Category Archives: Landscape Architecture

Imagine AIA’s neighborhood

Posted on April 20, 2015 by David Brussat

Then there’s this! Here are the 10 award-winners for 2015, just announced by the American Institute of Architects. Imagine throwing them together into a “neighborhood” alongside the winners of the AIA’s previous decades’ worth of residential design competitions. Consider how … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Development, Humor, Landscape Architecture | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

Capturing Charleston charm

Posted on April 16, 2015 by David Brussat

Here are more than a few photos of Charleston. There are none of the city’s beautiful civic buildings on this post. Instead, I’ve tried to reveal the breadth of ornamental elegance in all of its 50 shades of great, from … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture History, Art and design, Development, Landscape Architecture, Photography, Urbanism and planning, Video | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments

Surprise! Walkers can drive

Posted on March 28, 2015 by David Brussat

City Lab has an article by Eric Jaffe called “Toward a Simple and Universal Law of Pedestrian Behavior” that belongs in the files of the Department of Redundancy Department. Not that it isn’t interesting. To a flâneur like me, anything … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Uncategorized, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Cret’s wandering WWI shaft

Posted on March 6, 2015 by David Brussat

Warren Lutzel has kindly sent me a portrait of architect Paul Philippe Cret’s monument originally erected in 1929 at Providence’s Memorial Square to commemorate World War I. The square looks almost bucolic in the painting above but in time grew … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture History, Art and design, Landscape Architecture, Providence, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

The landscapers’ gentility

Posted on January 27, 2015 by David Brussat

The American Society of Landscape Architects plans to turn its headquarters, on Eye Street in Washington, into a “world-class” Center for Landscape Architecture. Shudders ran up my spine as I saw the article that said so, by an anonymous contributor … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

The granularity of cities

Posted on January 2, 2015 by David Brussat

The University of Oklahoma’s Institute for Quality Communities has developed a website that offers superimposed maps of major American cities. The maps cover identical territory in each city, and you can slide a line in the middle to reveal the … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Development, Landscape Architecture, Preservation, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , | 7 Comments

Quack troops invade capital

Posted on December 28, 2014 by David Brussat

A friend and I drove through the swath of redevelopment land where Route 195 used to be. We wanted to view the new street infrastructure. We were yukking it up over the “art” when we had to stop to review … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Development, Humor, Landscape Architecture, Providence, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Girding against the Granoffs

Posted on November 11, 2014 by David Brussat

A neighborhood meeting I had thought might blow up in anger last night instead displayed a steely determination to resist a sneaky subdivision of the Granoff estate behind a stone wall at Blackstone Boulevard and Rochambeau Avenue. Last week’s meeting … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture History, Development, Landscape Architecture, Preservation, Providence, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Hard to build unnatural park

Posted on October 28, 2014 by David Brussat

The parks committee of the Route 195 Redevelopment District Commission met yesterday afternoon to hear WaterFire generalissimo Barnaby Evans urge, late in the design process, that the western end of the proposed pedestrian bridge be raised to let the river … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Development, Landscape Architecture, Providence, Rhode Island, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

A landscape urbanism primer

Posted on October 28, 2014 by David Brussat

Architect Marc Szarkowski, responding to news that the so-called landscape urbanists are helping to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the famous British gardener Lancelot “Capability” Brown (1716-1783), offers this chart on how to design a park from the landscape-urbanist perspective. … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture History, Humor, Landscape Architecture | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment