This image below left was the first I saw of the Chinese city of Wenzhou where I now live. The bridge in the photo is the one disappearing off the top edge of the frame in the map on the right and the mountains are the big green patches at the bottom. They’re not alps […]
This article appears in the publication Infrastructure And Landscape produced by the Michael Graves College School of Public Architecture at Wenzhou-Kean University. I will post a link as soon as the book is published on ISSUU. Landscape has long been valued for its role in the creation and enhancement of public space and the recognition […]
The French left Shanghai with the former French Concession streets lined with plane trees. Many more trees were planted across the city in the 1950s and they continue to provide shade and coolth today. Streets like the one below are attractive and also very welcome on hot days. We now know that the bark and […]
This post appears as the article For The Birds in the publication Monument to Habitat Compensation Island, available on GoogleBooks. Habitat Compenation Island is a tiny sand construction in the Arabian Gulf that is easily missed, with the exception of a bleached billboard on its shore. A subtle addition to the Emirati culture of island-building, […]
If I were a tree I’d be starting to get very worried. There was no need to worry back when roof “gardens” were first proposed as they didn’t seem concerned about plants. Besides, there was still significant garden at ground level. However, the idea that Nature was something to be looked at rather than experienced […]
October 7: I love the times around equinoxes – they are the best seasons. They are complexly bold. For one, my apartment gets penetrated with sunlight right to its back wall. It is the only season when this happens for my window orientation. And it is during these seasons that day and night are the most expressed and pronounced. One is […]
Nature has been synonymous with Beauty for some time now. Despite what it’s about to do to us, we continue to have an image of Nature as something beautiful beyond bounds and an endless source of inspiration and PR blather for architects. That inspiration is without end because, try as one may, it’s simply not possible for […]
At least The Futurists were honest about it. Nature sucked for being too natural, too simple and too uncontrived. And, worst of all, because they hadn’t designed it – a situation they quickly remedied. Nature’s making a comeback – not in its abhors-a-vacuum sense but the more sinister sense of being an object of design once again. This time though, […]
When we have an architecture that fulfils no shelter need, it’s no surprise we get vertical farm proposals that satisfy no real food requirement. Vertical farms are not going to look like this. Ever. They’ll most likely look like this if they don’t already – sheds providing conditions suitable for plants to grow. Plants being plants, those […]
So what’s left then to ‘learn’ from Nature? We’re still very quick to want to do it but what have we ‘learned’ so far? It’s time for a quick roundup. In the not-so-dark ages before Architecture was invented, people managed to work out how to build buildings that suited how they wanted to live, using […]
PHASE 1: Cost-effective building performance (more from less) This is an Icelandic turf house. They’ve been around for say, 1,000 years – about since the time of the Vikings, let’s say. The turf provided better insulation than wood or stone which were difficult to get enough of anyway. Technically, I suppose, we’ll have to include […]
But I don’t think we do it for all the right reasons. Reason No.1: WE CAN’T HELP IT Biophilia is the innate affiliation people seek with other organisms, and especially with the living natural world. Studies have shown that given freedom to choose the setting of their homes or offices, people across cultures gravitate toward […]
