GRASS PROPAGANDA FOR CHILDREN

It seems the US Americans have been teaching children that surburbia is good and urbanism is bad ever since 1952. Thanks alot!



"The best place to find peace and happiness is in a little house on a little hill way out in the country." I daresay this is how most architects, at least in Norway, still think, 82 years after the death of Ebenezer Howard and 45 years after the death of Le Corbusier. Let lawns and fresh air save the morale of the working classes!

HIPSTER CALVIN

Somehow, I always had the feeling Bill Watterson was talking about contemporary architecture here. Or maybe Calvin's just another hipster.

PS. Wikipedia has a short article on the fallacy called "Appeal to novelty". Have a look.

A MACHINE FOR LIVING IN

"In modern architecture, every day is April Fool's Day" -David Brussat

(What's "modern" anyway? Oh, nevermind.) 

SUNSET IN AN EMPTY CLASSROOM

I stayed at school until midnight yesterday, supplementing the Client project. Still not finished.

SIZE MATTERS

Note to self: Remember to make scale models big enough.

GLASS AND GRASS

A riddle: What do urbanism and landscape architecture have in common?

Not too long ago, the (still mostly academic) phenomenon of landscape urbanism came to my attention. It seems its supporters are trying to revive the notion (delusion?) of the tower in the park, as made popular by Le Corbusier. They're promoting a literally green urbanism, with urban agriculture, surface water treatment, green roofs, using native species of plants and often placing buildings apart from eachother in mini-parks instead of creating streets and squares. I love green stuff, but I'm not sure if this approach will be able to provide the social spaces needed to create good places for people to live their lives in.

Fighting against the pedestrian-friendly, anti-sprawl movement based on traditional urbanism called New Urbanism (their website is full of interesting information, if not very good-looking), the proponents of landscape urbanism don't seem to mind our society being entirely car-dependent, excluding anyone who can't drive. Part of their point also seems to be a sort of anti-planning,  ideally leaving the growth of city to the collaborations between individual citizens, but in reality, to commercial interests. Landscape urbanists now run the architecture department at Harvard and several other important schools, and should be taken seriously, especially by anyone who believes that walkability is important. 

However, they also seem to be very good at raising an ecological awareness and analyzing the land they're working with. In my opinion, landscape urbanism happened because New Urbanism lacked some central elements. Perhaps they ought to be integrated?

The Boston Globe's Leon Neyfakh's article called Green Building is a good introduction to the development of Landscape Urbanism for anyone wanting to learn more.

I also recommend all architects to read the article A Tire in the Park by Emily Talen, a critical, but far from one-sided analysis of this rather new phenomenon. 

Finally, have some fun with the Landscape Urbanism Bullshit Generator. (This ought to look very familiar to any of my co-students at BAS.)

PETULA CLARK

Promoting mixed-use development since 1964.

"Downtown everything's waiting for you".

Song composed by Tony Hatch.

GOTTA LOVE THOSE HEAVY BRICK WALLS

This is the Littlejohn Memorial Chapel at Scotch College, Melbourne. Love at first sight. (Online, that is. I've never been there in real life.) The building was completed in 1937, but I've not been able to find out who the architect was. Picture from Wikipedia.

DESK STATUS/NOT A LLAMA

No, it's not a llama. As the bandsaw at school is broken again, the pieces of wood I planned to make houses of were suddenly quite useless, and I just stacked them on top eachother to clear a small part of my desk. I love stacking.

VIEW WITH LIGHT

Today's view from our classroom window. (Yes, there's only one window.)

STEINER

Celebrating Rudolf Steiner's 150th birthday, I'm posting a picture of his Goetheanum, the centre of the antroposophical movement. Steiner had ambitions of creating a spiritual and organic architecture, avoiding right angles as much as possible, and using cast concrete to create rounded and expressive (and sometimes perhaps a bit overwhelming) shapes. I think we still may have things to learn from him.

TREE-COLUMN

Construction and tectonics week at school. I'm doing something having to do with building a tree-shaped column made of stone. Will be back with more.