Sharing my finds, with the hope that you will share yours as well.
A New Yorker article about a performance space in an old water tank in Colorado led me to Michael Harrison's music in pure intonation, a complex form of musical tuning. A short post on Strong Towns about adaptive reuse of alleys made me wonder about the vacant, leftover spaces in my city. An article in the Washington Post reflected on the migration of companies to more urban areas, leaving behind jobless communities in the suburbs and abandoned real estate. The uses and appearances of the landscapes around us will continue to change. How do we decide what to preserve? How do we decide what to leave behind? What stories can we extract from these physical places?
I read through, at times with difficulty, Jesmyn Ward's memoir, Men We Reaped, about five black men she knew while growing up in the south. I was drawn to the strong descriptions of place that accompanied these traumatic narratives, and to the undeniable pull that the author seems to feel towards the place where she grew up. Despite the hardships she endured, she cannot help but return home.
Recent events in Charlottesville, Virginia and other cities prompted a necessary discussion about the role of monuments in public spaces. The National Trust for Historic Preservation released this statement on confederate memorials, describing different perspectives while acknowledging the critical difference between remembering and revering the past. Another piece on their website outlines a process for decision making, including several case studies and resources. A piece published earlier about the relationship between historic preservation and social justice became extremely relevant. The piece quotes William Murtagh: “at its best, preservation engages the past in a conversation with the present over a mutual concern for the future.”
Climate change is threatening historic landscapes. NPR's piece, "Mapping Coastal Flood Risk Lags Behind Sea Level Rise" (Listen) tries to alert us, again, to the reality that our flood maps still do not represent future risk. Sea level rise and global warming will increase vulnerability to flooding, and increase the amount of properties within the flood zone. Yet communities are resistant to even the most conservative updates. Is it the government's responsibility to force homeowners to acquire flood insurance? How we decide when it is time to abandon areas susceptible to frequent inundation? Where will the people go?
Not long after finishing the book, I stumbled across this video describing a project in Missouri, where a garden design helped a community heal after a deadly tornado. Michael Van Valkenburgh presents on the design of parks for people in this question and answer session courtesy of the New York Times. I loved reading through vignettes of park life in the newly installed Pulaski Park in my city, Northampton, Massachusetts.
If these readings, radio episodes, and videos still leave you hungry, you might check out the Dirt's list of podcasts for landscape architects, or Grow Native's uploads of lectures on plants and ecosystems. And because birds happen to be particularly good scavengers and recyclers, enjoy Audubon's gallery of birds being birds.
