Snow daze

If you are still struggling to fill your time with the current snow, you might consider what some other designers have tried. Last year our students made the most of snowballs and coloring.

A Buffalo professor is trying to use snow to resculpt visitor experiences to an Olmsted park. The video below shows you more.

Home Alone house

A streetview of Kevin McCallister's house from Home Alone. (This year is the 20th anniversary of the movie's release.)


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We're down a man!

While it isn't much of a surprise, the Star-Ledger has an interactive map showing how New Jersey is losing a congressional seat.  It isn't that we got smaller, just that we are getting bigger slower than some other states.  Between 2000 and 2010, we still grew grew 4.5 percent to 8.8 million.

Air photos of sprawl

Does sprawl look better on the ground or from the air? (h/t Pete K)

Cape May pits environment against aesthetics

Some Cape May residents are finding the Historic Preservation Commission's strict opposition to environmental improvements - solar panels that can be seen from the street and any windmills - that they are referring to them as the "gingerbread police".

More and more rural

The LA Times has a powerful map last week showing the rapid depopulation of rural America.

IGERT RAs at Iowa

The University of Iowa's Geoinformatics for Environmental and Energy Modeling and Prediction IGERT Program is looking for Research Assistants. If you are looking at grad programs, you might add this to your list.

Gaudi in NatGeo

National Geographic covers the breaking story of an architect whose work is inspired by nature itself, Antonio Gaudi.  Sustainable Cities Collective has a copy of the big fold out poster that looks great.

Then and now

Wired helps you see landscapes in a different way.  Considering how I go to the same places on Fall Field Trips every three years, I probably should take this more seriously.

Hanbury Evans 2011 Summer Scholars Design Competition Opens

Hanbury Evans Wright Vlattas + Company is accepting applications for its class of 2011 Summer Design Scholars. This is a juried selection, open to upper-level undergraduates and graduate students in architecture, urban design, landscape architecture, and interior design.

Dangermond Fellowship deadline is Feb 15th

The Dangermond Fellowship


Award: Up to three (3) $10,000 fellowships awarded each year to graduate students in the United States. Recipients are also awarded ESRI software, technical training access, and travel costs to conferences.
Deadline: February 15

The Landscape Architecture Foundation, Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI), and the American Society of Landscape Architects jointly sponsor the Dangermond Fellowship, a national fellowship for graduate students of landscape architecture. The purpose of the fellowship is to promote and facilitate the integration of art, science, method, and technology in the study and profession of landscape architecture, and encourage the use of geographic information systems (GIS) as a framework for exploring integrated approaches to landscape assessment and intervention.

Students wishing to apply for a fellowship can apply as individuals or as members of interdisciplinary project teams. Individual applicants are required to be graduate students studying landscape architecture. All members of a project team are required to be graduate students with at least one member majoring in landscape architecture. The applicants are to be supported by one or more faculty advisors. The principal advisor should be a faculty member in the department of landscape architecture. Employees of ESRI and their relatives are not eligible for the fellowship.

Selection criteria will include the creative use of geographic information systems (GIS) as a framework for exploring integrated approaches to landscape assessment (analysis) and intervention (planning, design and management).

In addition to the General Submission Guidelines this fellowship requires the following:

Requirements:
1. A written proposal for the work to be undertaken (limit 3 pages) containing the following:
• an objective, outcome and method
• transferability of the proposed work
• deliverables
• level of institutional support (faculty, facilities, etc.)
2. A cover letter from the principal faculty advisor indicating his/her faculty position and confirming department approval and adherence to the overall goals of the fellowship
3. A specific delineation of the roles of each team member and faculty advisor(s)
4.

A one-page biographical sketch of the faculty advisor(s)
5. Two letters of recommendation for individual or team efforts from faculty members not involved in project.

More wildlife corridors

Complete with color images, the Wall Street Journal ran a feature on landscape architects designing wildlife corridors including Olin's design of a $12 Million overpass.

(h/t Puk)

Olin's new plaza in Portland

When Laurie Olin spoke at Rutgers last year he showed images of a new plaza being built in Portland, Simon and Helen Director Park. Pictures are starting to emerge and magazines are writing it up.

Deadline for course evaluations

Despite discouraging words from The Chronicle, remember to get your online course evaluations in for all of your classes today.

Mark your calendars

Poster designed by Alexandra Bolinder-Gibsand

An old, but important map

The Disunion blog at NYTimes.com talks about how important a map of slavery was to President Lincoln.

Dream 'hood?

Claiming that "For Gen Y, it's not about the dream house, but the dream 'hood," doesn't change the fact that Gen Y is smaller than either the generation before it or after it.  Niche markets are big, but Generation Me is the one that'll change the real estate market.

Reminder: New Jersey Geospatial Forum

The New Jersey Geospatial Forum is pleased to announce that Jack Dangermond, founder and CEO of ESRI, will be the guest speaker at the Forum's December meeting. The meeting will be held at the New Jersey State Museum, 205 West State Street, Trenton, NJ 08608 at 10 a.m., in the auditorium.

Please allow sufficient time for parking, which is available either on street at metered spaces or in the following parking garages:

There is limited free parking in the Statehouse Garage:
Enter from Memorial Drive or West State Street

There are some pay parking facilities in the area:
*State Street Square Garage
Enter from Chancery lane above East State Street

*Trenton Marriott Garage
The hotel is at the intersection of W. Lafayette Street and S Warren Street
Enter the garage from South Warren Street

Or you could just take the train and walk 10 minutes.

LiveBlog: Yankee Stadium Upland Park Redevelopment

 Yankee Stadium Upland Park Redevelopment

Gary Sorge, FASLA, Stantec
Frank McCue, NYC Parks

Last LiveBlog of the semester.

While one is the client and one is the design firm, they really work as a team.  The project had over 450 submittals to review. 

Mill Pond Park was built on the site of the old Bronx River Market from the 1920s-1970s.  The old Powerhouse has been retrofit with a green roof, hoping to get LEED Gold.

The new park has been built just as it was shown to the community in early renderings. Macomb Dam Park was also overhauled with Heritage Field and Ruppert Plaza.  There are River Avenue Pocket Parks, including small play areas and a $3 million skateboard park.

MetroNorth built a new train station which had to be integrated into these design, too.

Stantec's approach emphasized the park as more than just a collection of ballfields, but a highly accessible park for the broadest possible audiences.  Some pieces of the old frieze (the white arched fencing that is part of the Stadium iconography) were saved for the new Heritage Field.  Layout and grading requirements prevented them from being able to save the location of home plate as the new home plate, where Lou Gehrig gave his famous address. (now it is at 2nd base)  But they did preserve the giant bat.  They are also installing 7 Viewmasters so you can see slides of the old Stadium.  They did preserve the footings of much of the Stadium, burying them under the berms.


Ruppert Plaza is the wide walk you see below.  The mound is above the roof of a parking deck.

The park will also have Yankee quotes and even a Bull Durham quote scattered around on the walls. 

  Work began this past summer.

Wildlife corridors

Kelly Brenner has a detailed post on Sustainable Cities Collective that looks into Wildlife Corridors.  It pointed out that planners aren't yet making these as effective as they could be: "A study from 2008 found that planners and designers need to think more naturally because corridors that were too symmetrical were not as effective as corridors with some asymmetry and irregularities."

Turning the House that Ruth Built into Heritage Field, a New Community Park

LA Fall Lecture Series presents Gary T. Sorge, FASLA, AICP

Wednesday, 12/08 at 4:00 pm,

Cook/Douglas Lecture Hall;

3 College Farm Road

New Brunswick, NJ

Turning the House that Ruth Built into Heritage Field, a New Community Park

Sports enthusiasts and fans greatly anticipated the opening of the new Yankee Stadium in 2008.  The nearby Bronx community greatly anticipates the opening in 2011 of the final piec e of an extensive park redevelopment program.  The new Stadium was constructed on existing parkland, perhaps some of the most intensely used ballfields in the City.  As part of its commitment to the Bronx community, the City of New York needed to construct new park facilities to replace what was displaced by the new stadium and associated parking structures as soon as possible.  Of course to do so, the City and the design team needed to recapture the land beneath the old Stadium for development of a significant portion of the park plan.  A new park on the roof of a parking garage, a waterfront park, two off-site ballfields, a major building renovation, two additional community parks, pedestrian bridges and local roadway improvements are now complete.  The final piece is the construction of Heritage Field and Ruppert Plaza on the grounds of the former Stadium, arguably the most prominent venue in the history of sports.

Our presentation will focus on three major elements in the sites transformation:  dismantling the Stadium; designing, gaining approvals for and constructing the new park as quickly as possible; and appropriately commemorating the events that occurred at the Stadium over its 86-year history.  Each element presented its own unique challenges and our presenter will provide a first-hand account of how a  landscape architecture led design team influenced the results.

 

Gary T. Sorge is Senior Principal at Stantec and alumnus of the Rutgers Landscape Architecture program.

For more information see Stantec.com

MoMA's growing collection

MoMA has some new art for people who like things that grow.  (And since it is in the lobby, I suspect you can see it for free)

NPR travels the Passaic

The Great Swamp and the Passaic River made it on NPR last month.  Sally Rubin helped them track down the headwaters in Mendham and then they headed downstream to ponder the effects of industrialization.  Today our students are still exploring the next steps for the Great Swamp Watershed.

Gold-light tress

To call this potential new technology a game breaker is an understatement. (h/t The Texan)

A sad first for Celebration

Not quite like Mayberry.

Special speaker at New Jersey Geospatial Forum

The New Jersey Geospatial Forum is pleased to announce that Jack Dangermond, founder and CEO of ESRI, will be the guest speaker at the Forum?s December meeting. The meeting will be held at the New Jersey State Museum, 205 West State Street, Trenton, NJ 08608 at 10 a.m., in the auditorium.

Please allow sufficient time for parking, which is available either on street at metered spaces or in the following parking garages:

There is limited free parking in the Statehouse Garage:
Enter from Memorial Drive or West State Street

There are some pay parking facilities in the area:
*State Street Square Garage
Enter from Chancery lane above East State Street

*Trenton Marriott Garage
The hotel is at the intersection of W. Lafayette Street and S Warren Street
Enter the garage from South Warren Street

Or you could just take the train and walk 10 minutes.

Map of warming

The Economist has a global map showing the likelihood of a place having a new "hottest summer on record" in the next several decades.  For instance, it looks like both Washington DC and Atlanta have a 70-89% chance of having a hotter summer than they've ever had. It is interesting to note that the map comes from a Food Security paper in Science - the implications could be frightening.

Factory Farm Map

Where does your food come from? Unless you shop local, FactoryFarmMap shows you the answer. (h/t Peter M)

Common Lecture canceled

Today's Common Lecture by Ray Mims of the USBG has been canceled. Maybe you could use the hour of found time to read a book.  PlaNetizen has posted their top 10 Books for 2011 and Strong Towns blog has a list of what they consider essential reading.

Quote of the Day

"Boy, if somebody could write a song about [city planning] I'd have to stand up and cheer for them. No. There are some things you just can't write songs about."

- David Byrne