Banking on green

ASLA have just published a white paper outlining that "green infrastructure solutions save taxpayer money and provide community benefits by managing stormwater where it falls.

Banking on Green: How Green Infrastructure Saves Municipalities Money and Provides Economic Benefits Community-wide, is a response to the need to further quantify the economic benefits of green infrastructure."

Excellent news, but something I think we all feel intuitively is just common sense. It's a shame that governments have to be persuaded towards common sense solutions in the first place, with the argument (report/white paper etc..) costing money to put together in the first place.........

Livehoods

Excellent research project from the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University.

"Re-Imagining the City in the Age of Social Media: Livehoods offer a new way to conceptualize the dynamics, structure, and character of a city by analyzing the social media its residents generate. By looking at people's check-in patterns at places across the city, we create a mapping of the different dynamic areas that comprise it. Each Livehood tells a different story of the people and places that shape it."

Maps, I can't get enough of them......

Trees

"We have underestimated the importance of trees. They are not merely pleasant sources of shade but a potentially major answer to some of our most pressing environmental problems. We take them for granted, but they are a near miracle. In a bit of natural alchemy called photosynthesis, for example, trees turn one of the seemingly most insubstantial things of all — sunlight — into food for insects, wildlife and people, and use it to create shade, beauty and wood for fuel, furniture and homes."

From an article over at The New York Times.

The tree is the Major Oak, a very famous tree if you know the story of Robin Hood and only 5 miles from where I was born.

Got wind today?

Get busy with this great step by step guide on how to build a kite......

Seth Godin

I like this post.

 

If your happiness is based on always getting a little more than you've got...

then you've handed control over your happiness to the gatekeepers, built a system that doesn't scale and prevented yourself from the brave work that leads to a quantum leap.

The industrial system (and the marketing regime) adore the mindset of 'a little bit more, please', because it furthers their power. A slightly higher paycheck, a slightly more famous college, an incrementally better car--it's easy to be seduced by this safe, stepwise progress, and if marketers and bosses can make you feel dissatisfied at every step along the way, even better for them.

Their rules, their increments, and you are always on a treadmill, unhappy today, imagining that the answer lies just over the next hill...

All the data shows us that the people on that hill are just as frustrated as the people on your hill. It demonstrates that the people at that college are just as envious as the people at this college. The never ending cycle (no surprise) never ends.

An alternative is to be happy wherever you are, with whatever you've got, but always hungry for the thrill of creating art, of being missed if you're gone and most of all, doing important work.


Many more interesting thoughts here.

It's all in a name, or is it?

An interesting post over at love outdoor play by Wendy Russell is worth checking out. Should we use the term "nature deficit disorder" or is it too prescriptive (if that's the right choice of word)......

I'm not a big believer in giving power to words and maybe rely more on the doing rather than the discussion (there's a discussion in there somewhere but it won't come from me)....... so I hope that this doesn't detract or distract from the focus of the debate.... and that is getting kids outside........

Architektur für Kinder

Really great blog found via playscapes.

There is so much information on playgrounds and the architects, landscape architects and designers who were involved; Lady Allen of Hurtwood, C.Th. Sørensen and Richard Dattner to name just a few.

Truly impressive.

Anyone involved in designing outdoor spaces should check this out. Because, let's face it, outdoor spaces are used by kids too......

Thanks to google translate I found out that it is a research project on the history of the playgrounds and in 2013 will hopefully be turned into an international exhibition.