Question: Jonathan Raban opens Soft City with a description of losing himself in the city after a bit too much retsina in a kebab shop in the 1970's, and Walter Benjamin talks about the "intoxicated interpenetration of street and residence suchas comes about in theParis of the nineteenth century..." Is the city always hyperstimulating and intoxicating, or does contemporary development remove this quality and replace it with something more cold, calculating and clinical?

I think the sense of intoxication varies from city to city and really just depends on where you are. I have lived in urban places all over the U.S. and every city has a distinct feel and sometimes there are places and times that much more intoxicating. I think its hard not to feel a city in a way that invigorates your senses and sometimes produces an emotive response. I feel that, in America anyway, that the suburbs tend to be that dead sort of clinical feel with the strip malls and empty thoughtless space that pops up in a rush of development. There is a lack of identity and creative thought that goes into those spaces.

I think the age of the city has a lot to do with that feeling of intoxication. Personally if the city has a deep history I find it a lot more stimulating and almost overwhelming sometimes to take in. London is a great example of that feeling. I had visited older cities in less developed countries but because there is such a strong stratification of wealth and culture in a city like New York or London that i think it is mcuh more intoxicating. I also know that I am easily intoxicated. I love that I absorb and feel so much while visiting places and cities. My memories are full of the memory of smell and sight and emotion.

I think contemporary development only adds to the layers of a city. That development will age and although it may seem clinical and uninviting or uninteresting at first it will blend into the fabric and years from now we'll appreciate what it represents and for the time when it was built.

End of the year last ditch attempt

I was, honestly, totally committed to this blog for most of the year. Somehow it has slipped away from me and so this is my attempt to contribute some thoughts to some of the last questions that are going to be posed for the theory portion of the class. Last weeks class the question proposed was to think about a piece of literature-

"Do you have a favourite author who writes about city life? A particular wonderful description of time and place? A poem that really seems to capture an urban moment or movement? Please put an excerpt on the blog and tell us why it appeals to you."

The first piece of literature I thought of was a book called 'High Tide in Tucson' a book of essays written by Barbara Kingsolver. She is one of my favorite authors because she is a trained ecologist and biologist and writes beautiful, beautiful books of fiction and non-fiction. Her most famous book is the Poisonwood Bible about a Christian missionary family in the Congolese jungle. The essays book has a short writing on her garden that she was trying to grow at her hosue in Arizona. It is a funny tale about the feral pigs that would sneak in at night and destroy most of her vegetable patch and flowers. There is a really great line in it, and if I could find the book I would post the exact phrase, but to paraphrase she talks about how we have to finally at some point just give in and think about how we can co-exist with what some gardeners would call pests. The pigs and her end up striking a deal and she is able to grow to accept their presence in the garden and to realize we have to stop fighting so hard against nature.

This really makes me think of the urban setting though. So much of the urban environment is synthetic, man made and can be completely unnatural in part effort to keep out the pests and the natural enviroment. Air conditioning, windows that don't open, pavement, etc. I just think of how nice of an approach to urban development would be to just accept that maybe we can co-exist. I know this sound very granola but its still a nice way to think.

http://www.outdoorbasecamp.com/thumbnail.php?file=hunting/shutterstock_20224519_749092306.jpg&size=article_medium

Rats Eat Dog Poop?! Kill 'em all!

Q: should there be legal limits on animals/pets in an urban setting?

When I read this piece by Anne Whinston Spirn I couldn't help but think of my dog Alfalfa Sprout "alfie, alfredo, fonzo" etc and how much i adore spending time with him in the outdoors, especially in the wide open spaces where he can run free. Visiting Hylands Park in Writtle I watch the dogs and owners frolic with their pets and most of the time I really miss my dog but the rest of the time I am quietly wondering how much dog poop is actually in those fields and how much of a nuisance those free roaming dogs are to little toddlers learning to walk in the soft grass and to the wildlife that is trying to live and build lives amongst all the chaos of our pets.

When I lived in Little Rock we the city built and maintained a dog park for both large and little dogs where they were free to run off leash and to interact with each other under the supervision of the owners. There is a whole dog park etiquette that exists in the US dog park system and I know this well having planned many a road trip by location of dog parks. I have visited many in the southern US route from Arkansas to North Carolina and in each I have been impressed with the care and attention the city government or private entity spends on the quality of the park. Dog owners can be really strange people and crammed in one space things dont always go well but the dog park is an amazing solution to containing pets to one area and making it more pet friendly and separating out the human park area and one designated only for mans best friend. When this article was written in 1984 dog parks barely existed in the US if at all in most major metropolitan cities. It wasnt until recently when city governments seriously started setting aside land for pet owners because of the impact that dogs specifically have on urban environments. Now, in most towns, even here in England, you can find dog waste bags and special containers to throw the waste away. And here in the UK, I see more dog waste disposal bins than I see recycling containers.

As a field biologist I studied bird populations on the beaches of Massachussetts. I studied foraging habits, nesting and population studies. One summer I did an entire study on the foraging and roosting habits of migrating shorebird species. There were certain populations of these birds on the American migratory route that were losing weight and not completing their migratory journey south for the winter months. One of the conclusions that I found was that dog owners and dogs walked the beaches at peak foraging times, early mornings and at dusk, and they would walk straight though large gatherings of birds trying to feed. Everytime they would feed and a dog would come by they would have to lift and fly and would take minutes to resettle only to be disturbed again. Dogs of course werent the only culprit but they were a large part of the problem. The overlap of our human habitat and wildlife is growing daily and it was virtually impossible to keep dogs off the beach. We did mitigate the problem by offering alternative sites for dog walking and asking for them to walk at different times of day. I studied habitat issues and birds for several years and had to deal with a lot of dog problems and as a dog owner myself I am very sympathetic to owners' need for space and places to take their beloved pets. If we give alternatives and come up with solution I believe we can all co exist and doggone it, all get a long.

Food Production, Distribution, Commerce and Consumption

How do agribusinesses present themselves? Biotech Companies? What does this all mean to landscape architects and to the city? What can we do to save the planet?

Thinking about the readings, especially the one from Carolyn Steel, "Hungry Cities, How Food Shapes or Lives" and thinking about food distribution from international ports I was surprised to look at the percentages of food that are shipped into London from foreign countries and how reliant the country is on international distribution. I was also thinking about the difference between England and the US food supply. I find that I am a very concientious consumer of food and I always buy local when possible. I thought about how much easier it is to buy local or local in terms of from the same country when in the US because of the vast size of the country and that we benefit from different climates and can produce vegetables and fruits year round that will meet most supermarket demands. We do rely heavily on South America for cheaper labor coupled with more exotic fruits and fruits that may be harder to grow in the north american climates. We do have more availability but the distance to ship fruits and vegetables from California to New York may equal or surpass the distance from southern Italy to northern UK. So essentially we are impacting the environment the same as far as distribution.

The US has a campaign to "eat your zipcode" where there is a grassroots movement to get communities to invest in local food companies and markets as well as growing your own food. I think this was in response to lessening our impact on the environment and also in part a backlash to agribusiness and big commercial farms that impact the environment and surrounding communities in such a big way, and mostly in negative ways. In fact Farm Aid, an national non profit and a large concert that tours yearly in the US, raises money solely to fight against factory farms and large biotech companies that are promoting food that has been artificially altered without proper testing or knowing what the long term effects of altering the food supply. The group is invested in bringing back family farms and buying local goods as well as educating the masses on the benefits of organically grown food. If you want to learn more about their efforts you can go to their really excellent blog at:

http://farmaid.blogspot.com/

The Outpost, Bellevue Idaho

On the heels of our Sonneveld project and thinking about coupling surrounding landscape and architecture of a building I decided to post about a house that was built in rural Idaho and has just won numerous awards for its beautiful design. The house was designed entirely with the rugged Idaho landscape in mind and to be completely visibile from all spaces in the house. It is a gorgeous example of how to integrate the two disciplines of LA and Architecture.

* photos courtesy of www.archinovations.com

my life on an organic farm

I decided to post some pics of the landscape that i used to work in a few years ago when I worked as a organic farm apprentice at Appleton Farms in Ipswich MA. As we embark on studies about food, food sources and consumption I am eager to learn more about food transport and demand in England and how it impacts local environments.

Land Art Project and Presentation

Land Art Project, Admiral's Park, Chelmsford UK

Inspired land art project with artistic influences from chosen artist Nancy Holt. An important woman to the Land Art movement in the 1960's, Nancy Holt's work is highly regarded and influential to contemporary artists working in the field. Her most famous works can be found in the US and often centered around astronomical events such as eclipses, equinox and solstices. I chose Nancy Holt because I wanted to focus on women in the arts, specifically Land Art where there are few well recognized artists practicing other than Maya Lin. Her work focusing on the summer solstice inspired my design for Admiral's Park.

For my design, I mapped the visible planets over Admiral's park for June 21st, 2010 and transcribed the celestial pattern to an earthworks project where the planets will be represented by mounds of earth covered in grass circling around the largest mound, 5 meters high, representing the sun. The heliocentric design was mapped with the idea of the space/park becoming a gathering place where celebrations for the solstice can be held directly on the "planets" and the "sun" with a view of the sunrise and the sunset on the longest day of the year.