News Nature and the City:: “If we are ever to reach the stage where we can value the benefits as ecosystem services, or design therapeutic landscapes, we need to understand what the benefits are and how they operate.” A Wilder Way:: Dutch designer, Piet Oudolf, who is responsible for the planting design of the High Line [...]
Standing on the sidewalk, looking up a steep slope towards the home of Landscape Architect Keith Geller, you know you’re about to enter a special landscape. Over the past 30 years, Geller has transformed a bare, grassy slope into an forested urban haven. His yard has been featured in magazines, books and newspapers stories and [...]
News Experimental Landscapes: Alexander Felson on Ecology and Design:: A very interesting interview with ”Alexander Felson, an assistant professor at Yale in both the School of Foresty & Environmental Studies and the School of Architecture, is a different kind of urban ecologist. In his research and his design work, he calls for an ecological practice that moves from [...]
Travis Beck is author the newly published Principles of Ecological Landscape Design, which I recently reviewed. He kindly agreed to an interview so I could ask him some questions about his book, what inspired him and his views on the current state of Landscape Architecture. What inspired you to write this book? For a long time I [...]
What if, instead of depicting nature, we allowed nature in? What if, instead of building and maintaining artistic creations, we worked to develop and manage living systems? Principles of Ecological Landscape Design is a book that will soon be gracing the shelves of Landscape Architects, Landscape Designers, Professors of Landscape Architecture, City Planners, students of [...]
News Bringing natural life into buildings:: Eco-architect Dr Ken Yeang’s attempts to introduce more nature into architecture are highlighted in this article. “Many buildings have been ‘de-natured’. Human beings have simplified and fragmented nature.” Loft ambitions: why green roofs are the future of urban gardening:: This article from The Ecologist discusses the many benefits of green [...]
This week’s Friday Film features a look at a series of rain gardens designed to capture water from a roof. This video is presented by the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust as part of their ‘Step by Step Rain Gardens‘ series. In this installed garden, the rain falls down the downspout, across into a raised, circular planter filled [...]
News Badgers, bats and reptiles are right at home at Durrants Village:: Developers at a village in West Sussex have gone to great lengths by protecting species on site during construction and including habitat for the existing wildlife on the site including bats, lizards, snakes and badgers. Amphibian Crossing:: The Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New [...]
Today’s Friday Film features an inside look at the New Wild Garden from the 2011 Chelsea RHS Flower Show designed by Nigel Dunnett filmed by Dusty Gedge. The garden features a great many elements for wildlife including a stone wall for habitat with built-in insect shelters as well as an insect wall for solitary bees and [...]
Today’s Friday Film features green wall designer, botanist and author Patrick Blanc, perhaps the best known designer of green walls. His book, The Vertical Garden: From Nature to the City is getting a revised and updated edition which will be out in April. This video is part of the Greenroofs.com Greenroofs & Walls of the World Virtual Summit 2011, which [...]
Last year when I wrote about the Northwest Flower and Garden Show I talked a lot about how the gardens didn’t feature wildlife habitat, but could have easily done so and I featured specific examples. I also expressed hope that a nature organization would partner on a display garden. This year, my hope was realized [...]
Today’s Friday Film features a fascinating and enlightening TED talk by Janine Benyus, natural sciences writer, innovation consultant, author, co-founder of the Biomimicry Guild and founder of the Biomimicry Institute. One reason nature is so important to us as humans is the lessons we take from it. Observing the workings of the flora and fauna in our own backyards and daily [...]