Landscape Architecture

Kaid Benfield spotlights an innovative federal program that is "not very well known but deserves to be." The "Greening America’s Capitals" program aims to make America's state capitals showpieces for green infrastructure and green building practices.

January 30, 2013 - NRDC Switchboard

As new studies show the fundamental connection between trees and human health, cities are recognizing the essential elements in cultivating thriving urban canopies. And they're enacting policies to ensure their protection and growth.

January 28, 2013 - Next City

James Sallis, this year’s winner of the Bloomberg Manulife Prize for the Promotion of Active Health, discusses the obstacles to increasing opportunities for physical activity in our communities, and how to overcome them.

January 24, 2013 - National Post

Cartographic Grounds, a recent exhibition at the Harvard Graduate School of Design — now online at Places — seeks to "reconcile the precision and instrumentality of the plan with the geographic and territorial scope of the map."

January 23, 2013 - Places Journal

Philadelphia spends $64 on parks and recreation facilities per resident, one of the lowest totals in the nation. Ryan Briggs uses the city as a lens to examine the growing impact of budget cuts to park systems on their surrounding communities.

January 22, 2013 - Next City

Shannon Mattern visits a "a publishers’ enclave" that is seeking to reinvent Korean publishing, architecture and urban planning in the wetlands near the Demilitarized Zone.

January 22, 2013 - Places Journal

Paris, Barcelona, New York City...Cleveland? Like the oft-hidden urban oasis that are the subject of this article, you may come across some surprises in Crai S. Bower's list of the best cities for pocket parks.

January 21, 2013 - MSN

Edwin Heathcote looks at "fumbling attempts at creating new forms of urbanity" and "new ideals of beauty" in cities like Milton Keynes, Rotterdam, and Dubai, and asks if we can still create urban beauty, or if it's even desirable in the first place.

January 14, 2013 - The Financial Times

In Chicago, like in many cities, local food production comes in many forms, from small backyard crops to community gardens. Researchers are now using Google Earth to paint a more accurate picture of food production at different scales.

January 13, 2013 - NPR

Broadening our definition of parks to recognize their role in preventative health care and promotion will only expand our awareness on how important they are to good neighbourhood design.

January 11, 2013 - Steven Snell

After 5 decades of abandonment, and recent inspiration from the much-lauded High Line, a rusty railway stretching three-and-a-half miles through central Queens may become NYC’s next elevated greenway.

January 10, 2013 - New York Times

Alan G. Brake looks at the ambitions of Dallas's newly opened Klyde Warren Park. Built atop a trenched highway, the park "attempts to merge sophisticated contemporary design with walkable urbanism" while uniting two downtown neighborhoods.

January 8, 2013 - The Architect's Newspaper

Angel Jennings reports on the opening of renovated Del Aire Park in unincorporated Los Angeles County, home to the state's first public orchard.

January 7, 2013 - Los Angeles Times

In the Bronx, three acres of newly planted wetlands were destroyed by Hurricane Sandy. As New York seeks to fortify its coast, should it rebuild this 'Paradise in the Bronx'?

January 7, 2013 - The New York Times

As this video from The Perennial Plate, a web series about sustainable food, demonstrates, rooftop gardening is becoming a global phenomenon.

January 6, 2013 - The Atlantic

The Dirt reports on the 2013 landscape architecture graduate and undergraduate program rankings published recently by DesignIntelligence.

January 4, 2013 - ASLA The Dirt

We've known for decades the better ways to do things, for greater urban health, sustainability, resiliency, vibrancy and economic success. So this year, let's resolve to have the will and skill to get past the short-term politics, the rhetoric, the market momentum, and the financial self-interest that has kept our better solutions from being realized.

December 31, 2012 - Brent Toderian

The opening of a half-mile trail along the Los Angeles River, after a decade of funding and construction snags, marks the latest step in the city's effort to reclaim its forsaken river as a public resource.

December 30, 2012 - Los Angeles Times

San Francisco's 1985 downtown plan required large new office and hotel developments to incorporate public spaces, but the city is only now updating the requirements and reinforcing the initial goal of opening up privately owned public spaces (POPOS).

December 20, 2012 - The Atlantic Cities

Charles A. Birnbaum marks the milestones that have contributed to landscape architecture's growing stature over the past year.

December 19, 2012 - Huffington Post