(a) biotic design studio

6.26.2012

PA-DE ASLA Student Awards

Image by Anna Anisko, Sue Ann Alleger, Tracey Lee-Carney and Bing Han

During the fall of 2011 Emily, along with colleague Dan Sharp, taught the "Public Lands" graduate-level studio in Temple University's Landscape Architecture Program. The purpose of the studio was to collectively imagine possible design interventions that could enhance and improve the quality of the residents' lives for a community that is plagued by toxic pollutants and repeated flooding . The community lies within the Lower Darby Creek Area of Delaware and Philadelphia Counties in southeast Pennsylvania and includes 2 abandoned landfills (Clearview and Folcroft landfills), a community park, the Heinz wildlife refuge, and several neighborhoods and schools. In addition, the area has a rich and complicated history of being an important route along the underground railroad, and also being home to one of the largest urban renewal projects in the country. The academic exercise aimed at creating Sustainable Framework Plans at the community-scale and Landscape Designs at the site-scale for the community and represent the ideas of the students, molded by community input through a student-crafted survey.

Two students from the studio, Anna Anisko and Donna Shumpert, won Honor Awards for their designs from the PA-DE ASLA Chapter. Anna won the honor award for general design for her project Clearview Environmental Farm and Donna won an honor award for analysis and planning for her project Energy Tanks. Both students, along with their classmates, devoted much time and resources to this project and the community. Congrats Donna, Anna and fellow students to a job well done!

For more information and images of the projects, please visit the class website here http://www.spandesigncan.org/eastwick---clearview-landfill.php.

Image by Anna Anisko

Image by Donna Deanne Shumpert

6.22.2012

MicroIntervention: YETA / Lab Zero

Italian architect FlavioGalvagni brings us Yeta, a completely off-the-grid prefab structure that is made almost entirely out of glass and wood. It resembles the stacks of tree trunks that typically dot Alpine pastures and forests. The base model "features a mini-kitchen and a mini-bathroom with shower. The wooden shell is insulated and the glass has a thick double layer to ensure warmth in the winter. Its flexible design means it can be fitted in different ways, according to need. Yeta also comes with a mini-photovoltaic system that frees it from the electrical grid. It measures 3.8m x 4.4m and is 3.3m high."(1)

(1) http://www.archdaily.com/181324/yeta-lab-zero/#more-181324

6.20.2012

Dis-intervention: Abandonded (Pseudo) Disneyland

Picture courtesy of designyearbook

45 minutes outside of Beijing towards the Great Wall of China, stands one of China's most amazing ruins: Disneyland....or rather what would have been an imitation of Disneyland. "Occupied around 100 acres of land, construction of ‘the largest amusement park in Asia’ stopped more than a decade ago. Funds were withdrawn due to disagreements over property prices with the local government and farmers. So what is left are the skeletal remains of a palace, a castle, and the steel beams of what could have been an indoor playground in the middle of a corn field." (1)

There are plenty of examples of this sort of amusement park abandonment all over the United States in the wake of superhighway expansion. However, this example of decaying concrete, rusted steel, and flaking paint may prove to be more dangerous to our short term global economy. Property sales which represent 10 percent of China’s growth and analysts worry that a massive increase in inflation will burst this speculative bubble.(1) Environmentalists worry about unchecked and irresponsible growth regardless of what nation spawns it and that negative economic impact is generally the handmaiden of poor environmental stewardship.

Picture courtesy of designyearbook.com

(1) http://www.designyearbook.com/2012/06/deserted-fake-disneyland.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DesignYearBook+%28Design+Year+Book.blogspot%29

6.19.2012

Food Trucks: A Micro Intervention Counter Argument?

Photo courtesy of stoffersgroup.com

Treehugger.com asks an interesting question: yeah food trucks are great and all, but what do they do for the environment? More throw-away packaging and an idling engine potentially compromise the social and urban opportunities created with these meals on wheels. There is an old argument that it is unfair to the brick and mortar folks who pay taxes and jump through hoops to help their business and city function. The counter to all of this of course is that a "rising tide raises all ships" where we can look at the prestige that can be associated with a city known for its food trucks as a net gain.

Tough questions. If you want to take Treehugger's survey, click here:
http://www.treehugger.com/urban-design/are-food-trucks-good-thing-survey.html

6.18.2012

Cloud Terrace

Photo courtesy of caoperrotstudio.com

"Cloud Terrace takes the form of a hand‐sculpted wire mesh cloud suspended over the terrace and embellished with 10,000 genuine SWAROVSKI ELEMENTS water‐drop crystals mirrored in a reflecting pool. The Arbor Terrace is one of the most modified spaces in the Dumbarton Oaks Gardens. Originally designed by Beatrix Farrand in the early 1930s as a simple rectangular herb garden bordered on the west by a wisteria‐covered arbor and on the east and north by a hedge of Kieffer pears, it was refashioned by Farrand’s former associate Ruth Havey in the 1950s as a pot garden centered on a Rococo‐style parterre with low, Doria stone parapet walls. The space can be hot and bright; cao | perrot’s installation is a response to these conditions, extending the shade of the arbor across the terrace and animating the space inside the parterre with an oval pool surrounded by pebbles. (1)

The project was supported by SWAROVSKI ELEMENTS, who provided the crystals used for the installation. It was organized by John Beardsley, Director of Garden and Landscape Studies at Dumbarton Oaks, and Gail Griffin, Director of Gardens."
Dumbarton Oaks Press Release (March 28, 2012)(1)

Dumbarton Oaks, Washington DC
cao | perrot studio with J.P. Paull (Bodega Architecture)
Wire mesh, steel posts, cut crystals SWAROVSKI ELEMENTS, reflecting pond, plants(1)

(1)caoperrotstudio.com

6.15.2012

Macro Intervention: A Play Street in Amsterdam

Photo courtesy of landezine.com

Potgieterstraat is situated in inner Amsterdam, in a context of 19th century buildings dating back to the first big enlargement of Amsterdam. Amsterdam is world renowned for its walkability but this street in particular was heavily dominated with vehicle traffic. In addition, new bike lanes had infortunately infringed upon the sidewalk rather than the vehicluar lanes.(1)

Carve Landscape Architects' response was to create a "Play Street" where the entire street was closed to all but bicycle and pedestrian traffic.

Photo courtesy of landezine.com

(1) http://www.landezine.com/index.php/2012/06/potgieterstraat-by-carve-landscape-architecture/

6.14.2012

Andropogon Announces New Director of Integrative Research

Photo courtesy of Andropogon

(a)biotic's own, Emily McCoy has just been promoted to Direct of Integrative Research at Andropogon. This is a great step forward for Emily, Andropogon, and the profession...if you know her say congrats!

Read more about it here:
http://androblogon.tumblr.com/post/25091533357/integrative-research-at-andropogon

Brunce Munro Light Exhibition at Longwood Gardens

Photo courtesy of thisiscolossal.com

Artist Bruce Munro (previously) just opened a new exhibition at Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania including a number of impressive translucent silos constructed from bottles. The exhibition will be up through September 11. Images above via Corriette Schoenaerts and Linden Gledhill. (1)

Photo courtesy of thisiscolossal.com

(1) www.thisiscolossal.com/2012/06/new-brunce-munro-light-exhibition-at-longwood-gardens/

6.13.2012

Cypress Guitar

In General LeValle, Argentina seventy year-old Pedro Martin Ureta delivers a creative twist on the fact that a guitar is made of trees with a tragic love story as it's heart. This particular guitar is unique in that it is made of 7,000 trees, can never be played, and can be seen from space. Ureta embedded the design into his farm many years ago, and maintains it to this day, as a tribute to his late wife, Graciela Yraizoz, who died in 1977 at the age of 25.

Pedro Martin Ureta's late wife, Graciela Yraizoz,
who died in 1977 at 25. Photo courtesy of WSJ

One day while traveling in a plane over the pampa, Ms. Yraizoz noticed a farm that, through a fluke of topography, looked a bit like a milking pail from the air, her children say. That's when she started musing about going one better and designing the family's own farm in the form of a guitar, an instrument she loved. (1)

As with many ambitious young men, Mr. Ureta was too busy to tend to his wife's project and later, after her passing, decided to complete the work as a tribute to her. Today, Mr. Ureta says his wife's passing turned his life in a more philosophical direction. ¨I stepped back for a time,¨ he says. He read about Buddhism. Mr. Ureta says a line by an Argentine folk guitarist and writer, Héctor Roberto Chavero Aramburo, stuck in his head: "I galloped a lot, but I arrived late all the same." (1)

His giant guitar is an unusual example of what's known as land art, in which forms are built into the natural environment, said Nancy Somerville, chief executive officer of the American Society of Landscape Architects. (1)

You can see it here in Google Maps:

View Cypress Guitar, Argentina in a larger map

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