From today's
Wall Street Journal comes the story of developers building new housing on farms. But unlike most subdivisions, which cover up all the arable land with houses, these developments preserve working farms. The new developments are being built across the country, from Vermont and Virginia to Michigan and Indiana. From the article:
Catering to Americans' desire to live "green," developers around the country are creating communities on or adjoining farms, pitching views of sorghum fields, grazing livestock, and local--very local--food, such as eggs residents collect from the property's henhouse. The communities, however, aren't necessarily in the boondocks. Some are in suburbs or near cities.The key to making these new developments sell may be their location relative to urban centers. Bundoran Farm in Albemarle County, Virginia, is less than ten miles from the college town of Charlottesville.
The Washington Post's business section has started a new series of articles on curb appeal. In each article, a landscape architect helps a local homeowner make the homeowner's house look more attractive from the street. The
first article came out this past weekend and features
Sandra Clinton, ASLA, who helps a homeowner in Eckington (a neighborhood in northeast Washington, DC) make her property give a "more romantic" feeling on a budget.
Click through to read "Add a Little Romance and a Lot of Green."
April 30, 2007 10:48 AM
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Residential
This new 600-acre development in Florida's Panhandle might just put New Urbanism on its head,
reports the St. Petersburg Times. "Sky" is not based on bucolic, early 20th-century communities, but rather on an attempt to recreate the hamlets of the Middle Ages, with clusters of homes surrounded by fields and garden plots. The project, largely self-financed, is scheduled to break ground in 2008 and be completed by 2018.
From the article:
[Developer Bruce] White's medieval prototype development will come with such modern luxuries as tennis courts, a spa, coffee shops, and the latest in high-tech energy efficiency.The development has also scored a $1.8 million grant from the state of Florida to use renewable energy technologies on-site.
The Dirt has yet to confirm whether the moat will be a graywater or harvested rainwater system.
Check the
project's website for more details and images.
February 21, 2007 9:38 AM
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Residential
Laurie Olin, FASLA, talks about the upcoming super-dense urban Atlantic Yards project in next week's
New York Observer, available online today.
When completed, Atlantic Yards will house 16,000 residents in just 22 acres of land. From the article:
“It’s the future: how to live wisely and well in close quarters with good spaces and environmental conditions and with the highest qualities. What a project!” Mr. Olin exclaimed. “Holy smokes! That many thousands of people in such a tight space, and to try to give them something wonderful that they’ll love. That’s fun. It’s hard, too.”
Read on for a fascinating look at Olin's firm, his relationship with architect Frank Gehry, and more.
January 31, 2007 4:42 PM
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Residential
The Dirt has mentioned architect and suburban
agent provocateur Fritz Haeg's Edible Estates before
in passing, but it's worth your time to visit
Archinect today and read Haeg's extensive interview conducted by fellow landscape architect Amy Seek. Haeg's Edible Estates hopes to bring back the Victory Gardens of World Wars I and II by turning average suburban lawns into working gardens to feed whole families and neighborhoods.
January 17, 2007 7:36 PM
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Residential
Sometimes it's a rusty old tractor, sometimes it's a priceless Calder, clients have wanted gardens designed around a range of objects.
A number of examples of are given in this Washington Times article.
Every object calls for a different garden, says
Lila Fendrick, ASLA, owner of Lila Fendrick Landscape Architecture in Chevy Chase, Md. Proportion and color are top considerations when selecting plantings, she advises.
Some landscape architects are seeing a growing demand for sculpture gardens.
Inhabitat has
a nice post today on
Sun Bricks, a cool product that can bring a little sustainable mood lighting to your hardscapes. The pavers are the size of standard bricks and include a clear panel of LEDs over two solar panels, with no wiring, so they can be simply slipped into a walkway in place of standard bricks. Neat trick, and nice looking too. That said, they're 60 bucks a pair, which seems kind of pricey to us. What do you think?
Don't garden angry!
The Dirt loves discovering new blogs and we were just alerted to one for residential junkies called
GardenRant, which covers everything from
anti-sprawl gardens, to
working with a landscape architect, to
the whole gardening-on-TV thing. We got a note from Susan Harris--one of the Ranters, I guess you'd call them--asking us to check them out, and we liked what we saw. Harris also mentioned that GardenRant would love to have a landscape architect guest write for them, as well. So, if you're into that sort of thing, head on over there and take a look.
October 18, 2006 6:25 PM
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Residential
Except when we're talking about residential hardscapes.
Home Improvement magazine (zero relation to the Tim Allen series with the same name) has a nice little piece on the value of hardscapes for the home landscape to create outdoor rooms and optimize minimal yard space. The article includes some sage advice from our favorite cable TV star,
Dean Hill, ASLA, and a nice sidebar on material selection by
John A Tikotsly, ASLA, President of ASLA Southern California.
Go check it out.
September 27, 2006 1:59 PM
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Residential
Thirty-five pages of landscape architecture bliss. The October/November issue of
Garden Design magazine is out now, and features the recipients of this year's ASLA/Garden Design Residential Awards. The magazine went all out for this issue, which was co-published by ASLA, reshooting many of the projects for the magazine, printing plans, and including sidebars on design philosophy, materials, and more for many of the projects. It's a great way to see these wonderful projects, and adds some nice perspective. Go buy several copies and hand them out to your friends.
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