My Bookmarks
People-Mapping Through Google Street View
Places Journal
A study comparing images of New Orleans in 2007 and 2016 found a striking increase in the number of people (and bicycles) occupying public space.
The Last Fire and the Next One
Places Journal
It’s fair to ask whether we should rebuild in disaster-prone areas. But aren’t we all vulnerable now, to one degree or another? The landscape of disaster is changing.
Traces of Traces
Places Journal
On the documentation of military landscapes by four American photographers: Richard Misrach, Jan Faul, Peter Goin, and David Hanson.
Washington Park Cemetery
Places Journal
Photographing the history of disruption at an African-American burial ground in St. Louis.
Perpetual Neglect
Places Journal
The racism that plagues African Americans in life is perpetuated in death. Today there is nothing less than a preservation crisis for Black burial grounds across the country.
Curious Methods
Places Journal
On the mud flat of the Great Salt Lake, two landscape researchers follow Gregory Bateson and Bruno Munari in search of a mode of practice that “probes” but does not “prove.”
The Mustard Gas in Sherwood Forest
Places Journal
The idea that violence leaves an invisible trace on the land has captivated artists and writers for centuries.
Isthmus: On the Panama Canal Expansion
Places Journal
The shockwave of Panama Canal expansion is reshaping cities throughout the Americas. We need to look through the lens of landscape, not logistics.
The Gray Scale
Places Journal
The Boundary Monuments along the U.S.-Mexico border were erected back in an era content to mark the border with dignified stone sentinels.
Speculative Archaeology
Places Journal
Faux-ethnographic dioramas, modern interiors reimagined as psychedelic ruin-worlds, invented histories of proto-architecture: archaeology, as model or metaphor, has been surfacing a lot in art practice and design theory.
The Trash Heap of History
Places Journal
How Monte Testaccio, Rome’s ancient landfill, can inform contemporary reclamation projects.
Building on Burial Ground
Places Journal
A vivid look at the American way of death, from Mt. Auburn to Forest Lawn to LCD-enabled eulogies.
Champion Trees and Urban Forests
Places Journal
Personal epiphanies, tree farming, and a plan to save the planet: a review of “The Man Who Planted Trees.”
Designing Indian Country
Places Journal
Suppose Native America is not over, that there is no “after colonialism.” How do we create public spaces that enable true contact between cultures?
The Things They Piled
Places Journal
Mountains of petcoke in Southeast Chicago finally came down this month. Terry Evans photographs an industrial landscape in transition.
The Lost Graves of the Morganza Floodway
Places Journal
The story of a small Louisiana church relocated by Mississippi River engineers so the area could be designated as floodable territory.
Nowhere and Everywhere: The Colorado Delta
Places Journal
Aerial photographs of a fragile yet resilient ecosystem that has been a casualty of the water wars that have shaped the American West.
Camino del Diablo
Places Journal
A photographer’s journey along the Camino del Diablo in the Sonoran Desert, much of which is now a bombing range, reveals a landscape of forbidding danger and compelling beauty.
Past Perfect: Four Freedoms Park
Places Journal
On the controversial politics of presidential memorials, from Kahn to Halprin to Gehry.
Heartland
Places Journal
Aerial photographs of the disturbed, cultivated, militarized landscapes of the American Midwest.
The Chinese Dream
Places Journal
In booming Guangzhou, rural migrant workers find their first footing in one of the city’s many urban villages. But what happens when the land becomes more valuable than the village?
“The Spectacle of Growth”
Places Journal
The São Paulo Architecture Biennial examines the wave of economic and urban development reshaping Brazil.
Viral Cities
Places Journal
How can cities prepare for a viral pandemic? An architect traces the links between urban design and public health, from the plagues of medieval Europe to the H1N1 outbreak.
A City in Search of Good Fortune
Places Journal
The profitable yet troubled port of Buenaventura, Colombia, is battling paramilitary gangs, drug traffickers, and corruption. Are the proposed solutions part of the problem?
Below the Sill Plate: New Orleans East after Katrina
Places Journal
An architect describes a multi-year effort to rebuild neighborhoods in post-Katrina New Orleans — and the limited results to date.
Tahrir Square: Social Media, Public Space
Places Journal
It wasn’t the Facebook revolution. An urban historian in Cairo argues that the occupation of public space was vital to the Arab Spring.
Look Only at the Movement
Places Journal
Two artist-designers follow nuclear waste shipments on American highways.
The Temptations of Survivalism
Places Journal
Is self-sufficiency an illusionary goal? How independent can any building — or city — really be?
Housing and Hope
Places Journal
The global struggle for housing as a human right emphasizes the relationship of secure housing to personal dignity and full citizenship.
Visualizing the Ends of Oil
Places Journal
Photographers Edward Burtynsky and Chris Jordan have struggled in different ways to visualize and critique the effects of our dependence on oil.
Ecology and Design: Parallel Genealogies
Places Journal
The word “ecology” has been co-opted so widely that it has lost real meaning, yet it remains a powerful lens for designers working with complex adaptive systems.
The Occupation of 123 Delancey Street
Places Journal
How a band of “dirty little artists” liberated a vacant public building on the front lines of urban renewal, on the Lower East Side of New York City.
Tent City, America
Places Journal
Tent cities are now so common that advocates are campaigning to make them semi-permanent settlements of micro-housing. But is this a genuine solution or a cheap fix?
Yangon: History of the Present
Places Journal
Emerging from a half century of dictatorship, can Myanmar’s principal city be a model of sustainable, democratic development?
Makeshift Metropolis
Places Journal
Unplanned, informal settlements are home to a billion people worldwide.
Your Sea Wall Won’t Save You
Places Journal
Negotiating rhetorics and imaginaries of climate resilience in Jakarta, Manila, Ho Chi Minh City, and Bangkok.
Art Village: A Year in Caochangdi
Places Journal
An artist working in Ai Weiwei’s studio describes her volatile year in a Beijing arts district that was threatened with demolition.
Design with the Other 90%: Cities
Places Journal
A Cooper-Hewitt curator surveys socially responsive urban design in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.