Mother Knows Best: Designers Smart to Play by Nature’s Rules
Nature at the Confluence in South Beloit, Illinois, incorporates all native species for the meadow and other landscape areas, and the walls are made of exposed aggregate from the adjacent Rock River. When designing spaces for a park, road, campus, etc., it’s not unrealistic to expect our work to be replaced in a few decades.… Read More »
Tags: Conservancy, Ecosystem Functional Conflicts, Landscape Architecture, Nature, Nature-Based, Sustainability, Sustainable Sites Initiative
Grants Make Essential Dam Fixes Fiscally Feasible
By Pete Haug, PE Dams, like any other type of infrastructure, eventually need repair, reconstruction, or modification to improve safety and extend their useful life. Dams also sometimes need to be abandoned and removed. Whether it’s making repairs or taking a dam out completely, it all costs money. Case Study: Pigeon River Dam Consider the… Read More »
Tags: Dam, Dam Removal, Dam Repair
10 Powerful Elements Bring Public Spaces to Life
By Chris Silewski, PLA How do you make a space great? Design it for its intended uses but with flexibility for those uses to change over time. And give people not just a single focal area in which to congregate but at least 10 ways to engage with the space. Look carefully, and you’ll notice… Read More »
Tags: Placemaking, Power of 10, Public Spaces