All engineers and urban designers should be made to walk on 35-40 degree days from my house to the local primary school with my children aged 5 and 6 and tell me what they think about streets without trees. This little graphic was given to Garden Beet from http://www.cobaeurope.com/ . The graphic is all [...]
Raw timber amongst asphalt and concrete is a soothing image. Couple hard concrete and the black bitumen with fresh green herbs and a layer of pea straw we have an urban greenery that vibrates good times. Nothing is more uplifting (for me) than watching shop owners vegetating their shop windows. Here is a [...]
I love this. I have waited 10 months to show this image and finally its the right month! If you are living in the northern hemisphere and you have not ventured to Australia during Christmas you may have little idea how disconnected our European influenced Christmas decorations and traditions are from the hot Australian [...]
The Europeans know how to tame the impact of cars on their villages. Above are photos of different urban squares in Sicily. The first image shows a piazza being used as a car park. The second and third image illustrate the use of these public spaces as a place for the pedestrian rather than the car. Timber [...]
Wallpaper Nov 2010 tells me that San Francisco is building parklets….turning car parks into planters…great…i am all for urban greening but please tell me this is not new? I am 40. When I was 10 they turned a car parking space outside my grandmothers home into a parklet….probably called a planting area back in them [...]
Deal foreshore (near Dover UK) must surely get an urban design makeover soonish as there are public liabilities all over the place. That roof on the rotunda looks like its about to fall. Please do not assume I think Deal needs a makeover I just suspect it is due for one due to its state [...]
Dear Highway Agency You are responsible for some of the most utterly bleak landscapes in the SE of England. For further reading on this subject please refer to my discussion with Noel Kingsbury and my previous article on English Landscapes of the SE. After 5 years of living in the UK the above photos show the [...]
When viewed as a whole the suburban landscape creates a fabulous pattern – the never ending front lawn surrounded by a herbaceous boarder, the single storey triple fronted brick veneer (or bungalow for UK readers), garden accessories and so on. The pattern is created by the entire landscape. Its not just the house. Its the house in its garden [...]
What the F*k is this? Its a FAKE garage door. Forget the fact that it is not being used as a garage – lets just pretend its a garage and everyone will be happy. Mr and Mrs Blah Blah restored their wonderful garage but they can not actually use it. Never mind a streetscape is [...]
The fabulous use of bridge abutments in the UK and Europe always amazes me. In Australia these spaces are dead. Abutments in Australia are usually home to the hardiest of Australian plants and acres of weed mat and not much else. A very inhospitable landscape. The top picture above is Richmond Bridge UK. The second photo is the eastern [...]
