Photo- Trees are life

I've been inspired by this photo of Shinji Turner-Yamamoto's Hanging Garden Sculpture. She has featured the juxtaposition of life and death in the Holy Cross Church of Cincinnati.

Plant a tree! Support life, sustainablity, reduction of the urban heat island, character of place, natural beauty, reduction of air pollution... and so much more, by greening our urban grey.

read more about the installation project here.


M.

Photo thanks to inhabitat

Book: Great Public Squares

FYI! This book is on my wish list :)
(http://books.wwnorton.com/books/Great-Public-Squares/)

"From the storied piazzas of Rome, Venice, and Florence to the elegant places of Paris via less familiar gathering places in Germany, the Czech Republic, Spain, and Portugal, to the former marketplaces and graceful Georgian-style squares of the United Kingdom, to the most interesting and impressive squares of the New World—Santa Fe, Portland, Boston, and New York—architect Robert Gatje offers new insights, stunning computer-generated plans, and color photographs to convey the spatial experience, supplemented by a brief history of each square and measurements to assess their success in meeting human needs for inspiring outdoor space. There is no other source for this comparative data in one place."

Its a good one!

Below is a photo of Place des Vosges, a famous square in Paris. I have great memories of lovely picnics and macaroons in this park :)

M.

Urban Rural Reconnect

Last week a kilometre stretch of the Champes Elysees in Paris was transformed into a massive strip of farmland. The event lasted 2 days and was organized by The Jeunes Agricultures (Young Farmers) Union which represents around 55,000 farmers under the age of 35yrs and the French Forest industry. The avenue was covered in greenery from trees to lavender and flowers, live stock too!

The purpose of the event was to raise awareness about the decrease in farm revenues and reconnect the city of Paris with its farmers outside the city. It was to show off what they are all about and to inspire and encourage people to be more involved with the farming industry again.

"Do they want the cheapest products in the world or do they want products that pay producers?"

This is an issue I think farmers worldwide are facing. We are losing touch with where our food comes from. Buying oranges that have travelled half way across the world from California, or unknowingly buying local product but that has travelled to China and back to be packaged! These choices are not only affecting local farmers and the local agriculture industry but are also contruting to negative environmental decision making.

Toronto goes green

Canadian city Toronto has turned an empty unused rooftop to great use! City Halls rooftop/podium which has been closed since the 80's has turned into an 11,000 square metre GREEN, public park! It includes 65 species of plants for people to enjoy. A new urban ecosystem that will contribute to a more sustainable city.

word of the day

'infrasound' is a low level (low frequency) noise that is believed, but also contested to cause health problems... interesting.

Those who are opposed to the development of wind farms use this point of 'infrasound' in their aguments against the idea.

go green

Have you ever seen a living wall? I have recently been noticing an increasing amount of green walls lately through my travels, however I am yet to see one in Australia but thats probably because ive restricted myself to the Sunshine Coast for too long . Im sure they are blooming throughout the cities!

The purpose of these living walls is not only to be innovative, creative, and trendy but they have real positive impacts on the environment (when outside) and on air quality (both indoors and outdoors). Naturally plants absord pollutants out of the air so these walls are contirbuting to less carbon emissions floating around!Indoors they can lesson noise and increase acoustics, be used as insulation, and of course add to the aesthetics of an indoor or outdoor facade.

With all of these benefits and considering how lovely they are to look at lets hope that we will see more vertical greenery in the near future. How about incorporating them into all government buildings?! parliament?!

Another way of 'greening' our surroundings is with roof top gardens. If such dense areas as cities would have more rooftop gardens (to absorb sunlight/rays and pollution) they could decrease the impact of the urban heat island..

Ill write more about rooftop gardens another time...

Back to living walls, Vancouver airport has a great one you can see as you walk out of the airport towards the Skytrain (see my photo below).

The photo at the top of the post is an example of a living wall in Madrid, Spain, a beautiful public display of tropical plants! The next photo is of green tiles that a Spanish company has invented. I think they are awesome!! They can be aranged by designers to add to the character of a building. So cool. I saw a few apartment buildings in Milan that featured vertical greenery, also a chain of fairtrade coffee shops (Bridgehead Coffee) in Ottawa, Canada has incorporated living walls in a few of their locations. I know they can be a bit challenging to upkeep indoors (probably from the lack of sunshine in some cases) but they really are uplifting and refreshing to see especially when you are enjoying a morning coffee and the paper.

I hear PiperDM is thinking of adding some green to their office... or is this a rumour? Go for it!

Green Architecture

How is this for green architecture. The glass faceted office is home to the European Investment Bank in Luxembourg. It recently won first place in the Emilio Ambasz Prize for Green Architecture for International Buildings. Designed by Ingenhoven Architects http://www.ingenhovenarchitects.com/

Considering how big the building is, imagine if it was just another concrete block? Dark, hard, bulky and boring to look at. The glass creates transparancy which makes it much more soft for the eye to look at. More green architecture like this will mean less bulk in our view!

Better for the environment and more pleasant to look at. Awesome.

Makes me want to visit Luxembourg and have a look!