Every week, we bring you the latest news in placemaking, landscape architecture, the nature-mental health link, and much more. Check back every week for new roundups and items.
Take Two Hours of Forest and Call Me in the Morning
“These days, screen-addicted Americans are more stressed out and distracted than ever. And nope, there’s no app for that. But there is a radically simple remedy: get outside. Florence Williams travels to the deep woods of Japan, where researchers are backing up the surprising theory that nature can lower your blood pressure, fight off depression, beat back stress—and even prevent cancer.”
Using Green Space to Heal Returning Veterans
“Extensive research supports the value of green space in urban contexts and of nature in helping people with a variety of disorders. Tidball, an Army veteran, wondered what restorative powers nature might hold for soldiers and other trauma victims.”
Designing the Urban Landscape
“Martha Schwartz, a professor at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, explains in a Yale Environment 360 interview how creative landscape architecture can help cities become models of sustainability in a world facing daunting environmental challenges.”
Holiday Plant History
“Some of the more interesting holiday plant facts we’ve uncovered so you can impress your family, friends, and colleagues while sipping on a poinsettia (1/2 ounce Cointreau, 3 ounces cranberry juice, and a champagne float) and enjoying a handful of chestnuts (Castanea sativa) at your festive upcoming gatherings.”
Libraries and Their Landscapes
‘‘Si hortum in bibliotheca habes, deerit nihil.’’
(If you have a garden in a library, nothing is missing.)
So wrote Marcus Tullius Cicero to his friend Terentius Varro on June 13, 46 BCE, later recorded in his ÂLetters to Friends, Book 9, Epistle 4.
Cicero was suggesting a garden in the library, where he could spend his time in a natural setting, reading, writing, and conversing with his colleagues. This ancient idea can also apply to contemporary thinking about libraries and their landscapes. How do we thoughtfully place a library in the landscape? And how can we create outdoor spaces that work in concert with the library interior.
