Artist/environmental sculptor Ran Morin’s “Floating Orange Tree” in Jaffa, Israel: the dawn of “urban forestry” in the ancient port’s historic center.
Category: sustainability
Making wok-able urbanism more walkable
Discussions by Christopher Leinberger and others frequently reference “walkable urbanism,” premised upon increasingly compact, dense neighborhoods.
Ironically, on Seattle’s Capitol Hill, one of the city’s best examples of such neighborhood form, the evening depictions below show the historic, auto-based Dick’s Drive-In as a pedestrian center. Nearby, a classic parking area stands in front of a wok venue.
As the everyday urbanism of neighborhoods such as Capitol Hill evolve, chances are that “wok-able” and “walkable” will more completely align.
This article appeared in slightly different form in Crosscut, here.
two new postcards of “urban renewal”: cottage style and green
The Thoreau-like cottage first identified here presents imagery of renewal in the urban woods. Collectively, these vignettes present a city cabin on the way to rebirth in an era of green, retaining existing walls as an element of land use permitting, in order to facilitate such rebuilding in a constrained, hillside setting. Small-scale projects like this one may be the true harbingers of the changing American metropolis.
“streets for people”–the watercolor
If watercolors had graced Bernard Rudofsky’s 1969 book, Streets for People, perhaps this Middle East representation would have appeared in the chapter, “The Street is Where the Action Is”. PS: For those wanting to move beyond Jane Jacobs, Rudofsky is a must-read.
