Have you taken down your holiday decorations? Mine are long gone, but I can’t help but post this front landscape and accompanying roof garden (resplendant with pre-holiday decor) because not only is the garden just so cool, but I kind of love the way the pointsettias and the pretty stars play to the landscape in such a charming way (even after the season!). It is place appropriate holiday decor at it’s finest.
This home belongs to Adrianna Lopez (who is clearly my ‘orange door’ soul sister) of Long Beach California, and was featured today on Apartment Therapy (see the whole house tour here).
Whose ready to get back into a regualr schedule? ME!! While I am not going to shut-up any time soon about Leaf Magazine (have you read it yet?) – I am going to take a little break to try and get back to some regularlity. First up a Tursday before and after — right here, right now, on Friday — a day late — but whose on time, right?
This is from Nicolas Lebas in Lyon France. He is a garden designer there and made over this roof for a friend…to be honest, I am not sure if there is actually a ‘before’ shot in this bunch, so I am going to just share my favorites of the afters….
I am particularly enjoying the casual and slightly rustic vibe that doesn’t try too hard — and the views!! (Is that the Cathedral de Notre Dame in Lyon in the background?). As per usual, Southern France is endlessly appealing and oozing style.
July 13, 2011 at 1:04 pm
· Filed under Art, Rooftops
Nuria Mora has a new installation on a rooftop by the East River in New York City. It’s not jsut a painting, but a garden, in the most artisitc sense. And I kinda adore it’s simplicity. More about Nuria’s process here.
And if this kind of thing intrigues you — check out this video.
Happy Monday!! I’ve got a a little blockade of draft posts to clear out today (Now that I am past Friday’s Bluehost image rejecting drama). This is a quickie — then I have to make an airport run and I will be back again later today.
This totally hip garden by Sebastian Mariscal is located in Tijuana, Mexico — Proving that even in the most blighted of cities, there are design happenings and interesting people making seductive green spaces. (click through to Sebastian’s website to see even more images). It’s location alone is inspiring to me, but that stacked wood entrance wall is plain sexy with it’s slightly un-done, rough around the edges way and it’s little peep shows.
Have your jumped on the vertical garden bandwagon? No? Is it because it all seems a bit tricky? Maybe you (like me) worry that you might ruin your walls? Perhaps if you could use Germain Bourré’s Etagères potagères system, things could get a lot easier and less stressful?
It’s a self contained wall unit for plants — kinda like a botanical bookcase. It’s one of those completely simple and elegant solutions that once you see it, you will ask yourself why we haven’t seen anything else like it on the market before.
Might I also mention that the bench in this picture above is so pretty (though I have no idea who makes it).
Having only recently been introduced to Natalie Jeremijenko by way of a new facebook friend, I am excited to share one of many interesting and exciting ideas by this Artist/ Engineer/ Scientist. I am sure as I spend time deeply delving into her work, I will find myself sharing more of her great ideas.
Natalie and her colleagues have created a health clinic – like those that humans and animals might employ when we are sick – for the environment. With this view, they prescribe remedies for problems ailing our planet and our environments. On the ailments of degraded water quality and overflowing and polluted storm drainage, west nile virus, pedestrian sidewalk slipping hazards and excessive dog pee on sidewalks, they have prescribed NoParks.
NoPark returns “no parking zones” (mostly associated fire hydrant placement) to low growth mosses and grasses. These micro engineered green spaces prevent storm water run off, use foliage to stabilize the soil, and to provide a durable low maintenance surface cover. These microparks continue to provide emergency parking space for fire trucks and exasperated Fresh-direct delivery persons (emergency vehicles can still drive over them as needed and they will re-generate). But the other 99.9% of the time they now do something more. For all the same rationales that apply to green roofs, greening the no-standing zones is a good thing. Practically, noPARKS capture more water than green roofs (not being limited to carrying capacity of the 2″, 4″or 6″of soil that roofs require). These no parking/standing zones are often situated where water collects, capturing the oily runoff from the road before it runs into the river. noPARKs recharge and replenish soil moisture on the block important to trees — even yards away — to help them dilute the gallons of uric acid poured on city trees plots each day by friendly neighborhood dogs. Less water puddling decreases pedestrian slipping hazards. Lastly, the noPark reduces the number of standing water pools that are left for days, which are the perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes. In this way, the noPark may reduce the need for widespread fumigation to combat West Nile virus in New York City.
In her TED presentation (which you can see here) — fast forward to about minute 7 to the the bit about NoParks – Natalie describes how No parks could mathematically eliminate all runoff pollution. (Aggregated, with 2-3 fire hydrants on every city block, if each were converted, the emergency parking system could infiltrate all the road borne pollutants for up to a 7 in rain event)
It is a remarkable idea and I am not sure why we aren’t already doing this every single city.
More about Natalie:
Natalie Jeremijenko is an artist whose background includes studies in biochemistry, physics, neuroscience and precision engineering. Jeremijenko’s projects, which explore socio-technical change, have been exhibited by several museums and galleries, including the MASSMoCA, the Whitney, Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt. A 1999 Rockefeller Fellow, she was recently named one of the 40 most influential designers by I.D. Magazine. Jeremijenko is the director of the environmental health clinic at NYU, assistant professor in Art, and affiliated with the Computer Science Dept.
