clinton's comments on the FDR Memorial

President Clinton spoke at the opening of the FDR Memorial in 1997. His comments, preserved online, frame some of the things that we will see there.

With that faith he inspired millions of ordinary Americans to take responsibility for one another -- doing their part, in his words, through the National Recovery Administration, reclaiming nature through the Civilian Conservation Corps, gathering scrap, giving up nylons, and eventually storming the beaches at Normandy and Okinawa and Anzio.

Old maps

Found a great site: Hipkiss' Scanned Old Maps.

Rising starting salaries for LAs

The ASLA has released the results of the 2007 survey of LA grads and found a $2,000 increase in starting salary for undergrads. They also found that 86% of respondents intended to pursue professional registration (up from 80% in 2002). And, in a problem that continues to plague the profession, 86% indicated they were Caucasian. Of all the respondents who do plan to pursue further education, 18% intend to complete a PhD.

Trainscapes

This is a little far from NJ to go for a museum exhibit, but it looks surprisingly worthwhile. Trainscape: Installation Art for Model Railroads is an art exhibit at the DeCordova Museum in Lincoln, MA. The museum website has a great video.

The use of a miniature railroad enables DeCordova Museum to effectively present twelve separate works of contemporary installation art in a limited space, and to allow these works to be considered both separately and in juxtaposition. The miniature is also the perceptual cousin to the colossal. Tiny objects and images demand close examination, so that they fill one’s optical field in much the same way as very large visual phenomena. This close looking at small things allows for deep mental immersion as well. Trainscape thus provides enveloping journeys to cities, mountains, deserts, technological landscapes, and places of pure imagination.

Vietnam Veterans Memorial

I don't remember ever seeing this online before. It is Maya Lin's competition statement describing her intent.

3 Landscapes: Carl Steinitz

Although we ran out of time and were unable to ask Carl Steinitz about his favorite examples of landscape architecture, he has submitted a written response that is outstanding:

• Entering Yosemite the first time
• The Western Wall
• the Jewish cemetery at Bergen-Belsen

(expect a follow-up in the next week with a little more embellishment and additional sites that almost made it)

Monday morning quotes

As part of my final lecture prep I am running into some great quotes for class:

"The care of the Earth is our most ancient and most worthy,
and after all our most pleasing responsibility.
To cherish what remains of it and to foster its renewal is our only hope."

- Wendell Berry

The concept of public welfare is broad and inclusive... The values it represents are spiritual as well as physical, aesthetic as well as monetary. It is within the power of the legislature to determine that the community should be beautiful as well as healthy, spacious as well as clean.

-- William O. Douglas (U.S. Supreme Court Justice)

Look and you will find it - what is unsought will go undetected.

- Sophocles

Kentucky continues to climb

In a trend that is a surprise to me, Kentucky continues to climb - Sagarin has them as the 13th ranked team in the nation. Rutgers and Wisconsin are trailing but keeping pace. And LSU has finally slid from 1st to 2nd.



Rankings aside, the changes in the computer ratings will become much more interesting as these teams begin to lose a game here and there. For now, the bottom 3 are tightly clustered together, which seems fair.

Buffalo Commons

Highland Park's own Frank and Deborah Popper have kept their 20-year-old idea of a Buffalo Commons alive and continue to get national attention.

Back in August USA Today wrote about how perception has changed about their ideas. National Geographic's Intelligent Travel just wrote about the Commons as growing idea.
Most interesting is the coverage from the local media like the Bismarck Tribune which is not nearly as icy in their coverage as it was when first reporting it two decades back.

For Rutgers students, Frank teaches several classes but they teach one class together at Princeton that is open to RU students.

GIS/Forestry Extension position

The College of Natural Resources, Extension Forestry Unit at N.C. State
University has recently posted a position on its Jobs website:

http://jobs.ncsu.edu

Search for this title or job number:
Title: *Extension Associate*
Position Number: *05-38-0712*
Complete an applicant profile and apply.

Essential Job Duties:
The Natural Resources Extension Associate will work collaboratively with the entire Extension Forestry team in areas as varied as urban forestry, forest management, wildlife management, water resources and environmental education.
The associate will:
·Develop and deliver educational programs in cooperation with the Extension Specialists.
·Provide spatial information (GIS, GPS, etc.), leadership and team support.
·Participate in applied research activities related to natural resource conservation / management, and other program support duties as assigned.

Frequent travel throughout the state will be required. The position will
report to the Department Extension Leader.

Complete qualifications and requirements are listed in the job
announcement.

DC map

For those going on the DC trip, you might want to check out our interactive DC map:
http://imaps.rutgers.edu/places/DC/
It highlights some interesting landscape architectural sites than we may visit along the way.

Replanting Vietnam's battlefields

The NY Times has a new video up looking at the replanting of Vietnam's War Zones. The effects of Agent Orange are still making it difficult to reforest the landscape decades later. (h/t The DIRT)

3 Landscapes: Carla Yanni

Taj Mahal
Central Park
Stanford University

For background, go here: http://hahawall.rutgers.edu/tulloch/Candidates.html

Lecture: The Architecture of Madness

Carla Yanni, author of The Architecture of Madness: Insane Asylums in the United States, spoke in our LA Lecture series today about the design of old insane asylums.

She started by pointing out that she would use terms like Madness and Asylum, because they were the terms of choice during that period. This was a time of unusual treatments. One of the earliest examples was the Friends Asylum outside of Philly, where diversions (like an amusement park ride) were used to treat the patients.

The intense design work required and the significant scale of these projects led to involvement by early LA notable like Andrew Jackson Downing. FL Olmsted overhauled the Hartford Retreat adding a pleasure drive for the public.

But an important trend was the linear plan. Designed within the traditions of the Kirkbride Plan, these emphasized views of the landscape, kept the wards short for ventilation, and used the center building for separating male and female patients. One of the earliest examples of the Kirkbride Plan was Trenton's New Jersey State Lunatic Asylum (pictured above).

You could contrast this with the traditional notion of the Panopticon, which was circular, or the radial plan which was used at the famous Eastern State Penitentiary in Philly.

One of the grandest, and most memorable examples, was Frederick Clarke Withers' Hudson River State Hospital in Poughkeepsie. After which we began to downsize with the Cottage Plan which emphasized more intimate treatment settings.

An interesting insight came in recognizing how asylums clearly learned from both prisons and universities.

For New Jerseyans, the classic image of the Insane Asylum might be Morris Plains' Greystone which is now being replaced. But many have just been abandoned or destroyed.

And, on the lighter side, I've added a link to a Madness video.

Be like NJ

A CT paper is looking to NJ for leadership.

Connecticut is a decade behind New Jersey when it comes to transit and urban growth initiatives.

Adams Morgan neighborhood

For those visiting DC, one of the highlights might be a visit to the Adams Morgan neighborhood. It is highlighted by PPS as a great neighborhood because it is "off the grid" and mixes uses. Almost every description I see calls it "funky" and many stress the great ethnic dining. How do you make a place like this?

A better life for design students

Some tips for design students from Inhabitat.

Pruned is back

Ever since the start of the Fall semester, Pruned has just been on fire with one great post after another. It would be worth just re-reading their entire September set of posting, but you definitely should peek at the Simulated Worlds and the Obelisk-on-Wheels.

More bike parking in DC

The DC Council is considering a measure that will increase bike parking in the district. As a tourist, I had never really thought about the lack of bike parking before. I'll have to look for bike racks this fall. (h/t PlaNetizen)

Arcosanti

According to the NY Times, Soleri's utopian dream in the desert continues to move ahead, albeit slowly.

Football fun

While all 4 of my teams are 3-0, the Sagarin rankings see LSU as a class apart while it currently projects that UK, RU and UW would all win IF they hosted one of the other 2 at home. Still, the Louisville win has propelled UK from underrated to potentially overrated in a heartbeat. Rutgers has learned what happens to your computer rankings when you beat up on a team that is ranked 214th. Some Big East opponents will help fix that real quick.

Lecture: Carla Yanni on Insane Asylums

L A N D S C A P E . .A R C H I T E C T U R E
L E C T U R E . .S E R I E S -- F A L L 2 0 0 7

"The Architecture of Madness: Insane Asylums in the United States"

Carla Yanni, Associate Professor
Rutgers Department of Art History

Wednesday, September 19
Cook-Douglass Lecture Halls Room 110
4:00 - 5:15

Across the disciplines of environmental design, the issue of how the characteristics of a place can
influence physical and emotional well being is becoming increasingly important. Within the field
of landscape architecture, therapeutic gardens have become both a significant area of professional practice and locus for collaborative scholarly research. As the Department looks to help advance the discussion of this topic at Rutgers, we would be well served to also look back at moments of the past when design theory and medical practice came together. This week's talk will do just that as Rutgers Associate Professor of Art History Carla Yanni shares some of her ideas from her book, The Architecture of Madness: Insane Asylums in the United States. It examines the efforts of doctors and social reformers of the nineteenth century who believed that insanity was curable and, further, that the environment was an effective--and in some cases the most effective--form of treatment.

In addition to her appointment in the Art History Department, Carla Yanni is Assistant Vice President for Undergraduate Academic Affairs. Her area of scholarly expertise is nineteenth- and twentieth-century architecture; for her, architectural history is not the study of great monuments and architects, but rather the intellectual, social, and cultural meanings of buildings. She promotes the study of architectural history as a way of understanding a society’s values. In particular, her scholarship focuses on the relationship between architecture and the fields of science and medicine, in order to investigate the way that architecture participates in the social construction of knowledge.

During the academic year 2002-2003, Professor Yanni was a Senior Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, and from 2003 to 2007 she served on the Board of Directors of the Society of Architectural Historians. Her article "Divine Display or Secular Science: Defining Nature at the Natural History Museum in London," won the Founders’ Award from the Society of Architectural Historians in 1996. Her other scholarly interests include the historiography of American architecture and the architecture of universities. Carla Yanni received her doctorate in art history from the University of Pennsylvania in 1994. She is also the author of Nature's Museums: Victorian Science and the Architecture of Display.


For a complete list of departmental lectures, see
http://landarch.rutgers.edu/DeptInfo/Dept_calendar.cfm

(The photo shows an institution from Binghamton, NY from the Library of Congress' American Memory collection.)

Washington waterfronts

When we take our Fall Field Trip to Washington, two of the areas to watch will be the riverfronts which are seeing a boom in development. The Washington Post has a great graphic of the next $2 billion in new developments along the Anacostia and Potomac. The Post article describes how some of the developments are going to be something new:

Peterson, a Northern Virginia developer who made his name creating suburban town-center communities such as Fair Lakes, calls the site of his National Harbor project "like Marilyn Monroe on the water . . . it's beautiful and it's got great sex appeal." He's banking on that, and on the site's accessibility via a new Beltway interchange and water taxis that will begin operating when the community opens next April.

Subprime landscapes

Since many of our students aren't on the verge of purchasing a home, i don't think they have followed the rapid deceleration of the housing markets, but they need to. There is a steady drumbeat of news items detailing way that the subrprime mortgage crisis is impacting families, investors and the economy. But what is emerging is also a trickle of details about how this could impact the our landscapes.

The Philadelphia Inquirer just published a map of the Philly area (including South Jersey) showing which neighborhoods most effected by the subprime collapse. No one will be surprised to learn that it directly correlates with lower income areas.

Newsweek has published a significant piece looking at some initial impacts of the subprime mortgage collapse and some contributing factors. They talk about how fast properties were selling and how everyone seemed to be jumping into the game:

The demand for mortgage brokers in Las Vegas was so strong that "every stripper, waiter and bartender on the Strip had a broker's license," says Boyd Nyborg, a former mortgage broker who now tends bar at the Tao Las Vegas.

The latest Census report found that more than 1/6 of all NJ homeowners were spending more 50% of their income on housing. Clearly, housing costs are causing people to be overextended in ways that leave them exposed to countless other problems.

The LA LAnd blog from the LA Times seems to only be talking about the bubble burst and the implications for LA area real estate. (as opposed to talking about celebrity homes and how environmental regulations are impacting new development)

And The Ground Floor, a blog from the Urban Land Institute, is doing a great job of tracking the details and looking for the implications.


It all leaves me wondering what the new post-subprime landscapes will look like?

New Capitol Visitors Center

The new Capitol Visitors Center (pdf) is almost done.

Milwaukee community group

I stumbled onto the webpage for a community organization in Milwaukee called Walnut Way. The award-winning group has developed a nice model for grass roots efforts at improving a neighborhood and the larger community. Their efforts include asset mapping and building rain gardens (pdf). The website isn't highly developed, but there is enough there to give you a glimpse into the work they are doing. For those in Wisconsin, there is a chance to see her speak in the near future.

Ripken's Maize Maze

In a reminder of how shapable our landscapes are, corn mazes "emerge" each year in interesting patterns. (What is the right verb for the appearance of corn mazes?)

This year's Cal Ripken Hall of Fame maze in Clements, MD is a clear stand out.

NJASLA newsletter

The August/Septmeber NJASLA newsletter is online.

3 Landscapes: Sarah Whiting

Parc Montsouris - a different world within a dense environment

The Lake Shore in Chicago - horizon in an urban environment

Bloedel Reserve - different worlds

(mapped)

Sarah Whiting - What Happened to the Big City Plan?

Sarah Whiting gave a great common lecture. Some highlights inlcuded

• McMillan Commission Plan for Washington
• The 1909 Burnham Plan for Chicago (see above)
• Chicago's South Central Plan which included Mies' and Hilbsy's IIT (but now has been touched by Koolhaas)

Although I had driven on Wacker, I had never before seen Wacker's Manual of the Plan for Chicago, an 8th grade primer (now completely online) that instilled a new generation of Chicagoans with an expectation of civic grandeur and responsibility.

Remember

The World Trade Center towers as seen from Olmsted's Eagle Rock Reservation.

Simulated video

This digitally created video of a simulation of Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater is pretty impressive.

Ball Park(ing)

The new parking scheme for Yankee Stadium is getting some attention. The plan has reduced seating but is increasing parking. Not only has the construction gobbled up a city park, but the new parking is going to be built with "triple tax exempt bonds". Every representation I see seems to alter the plan a little, but this one is eye-catching.

My official stance on this is: The full and proper way to attend any baseball game is by train; anything else is a compromise.

LA Students

This one goes out to the students.

Springfield USA

A classic question on The Simpsons is Where is Springfield, USA? Here is a website that focuses more on where things are within Springfield: http://www.mapofspringfield.com/

Rapidly changing maps

Over the weekend, the NY Times reported on the growing struggle for publishers of atlases to keep up with the changing planet that they represent. The article used the disappearing Aral Sea (above) as an example of how quickly the physical landscape can change and how technologies like remote sensing can assist in keeping up.

A race for the bottom

The graphing function in Google documents doesn't seem to let you flip the axes. So this move towards first place in the Sagarin College Football rankings (with LSU sitting squarely in 1st this week) looks like a race for the bottom. We also see Rutgers returning to the top 20 even though they didn't dramatically decline one week and improve the next. Kentucky sees a remarkable improvement because they scored well against a Kent State team that got more respect from Sagarin than from your average fan.



But when we look at the Sagarin ratings (which sort more intuitively) we see a different story. We see LSU getting isolated while the other three cluster.


So far, none of the lines cross on either graph. It is conceivable to me that we could see that trend continue for the entire season. But strength of schedule may end up hurting Rutgers too much in the Sagarin system.

A final note: The not-yet-connected Sagarin puts Kentucky as a 9.5 point favorite in this weekend's UK-UofL game. I would expect the early Vegas line to favor Louisville and Brohm, but in a game of hype and emotion anything can happen.

Dean Cardasis

We are excited to announce that Professor Dean Cardasis will be joining the Rutgers Department of Landscape Architecture as a faculty member and Graduate Program Director beginning Fall 2008. You may know his award winning design work from Durfee Gardens. You may know his work as director of the James Rose Center or his publications about James Rose. Professor Cardasis is a New Jersey native who looks forward to exploring the changed landscapes of the Garden State.

Canal Days at the Abraham Staats House

This weekend is a great time to start exploring the Civil War heritage of our area (huh?). Saturday and Sunday (Sept 8 and 9) you can enjoy Canal Days at the Abraham Staats House in South Bound Brook. It will be a complete experience with Civil War re-enactors, canal historians, quilt making and Abraham Lincoln (Saturday only).

The evolving role of public research universities

Rutgers University President McCormick will appear in a 30 minute interview this Saturday on PBS' The Open Mind. He will discuss "the evolving role of public research universities and the challenges they face in the 21st century" on this show which will first ar locally on Channel 13 at noon.

Energyville

Chevron has released a new online game called Energyville that looks a little like Sim City and is design by The Economist Group. The goal of the game is to find the right mix of energy sources to power your growing city into the future. I haven't played it enough to judge it as a game, but it seems to award a strategy of diversification. How much is it propaganda and how much is it educational? You'll have to play to decide.

Job: Park Planner

Job Description and Posting
Natural Heritage Trust
TITLE: Park Planner
WORK LOCATION: Planning Bureau, New York State Parks
Agency Bldg One, Empire State Plaza
Albany, NY 12238
DATE: September 4, 2007

SUMMARY OF POSITION: The Natural Heritage Trust on behalf of and through an agreement with the NYS Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation (NY State Parks) is seeking applicants for three (3) Park Planner positions. NY State Parks has set goals for the acceleration of the preparation of master plans and other planning documents. Individuals selected for these positions will be responsible for the preparation of those planning documents and meeting those agency goals. Successful candidates will be expected to foster communication among
staff throughout State Parks as well as staff of other agencies, interest groups and the public. Considerable travel and periods of additional work hours beyond normal times will be required of the individuals filling these positions. Candidates must have excellent writing skills and a background, interest and working knowledge of planning and environmental review processes. They must be able to develop reasonable schedules and milestones and keep to those schedules
as well as develop and promulgate, in an efficient and effective manner, planning documents of all types throughout the NY State Park system.

An important part of the mission of NY State Parks is the provision of quality recreation and the protection and interpretation of its natural and cultural resources. Individuals filling these positions must have a working knowledge and understanding of recreation and environmental resources within park systems as well as the appropriate use and protection of those same resources.

Specific Job Duties:

· Oversee and coordinate planning teams for preparation of specific master plans as well as other planning documents and reports

· Prepare state park master plans and other state park planning documents

· Coordinate review of state park master plans and other state park planning documents

· Conduct inventories and research related to planning for state parks and sites

· Set up and Coordinate public participation such as information meeting and hearings

· Develop scope of services for special studies related to master plans and other planning documents

· Provide presentations to agency decision- makers on the status of planning efforts in the state park system

· Organize and coordinate intra-agency working groups

· Organize and coordinate master plan study groups consisting of representatives of interest groups, local officials and interested citizens

· Work effectively with GIS specialists, environmental analysts, biologists and recreation planners in the development of master plans and other planning reports and documents

· Assess the implementation of adopted plans and make recommendations regarding improvements


MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS:

1. A minimum of a Bachelor’s Degree in planning or regional planning, forestry, outdoor recreation, wildlife, fisheries, biology, environmental science, GIS or an equivalent discipline is required along with 2 years experience in natural resource planning. Thirty graduate credit hours in these disciplines or an equivalent may be substituted for one year of the required experience.

2. Proficiency with computer applications such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

3. Familiarity with parks and historic sites – their resources, management and operation

4. Proven capability to prepare plans and outline and oversee planning processes

5. Excellent communication skills both written and oral. Proven ability to work with people.

6. Working knowledge of GIS applications preferred but not required.


STARTING SALARY RANGE: $42,000 to $48,000 plus benefits.

TO APPLY: Qualified candidates should send a resume, a writing
sample, a list of three references and contact information and a
letter of interest to the contact person listed below. This
information must be received within 45 days of the date of this
notice.

Ms. Elaine Bartley
Acting Executive Director
Natural Heritage Trust
PO Box 2093
Albany, NY 12220-0093
Phone: 518-474-2997

The Natural Heritage Trust is an equal opportunity employer.

New Jersey LiDAR Remote Sensing Workshop

Announcing the

New Jersey LiDAR Remote Sensing Workshop

Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) remote sensing workshop for coastal, floodplain, and urban land use mapping applications

When: October 17, 2007, 8:30 AM – 4:30 PM
Where: 2 location options: Rutgers University,
New Brunswick, NJ or the JCNERR Coastal Education Center, Tuckerton, NJ

Seating is limited. Advance registration is required.
Registration deadline: October 1, 2007 *

What is the purpose of this workshop?

To introduce and inform New Jersey’s public sector community about LiDAR remote sensing
technology and its practical applications for coastal, floodplain, and urban land use mapping. The morning session will provide background on LiDar technology and applications; the afternoon session will be hands-on demo and instruction of various LiDAR software processing and analysis software (afternoon has limited seating).

Who should attend?

Registration is limited to public sector and non-profit decision makers and geospatial practitioners in state, county, municipal, tribal, and regional governments, emergency management, environmental commissions, and watershed associations in New Jersey.

*How do I REGISTER?
For more information and FREE registration, please go online to: http://www.crssa.rutgers.edu/rs07

Hosted by the Rutgers University Center for Remote Sensing and Spatial Analysis and the New Jersey Office of Information Technology

Google Earth job

I saw this posted and thought a few of our Geomatics grads might want to check it out...

Google Earth, Outreach KML Evangelist - Mountain View

This position is based in Mountain View, CA.

The area: Engineering

Simply put, Google engineers make computers do amazing things. Populated by extraordinarily creative, motivated and talented people, our Engineering team gets excited by developing new applications that really make a difference and are used by millions of people. We're driven by Google's mission to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. If you seek to tackle such challenges as building a highly scalable computing infrastructure, novel storage systems, innovative user experiences or the next big application that will change the world, then this might be a perfect fit for you.

The role: Google Earth, Outreach KML Evangelist - Mountain View

Are you a KML guru and GIS specialist? Do you create amazing ways to experience content in Google Earth and to share it with others? Do you want to change the world by helping public benefit groups tell their story in Google Earth and Maps? As a Google Earth Outreach Evangelist, you will help non-profit and educational organizations by providing technical advice and project guidance.

Requirements:

• Degree in Geo Science, Computer Science or Environmental field required, MS or PhD preferred
• Strong HTML/CSS/Javascript experience required.
• Demonstrated experience developing complex, dynamically-generated KML required. Experience with Google Maps mashups/API desired.
• Strong knowledge of geo/GIS standards, file formats, tools (e.g., OGC, ESRI, ERDAS Imagine). Strong working knowledge and fluency with vector, image and/or terrain data.
• Experience working with large spatial datasets and developing innovative methods for visualizing complex geospatial data.
• Experience with Web-based GIS mapping a plus, web design experience and/or SketchUp model creation a plus.
• Strong project management skills and excellent written and verbal communication skills.

Sagarin Football Fall 2007 Update 1

OK, so the graph is a little hard to read. But what it shows is the change in ranking from the pre-season Sagarin ranks to the first update after the season opening. It shows that three of the four teams I am tracking improved their standings while one, Rutgers, lost ground. It might mean that Rutgers should have worked harder to beat up Buffalo, instead of letting the 2nd stringers play. But the truth is that it probably won't matter much after more Top 50 teams (other than Michigan) start racking up losses and the computer gets to connect outcomes.

Old Washington

The Library of Congress' collection of American Landscape and Architectural Design, 1850-1920 has nice plans and photos from the District of Columbia online.

LECTURE: Sarah Whiting

L A N D S C A P E . A R C H I T E C T U R E
L E C T U R E . S E R I E S -- F A L L 2 0 0 7


" What Ever Happened to the Big City Plan? "

Sarah Whiting, M.Arch., Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Princeton University School of Architecture

Wednesday, September 12
Cook-Douglass Lecture Halls Room 110
4:00 - 5:15


Three simultaneous exhibitions on Robert Moses last spring,
combined with proposals for big schemes, such as the
Brooklyn Atlantic Yards project, suggest that the big urban
vision may not have been killed off by Jane Jacobs and
others after all. This talk examines why it is that the
American city is so polarizing, why it has such a difficult
relationship to democracy, and yet how it is that we can
still do what Daniel Burnham exhorted almost a century ago:
"make no little plans."

As a teacher, a writer, and a designer, Sarah Whiting's
work focuses on the questions and consequences of modernism.
As an Assistant Professor at the Princeton University School
of Architecture, she teaches undergraduate lecture courses
on modern urbanism, graduate seminars in contemporary theory,
and coordinates the Master of Architecture (M.Arch.) thesis
program. Previously she taught at the Harvard Graduate
School of Design, the Illinois Institute of Technology,
the University of Kentucky, and the University of Florida.
As an author, she has been widely published in many journals
and anthologies, including Eleven Authors in Search of a
Building: The Aronoff Center for Design and Art; An
Architecture for All Senses: The Work of Eileen Gray;
Between War and Peace: Society, Culture and Architecture
after World War II; and Mies in America. She is currently
completing a manuscript on the superblock. And as a
practicing architect, Ms. Whiting is a design principal
in the firm WW in Princeton. Its current projects the
San Jose State University Museum in California and a
sports/arts complex for a small private high school
in Louisville, Kentucky.

Lecture items and scraps

For today's lecture I am posting some links that should make more sense after the class...

Frank Gehry Weisman Art

Ode to a Grecian Urn

Sandy Hook - Vegetation, Biology, Culture

KMart

Sense of Place
Early city forms - Chaco Canyon
Haussmann's Paris
FLW's Taliesin
Cincinnati's Sawyer Point Park
NOLA's Piazza d'Italia
New Urbanists
Confluence Greenway
MVV's Teardrop Park
Maya Lin's Confluence Project
UPDATED: San Antonio Riverwalk

Junior Studio Web Page

Fall Field Trips Past
http://tulloch.rutgers.edu/Boston2005/
http://tulloch.rutgers.edu/Boston2002/
http://tulloch.rutgers.edu/DC2004/
http://tulloch.rutgers.edu/trip/dc2004.html

Gearing Up

As I make the final edits to our FAll syllabus, I realized that some of the quotes I have embedded in it are worth sharing.

About the stewardship of the land:

The care of the Earth is our most ancient and most worthy, and after all our most pleasing responsibility. To cherish what remains of it and to foster its renewal is our only hope.

- Wendell Berry

About learning from nature:

I am pessimistic about the human race because it is too ingenious for its own good. Our approach to nature is to beat it into submission. We would stand a better chance of survival if we accommodated ourselves to this planet and viewed it appreciatively instead of skeptically and dictatorally.

- E. B. White

And, as we struggle with absorbing information about places, Marc suggested this one:

Memory cannot retain everything; if it could, we would be overwhelmed with data. Memory is the result of a process of selection and of organizing what is selected so that it is within reach in expectable situations. There must also be some random accumulations to enable us to discover unexpected relationships. But serendipity is possible only when recollection is essentially a holding fast to what is meaningful and a release of what is not.

Kevin Lynch
What Time Is This Place?
MIT Press, 1972

Some good thoughts to start a new school year.

Farm-residential conflict

One of the persistent (and prepelxing) problems in exurban development is the conflict that occurs when suburbanites move to new housing in farm country, so that they can enjoy the scenery. But, after moving to a farmstead or a 3-acre lot adjacent to a farm, they discover that farmwork often starts before 6am, pigs smell, tractors make big dirt clouds, and that pesticides often don't respect property lines.

But the AP has picked up a story from the Herald-Leader that reports on a conflict over noise on a farm in Nicholasville. Saying that they were just saving their livelihood, a farm there has installed a propane cannon to scare off birds. Neighbors 500 yards away say that it is still very loud:

"It's been so bad all summer we've never even had a cookout on our deck because it was going to go off every couple of minutes," said Palmgreen, a University of Kentucky communications professor. Even with the windows closed and the TV and air-conditioning on, Palmgreen said, "you could hear the noise."

It has gotten to a point that there is a lawsuit by the neighbors trying to stop this practice. In some places the local governments protect the farmers with right-to-farm ordinances, but it isn't clear to me whether Jessamine County, which is fairly suburban for Kentucky, has
such protections in place.

In farmland protection, it shows very clearly why clustering of contiguous farms helps with preservation. This story illustrates how these conflicts can undermine long-term efforts to create these attractive working rural landscapes.

Rutgers starts anew

A new academic year means another set of move-in stories. But this year they are focusing on some of the changes going on here at Rutgers. The external news version of the events never captures the real complexities internally, but it is a good start at describing how the Class of 2011 (or 20012) will perceive things here.