Sylvain Meyer's landscape art

Swiss artist Sylvain Meyer, who doesn’t seem to exist on the Web except for a Flickr account, has created a unique set of land art works, somewhere in the Canton of Vaud, Switzerland. He writes that his “landscape art” is about transforming natural places into supernatural ones using found, local materials. Amazingly, he doesn’t use Photoshop to create these otherworldly scenes, just lots of time and sweat, out in nature. Also amazing: he doesn’t seem to spend any time promoting himself either with a web site or blog, just letting design sites serendipitously pick up his work.

A spider made of foam

Sharing from:

http://dirt.asla.org/2012/09/12/natural-landscapes-become-supernatural/

The best example of overcrowding and land occupation: Migingo Island

I came across this picture from 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/picture/2012/sep/14/eyewitness-migingo-island-kenya

and I couldn't believe my eyes: isn't it the best example of overcrowding and land occupation?

" Half the size of a football pitch, Migingo Island on Lake Victoria is claimed by both Kenya and Uganda. The population of 131 is made up of mostly fishermen and traders. Jesco Denzel" 

Basic characteristics for the health and viability of a town (and city)

This is an excerpt from Howard Blackson´s article The five Cs of neighborhood planning:

The neighborhood is a physical place — varied in intensity from more rural to more urban — that many different communities inhabit. At its essence, whether downtown, midtown or out-of-town, its health and viability (in terms of both resilience and quality of life) is defined by certain basic characteristics. Easily observable in neighborhoods that work, these characteristics have been articulated a variety of ways over the years — most notably for me by Andrés Duany and Mike Stepnor. Combined, they form what I like to call the 5 Cs:

1. Complete

Great neighborhoods host a mix of uses in order to provide for our daily need to live, work, play, worship, dine, shop, and talk to each other. Each neighborhood has a center, a general middle area, and an edge. The reason suburban sprawl sprawls is because it has no defined centers and therefore no defined edge. Civic spaces generally (though not always) define a neighborhood’s center while commerce tends to happen on the edges, on more highly traffic-ed streets and intersections easily accessible by two or more neighborhoods. The more connected a neighborhood is, the more variety of commercial goods and services can be offered, as not every neighborhood needs a tuxedo shop or a class ‘A’ office building.

2. Compact

The 5-minute walk from center to edge, a basic rule-of-thumb for walkability, equates to approximately 80 to 160 Acres, or 9 to 18 city blocks. This general area includes public streets, parks, and natural lands, as well as private blocks, spaces and private buildings. This scale may constrict in the dead of winter and/or heat of summer, and expand during more temperate months. Compactness comes in a range of intensities that are dependent upon local context. Therefore, more urban neighborhoods, such as those found in Brooklyn, are significantly more compact than a new neighborhood located, for example, outside Taos, New Mexico. Remember, the ped-shed is a general guide for identifying the center and edge of a neighborhood. Each neighborhood must be defined by its local context, meaning shapes can, and absolutely do, vary. Edges may be delineated by high speed thoroughfares (such as within Chicago’s vast grid), steep slopes and natural corridors (as found in Los Angeles), or other physical barriers.

3. Connected

Great neighborhoods are walkable, drivable, and bike-able with or without transit access. But, these are just modes of transportation. To be socially connected, neighborhoods should also be linger-able, sit-able, and hang out-able.

4. Complex

Great neighborhoods have a variety of civic spaces, such as plazas, greens, recreational parks, and natural parks. They have civic buildings, such a libraries, post offices, churches, community centers and assembly halls. They should also have a variety of thoroughfare types, such as cross-town boulevards, Main Streets, residential avenues, streets, alleys, bike lanes and paths. Due to their inherent need for a variety of land uses, they provide many different types of private buildings such as residences, offices, commercial buildings and mixed-use buildings. This complexity of having both public and private buildings and places provides the elements that define a neighborhood’s character.

5. Convivial

The livability and social aspect of a neighborhood is driven by the many and varied communities that not only inhabit, but meet, get together, and socialize within a neighborhood. Meaning “friendly, lively and enjoyable,” convivial neighborhoods provide the gathering places — the coffee shops, pubs, ice creme shops, churches, clubhouses, parks, front yards, street fairs, block parties, living rooms, back yards, stoops, dog parks, restaurants and plazas — that connect people. How we’re able to socially connect physically is what defines our ability to endure and thrive culturally. It’s these connections that ultimately build a sense of place, a sense of safety, and opportunities for enjoyment… which is hard to maintain when trying to update a community plan without utilizing the Neighborhood Unit as the key planning tool.

Spazio Urbano Protetto. A competition

About the competition: 

Participate with an idea to become Europe ....... The resource to reverse the trend in Europe to be felt far and not to compete "being happy to be European" can be represented today by the creativity and experience of young people, artists and professionals. L'Atelier PAEMA Urban Protected Area has launched in Rome last May 21 at the 'Representative Office in Italy of the European Parliament, the international ideas competition: "Becoming Europe - architectural ideas, creative and artistic to preserve the future of Europe", sponsored by the European Commission in Italy, which has concluded a series of five meetings for Europe. The competition is a summary of this work and aims to strengthen the dialogue between East and West, North and South, focusing on interculturality as another human face of globalization. E 'initiative open to those who feel the current theme of "becoming Europe" and that they want to promote cultural heritage through its experience of more passive witnesses of the various stages of the European journey. E 'in this perspective that are solicited proposals for architectural design ideas, creative, artistic. The competition is open to all citizens of the world and will be promoted through a series of meetings in different Italian cities, Europe and around the world, including Rome, Florence, Reggio Calabria, Naples, Brussels, Marseille, Berlin, Barcelona, ​​Athens, Bucharest, Jerusalem, Beijing, Shanghai, Kunming, New York, Boston, Buenos Aires. The announcement of the international competition , with its Scientific Committee is published on the site www.atelierpaema.eu and proposals must be received by the day January 15, 2013 , by email to at.paema @ gmail.com and offers will be evaluated from an authoritative evaluation commission .

http://www.atelierpaema.eu/info.html

From Religious Expression and Street Art pt 1

Derived from cholo-style tagging, LA artist Retna has made his mark

I've found this great post, keep on reading and enjoying the religious graffiti:

littlepictureBIGPICTURE

http://hopelw.com/blog/religious-expression-and-street-art-pt-1/

Gardens by the Bay. Singapore

Singapore’s national flower is the orchid. So UK-based team Grant Associates, a landscape architecture firm, and Wilkinson Eyre, an architecture firm, decided to use the structure of this epiphytic plant to model their new $545 million, 54-hectare Gardens by the Bay project in that city-state’s Marina South Gardens, which is just the first piece of a much bigger project (two more gigantic garden parks are coming). (....)

With this massive project, which was built on reclaimed, restored land, wealthy Singapore aims to become the “botanical capital of the world.” There are many elements (almost too many to go through), which include more than 225,000 plants. Just a few are new theme gardens that ”showcase the best of tropical horticulture and garden artistry.” Within these gardens, there are multiple horticultural collections, including the “Heritage Gardens” and “World of Plants.”

Perhaps the iconic element of the new super-park are the 18 “supertrees,” ranging from 25-50 meters high, which Grant Associates describe as a “fusion of nature, art, and technology.” These multifunctional engineered structures act like, well, trees, except they also create power for the park and light up at night. According to the design team, “they are at one level spectacular vertical gardens and landmark features, at another they are the environmental engines for the cooled conservatories, incorporating devices for water harvesting and storage, air intake, cooling and exhaust, photovoltaic arrays, and solar collectors.”

Picture, video and text from

http://dirt.asla.org/2012/06/27/with-gardens-by-the-bay-singapore-aims-to-become-the-botanical-capital-of-the-world/

What´s the oldest building in Los Angeles?

Los Sanchez Adobe. Picture by Robert Greene, 2012

I was convinced that the oldest building in Los Angeles was the brick restaurant at the Plaza Olvera (La Placita) but here´s my mistake: I forgot to include the adobe buildings. As far as I remember, the restaurant at La Placita is the first brick building in L. A.

The Editorial´s article at L.A Times, gives us a couple of possible examples, but the surprise is that the oldest building is this one in the picture above, Los Sanchez Adobe. Let´s read an excerpt:

Olvera st. market. Wikipedia.org. Picture by David Moore, 2005

The answer — the possible answer, anyway — is surprising. The oldest building just may be a somewhat down-at-the-heels, nondescript, asphalt-shrouded place in the Baldwin Hills, until recently the site of raucous late-night parties and complaints from neighbors in adjacent upscale homes and towering condos. It's no secret that this house in "The Dons" — as the area is called because of street names like Don Mariano, Don Luis and Don Tomaso — is old. It was already old when it became a golf course clubhouse in the 1920s, and older still when it became the headquarters of the Consolidated Board of Realtists, an organization of black real estate professionals who helped African American Angelenos buy and finance homes as restrictive covenants were being challenged in court. Los Angeles gave it a nod — but not much notice — in 1990, when the building, known as the Sanchez Adobe at 3725 Don Felipe Drive, was added to the list of Historic-Cultural Monuments as the last remaining piece of Rancho La Cienega o Paso de la Tijera. 

The oldest part of the structure may have been built in the early 1790s, making it older than Avila Adobe, maybe older than Mission San Gabriel, older even, perhaps, than the 1795 Gage Mansion in Bell Gardens, currently considered the oldest structure in Los Angeles County. Like Mission San Fernando, the Sanchez Adobe wasn't previously part of Los Angeles but it's an integral part of it now, and was perhaps great-great-great-grandfathered in as the city's oldest building amid growth and annexation. The Realtists long ago wanted to tear the building down as an eyesore, but in recent years they have learned much about its history and are keen to get it some notice and some love. 

County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas has upped interest in his district's rich architectural heritage, from the Village Green to the William Andrews Clark Library, from Watts Towers toRandy's Donuts, from Wilshire Boulevard Temple to the Dunbar Hotel; now he's spearheading an effort to study, and ultimately to restore and celebrate, the Sanchez Adobe. As Los Angeles celebrates its 231st, it's useful to remember that walking from Mission San Gabriel to the new El Pueblo and visiting the Avila Adobe, La Placita Church and the other historic buildings is one good way — but only one — to come home. Los Angeles' roots, though sometimes mysterious, run deep, through the San Fernando Valley, through downtown, through Baldwin Hills. The city that so often seems to lose itself somehow has a knack for finding itself again.

Published September 4th, 2012

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-adobe-20120904,0,6150135.story

An ambiguous animation painted on public walls in Buenos Aires