The Urban Dictionary gives these meanings for ‘bottle’:
1)Transparent Container, usually for liquids that is narrow, circular-based, mostly handle-less and with an ever-narrowing top, where the opening is found.
2) To hit someone on the head with a glass bottle, smashing the bottle in the process.
3) Guts or determination
4) Female with no volouptous features, in comparison to 1)
So ‘Yes’ for its urban space. But ‘No’ for its many garks.
A vacant London gark
Sometimes, I wonder if landscape architects have borrowed my diagram of the postmodern style and scanned it into their computers. But since this design for a reflecting pool and fountains at Children’s Park and Pond in San Diego, California (by Peter Walker) won an an ALSA award in 1998 it would be better to ask me if I used it when drawing my style diagram – in 1999. The answer would be ‘No’ and I would classify the design as ‘geometrical postmodernism’ rather than ‘ecological postmodernism’ or ‘functional postmodernism’. The Peter Walker website puts it like this: ‘ An outdoor space for the Children’s Museum, this project transforms the traditional elements of a park — turf, flowers, benches, shade, and water — into whimsical abstractions. The vast horizontal expanse of a two hundred-foot wide pond is reinforced by a circle of tall Mexican fan palms. A fountain animates the pool with a grid of Rainbird sprinkler heads. The monumental pond also articulates the intersection of the park and the linear Martin Luther King Jr. Promenade, as it is literally traversed by the tracks of both light rail system and train.’ – and the key word is ‘whimsical’.
Picadilly Gardens in Manchester, by EDAW, also resembles my diagram but the design was done in 1998.
Bill Gates is famous not only for revolutionising communications but also for being the proud owner of the largest green roof garage in Seattle.
Maserati recently ran a garage design competition…and entries included not only green garages…but an insanely cool garage that is everything about setting and concept (if just a little light on resolution).
The winning entry shown on this youtube clip is car as ‘art’ and perhaps might be a useful way of thinking ‘green garage’ for Lace Hill.
Anna Gilman Hill’s ‘Grey Garden’ in the East Hamptons is the setting for a movie on the lives of mother and daughter Little and Big Eddie. Anna Hill has been described as “one of the world’s greatest feminine horticulturalists.”
Yet the women who acquired her garden were challenged by the legacy she left them.
The Grey Garden, and the women’s struggle to maintain a viable garden in a beachside setting, somehow parallel their lives as individuals.
http://www.whatweretheskieslike.com/2009/03/grey-gardens-from-garden-perspective.html
Green cities in the US refer not only to an attempt to integrate the environment into the concerns of city planning, but also attempts at greening the economy of these cities. The measures that are applied to rank the cities include:
*public/private incubators for clean technology industries
* renewable energy
* advanced transportation
* advanced water treatment
* alternative fuels
*green building
*energy efficiency
It is said that “these indicators gauge, for instance, which cities’ public transit, renewable energy, local food, and development approaches are more likely to either limit or intensify the negative economic and environmental impacts of fossil fuel dependence.” Although these goals are admirable, they are really only concerned with a soft green economy, and don’t go close to the total economic transformation which seems to be called for if cities are going to continue to thrive into the future as places for human settlement.
OK, it’s a mess.
But what should a ‘Parliament Square’ be used for? Parliament-related activities, obviously.
London’s Parliament Square is a traffic island. When not being used for protests, it is empty.
So why not designate Parliament Square as an area for political activity. The activity should be orderly, as in the Houses of Parliament, but there should be free speech, as in the Houses of Parliament. And there should be an Outdoor Speaker to give varied political groups chances to express their views.
We have had years of talk about pedestrianizing Parliament Square – and I favour the idea. But I don’t want the Square to become a sales venue for international coffee chains. Relating the use of outdoor space to the use of adjacent indoor space is often a good principle and this is a wonderful place to put it to the test.
The above photograph, taken today, is of the Peace Garden and Democracy Village in Parliament Square. The protest began on 1st May and the Mayor of London won a court injunction to get it removed last week. An appeal is expected and then the tents are likely to be removed. The handsome statue brooding over the scene is of Benjamin Disraeli. He is famous for his wit, for extending the franchise and for making Queen Victoria the Empress of India. What would he think of the current Afghan War and the protest? I guess he would be against the war, on pragramatic grounds, and against the protest, because it is a mess. But if it could be an orderly Garden Protest, I think he would regard it as an enrichment of our democracy, as would I.
The below photograph, also taken today, shows that London’s police force is a much more liberal institution than it used to be. Multi-everything is the new political correctness.
