Green utilities like soil, trees and water can provide a high level of ecosystem services while creating a more livable built environment. But designing spaces that satisfy the needs of both natural and built systems can be a challenge in urban areas.
Complete Streets – streets designed and operated to enable safe access for all users, including pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists and transit riders – make communities more livable, multimodal, and safe. They have also been related to broader economic gains. A new guide recently published by Smart Growth America and the National Complete Streets Coalition, with support from AARP, provides guidance on how to measure Complete Street project performance to demonstrate successes and better understand what’s working and what’s not.
The Landscape Architecture Foundation is now accepting applications for its 2015 Case Study Investigation (CSI) program. Deadlines Dec 12 and Jan 9.
How well do constructed landscapes live up to the lofty goals established by design professionals? And how do we know? University of Oregon graduate student (and former CSI research assistant) Andrew Louw is investigating this topic for his masters thesis. He is both trying to understand the role of post-occupancy evaluation (POE) within the landscape architecture profession and exploring the use of a digital data collection method for POEs.
