Every week, we bring you the latest news in placemaking, landscape architecture, the nature-mental health link, and much more. Check back each week for new roundups and items.
A Chicago Park Learns from New York’s High Line
There’s no denying that the High Line, New York City’s famed elevated park, has captured the imagination of planners, designers and local leaders everywhere. Parks are suddenly big business. But might the High Line be too seductive? It’s not hard to imagine revitalization-hungry officials around the world spending as much as $1 billion in the coming years aping the crown jewel of 21st-century New York, and largely failing to make the return on their enormous investments. Yet as Chicago, St. Louis, Philadelphia and other cities prepare to turn their own derelict railroad corridors into green space, these cities are developing new strategies for building parks in the sky.
From Parking Lot to Paradise: The Revenge of Urban Agriculture
Urban agriculture during my baby boomer childhood in New York City, when postwar agricultural production became increasingly industrialized, amounted to simple school projects like rooting an avocado pit or a potato in the base of a sawn off milk carton. Today, however, we have home food production, urban farming, productive gardens, or whatever else you might want to call this movement, and it’s hot.
Superkilen: Global Mash-up of a Park
The nearly mile-long Superkilen park in Denmark is a bold attempt to create a new identity for an ethnically diverse and socially challenged neighborhood in Copenhagen, Denmark. An in-depth community outreach process organized by the city has led to a place like no other, with a sequence of plazas that honor different ethnics groups living in the area. This is not only original, but stunning to behold. It is noteworthy for its aesthetic approach, which is straightforwardly artificial rather than pretending to be natural. One of the project’s most exciting dimensions is its inclusion of the diverse community of users. Its bold use of color and public art in spaces that promote social interaction and engagement all exude a high level of excitement and energy through what once looked like residual space.
Easing Brain Fatigue With a Walk in the Park
With brain fatigue, you are easily distracted, forgetful and mentally flighty or, in other words, me. But an innovative new study from Scotland suggests that you can ease brain fatigue simply by strolling through a leafy park. The idea that visiting green spaces like parks or tree-filled plazas lessens stress and improves concentration is not new. Researchers have long theorized that green spaces are calming, requiring less of our so-called directed mental attention than busy, urban streets do. Instead, natural settings invoke soft fascination, a beguiling term for quiet contemplation, during which directed attention is barely called upon and the brain can reset those overstretched resources and reduce mental fatigue.
