Every week, we bring you the latest news in placemaking, landscape architecture and urban planning, the nature-mental health link, and much more. Check back each week for new roundups and items.
How A City Changes The Evolution Of All The Nature Around It
“Most people reflexively think cities don’t contain nature, but in fact, they are complex ecosystems that just happen to be shaped by different evolutionary forces than an untouched forest or pristine lake. A set of 14 studies packaged together in the journal Biogeochemistry this month shows this in force, by examining the way cities are all over the United States–from Boston, Massachusetts to Tucson, Arizona- are shaped in the same consistent ways by the presence of modern urban societies.”
‘Sea Tree’ Is The Floating Green Oasis That Could Bring Nature To The City
“‘The waterfront no longer places a limitation on city expansion, in fact it is the new frontier!’ So begins the description for ‘Sea Tree,’ a futuristic nature reserve imagined by Netherlands-based architecture firm, Waterstudio. The wild design, still in the rendering phase, would bring floating steel structures to the shores of urban centers. And inside those steel towers, would be vegetated layers of habitable space, meant for both flora and fauna to flourish in spaces where land and wildlife is scarce. According to Waterstudio, Sea Tree would be built using the ‘latest offshore technology,’ similar to that used in building oil storage towers in the open ocean. But instead of housing oil, the towers would play home to plant and animal species, working to reduce CO2 emissions along the way.”
These Synthetic Landscapes Respond To Nature In Real Time To Protect Us–And The Planet
“Massive infrastructure doesn’t usually change until it’s falling apart and has to be rebuilt. If there are unintended consequences for the environment–for example, if a dam stops fish from migrating or a levee causes loss of land–that makes it difficult to adapt. Future infrastructure and human-built landscapes may be able to change in real time. Using a network of sensors to monitor an area, measuring everything from the health of plants and animals to air and water quality or things like aesthetics, new systems may be able to continuously respond to the environment.”
Inventive New Designs for D.C.’s 11th Street Bridge Park
“Six months ago, an exciting national design competition was launched for the11th Street Bridge Park in Washington, D.C. Expected to cost upwards of $40 million, the new bridge park will run 900 feet over the foundation of an old freeway spanning the Anacostia River, connecting historic Capitol Hill and Anacostia neighborhoods and creating a new venue for “healthy recreation, environmental education, and the arts.” The organizers say this new park will benefit 80,000 people in the immediate neighborhoods and hundreds of thousands more throughout the district. It may also help boost efforts to further clean-up the sewage-filled Anacostia River, which is still unsafe to swim in, and restore more of the moribund river ecosystem.”
