Gardens and public spaces can be funny as well as beautiful:
Patch Adams said, “Humor is the best antidote to all ills.” And I strongly agree. Life’s lighter with more laughs. Sydney Morning Herald’s Robin Powell writes about Canadian architect Claude Cormier’s exploration with humour in Toronto’s gardens and public spaces.
Claude Cormier et Associes launched in Montreal in 1994, and now has international recognition for his exclusive works in public spaces. Cormier’s projects explore the history and ecology of a place, its contemporary context and sometimes add in a little funny element too.
Powell writes, “Cormier believes that not just our parks but our streetscapes can do a better job of telling stories and bringing human relationships into public space, using colour, light and a sense of humour.”
Powell describes the Berczy Park fountain in Toronto, which celebrates locals and their ‘love affair with their dogs’. He writes, “You can’t see it and not smile.”
Read on for an antidote of laughs with the full article here.
Philadelphia is taking the city back to the past by reinstalling free ‘pay phones’:
We live in a world saturated with new forms of communication. And a phone is no longer just a phone. It’s a mini computer that lives by your side, morning and night. What if you want to ‘unplug’ and not be contactable 24/7? Jacalyn Wetzel of Up Worthy introduces us to PhilTel, a Philadelphian telephone collective reinstalling payphones. It’s a flash back to the past, a “pay phone” with a twist, no quarters needed, and free-to-use.
Mike Dank, co-founder of PhilTel, felt inspired to create communication accessible to everyone. According to opensource.com, Wetzel writes Dank as saying that PhilTel provides residents who are either choosing not to be ‘plugged in,’ or who are unable to afford phones, with a communication platform to navigate their lives.
Wetzel writes, “…the phones will be free to use and that includes making nationwide calls.” Wetzel writes that this is a great solution for allowing access to a phone for everyone, though “one has to wonder if the name will get updated. I mean, they’re not really pay phones anymore.”
Street Furniture Australia’s entire product range and manufacturing operation has received carbon neutral certification through Climate Active™. Achieving carbon neutral certification marks a significant milestone in our operation and the culmination of a four year long process of detailed measurement and analysis. Climate Active™ is the only Australian government-backed carbon neutral certification programme for businesses to measure, reduce, and offsets their carbon emissions. It is one of the most rigorous carbon-neutral programs in the world. An approved Emissions Reduction Strategy (ERS) is central to achieving certification through Climate Active. Street Furniture Australia has elected to use SBTi validated science-based targets to ensure their ERS is meaningful and aligns with the 2015 Paris Agreement – to limit global temperature rises to 1.5℃ above pre-industrial levels. For those emissions that can’t be …
Linea Bin is the newest addition to Street Furniture Australia’s minimalist Linea range. Built from stainless steel for strength, durability and a refined aesthetic, it has been thoughtfully designed with input from landscape architects and waste managers to deliver hygiene, accessibility and sustainability in the public realm. Built to LastA robust stainless steel frame and panel system ensures Linea Bin performs in high-traffic environments. A full-height stainless steel 316 piano hinge and splash tray provide exceptional strength, hygiene and corrosion resistance, withstanding daily impacts from trolleys and cleaning equipment. “Durability was paramount,” says Pearson Bulmer, Senior Industrial Designer at Street Furniture Australia. “Every detail needed to perform in the public realm for years to come – but also be designed for disassembly so parts can be repaired, replaced or recycled …
With the look and feel of natural timber, backed by 12 months of performance testing for the public realm, engineered wood joins Street Furniture Australia’s selection of batten materials. Designers and place custodians can now choose from three batten options to achieve a timber look: natural Spotted Gum hardwood, low maintenance aluminium Wood Without Worry, and engineered wood known as Onewood HRT. See our Engineered Wood: Onewood HRT brochure or book a presentation. What is engineered wood?Onewood HRT (Homogeneous Reconstituted Timber) is a solid engineered timber, made from fast-growing FSC certified poplar and eucalyptus fibres that are compressed under heat and pressure with a resin binder. It is solid throughout with an organic grain and, like real hardwood, can be sanded to refresh. Street Furniture Australia partners with a Singapore-based …
In rapidly urbanising Seoul, the next battle is saving green spaces: “Korea is a country that does not value greenery,” professor of landscape architecture at Pusan National University, Hong Suk Hwan, told Bloomberg CityLab. It “only acknowledges the value of property.” Samgmi Cha writes about South Korean local, 34-year-old Baik SooHye inspiring the shift of devaluing green spaces in South Korea to saving these spaces. SooHye’s ‘Plant Kindergarten’ project encourages the protection of hundreds of plants that are often destroyed at construction sites across Seoul. Cha meets SooHye in her outdoor garden in western Seoul with the many plant species that she’s saved from these sites. The rescued plants are ‘adopted’ out to others who are also passionate about green spaces in Korea. SooHye says, “I see ‘Plant Kindergarten’ as my …
What a ‘sponge city’ designed to withstand extreme flooding looks like: After extreme flooding in cities of China in 2012, urban designer Yu Konjian coined the term ‘sponge city’ as one solution to climate change. Lisa Abend writes for Time: “Instead of paving over the land with impermeable concrete and asphalt, he proposed adding green spaces that could act like sponges and absorb excess rain water.” Abend writes that cities aren’t built for extreme weather conditions; that building with asphalt and concrete increases heat and gives water nowhere to go. Konjian’s alternative would allow the natural flow of water in green spaces. In Australia the term ‘water sensitive urban design’ is more commonly seen than ‘sponge city’, associated with techniques to ease flooding or “filtering and storing rainwater so that …
Strategic green spaces: How to make the most of their cooling effects We’re all aware of the cooling effects of green spaces for mitigating the climate crisis in cities. However ArchDaily’s writer Maria-Cristina Florian writes that greening and cooling strategies should consider how to improve climate outcomes beyond simply achieving ‘green coverage’. Strategic planning is a prerequisite in ensuring green spaces create the most impact for urban environments. Florian explores three strategies to optimise cooling effects: Green corridors and climatological planning Florian emphasises the importance of understanding, protecting and harmonising with the natural world surrounding a city. She references a meteorological study from 1939 in Stuttgard, Germany, which found that the city’s position in a valley basin with low wind speeds, combined with heavy industrialisation, were causing poor air quality. …
