Over the past fifteen years, there has been a concerted effort by the Shanghai and Chinese National governments to improve air quality by encouraging the purchase of electric vehicles, including public transport vehicles. Recently, this included the implementation of electric (lead batteries) and hybrid buses in the lead up to the 2010 World Expo. Shanghai […]
Trying to get support for WLA
My landscape architecture blog – WLA has been a labour of love for 10 years and has luckily had supporters for about 6 out of the 10 years. It has always been hard to get financial supporters for WLA as it seems even now in the prosperous time’s people don’t see the value. WLA is […]
China | more thought needed about urbanisation
Rapid urbanisation of millions of Chinese has occurred and will continue to occur over the next 25-30 years. There is a change in focus from mega-cities to smaller cities and towns as the country transitions from exports to consumerism based economy. What has changed in a urban design focus have to do with economy? In […]
Public and Private Space
This week the protests continued in Turkey which began with the outrage at the privisation of Gezi Park, it is becoming clear that public open space is an issue that will always spark citizens to go into action to save their cities spaces. The Gezi Park example is a extreme case but all over the […]
Why do we accept mediocrity in landscape architecture?
Recently, I have watched videos with Bjarke Ingels, Rem Koolhaus, Fabrio Novembre, Marc Newson, Michael Van Valkenburgh, Karl Lagerfeld and many others to gain more of an understanding of idea generation and design in various industries. What struck me during watching these videos is the willingness of society (and some designers) to accept mediocre design […]