Trees are effortlessly artful. This artfulness may be part of why they have such a calming and restorative effect on people and can elicit such powerful emotional attachment. Trees are also functional infrastructure. You can debate which role is more valuable, but from an economic standpoint, infrastructure usually wins hands-down. That’s one reason why recent… More
Last month’s Landscape Architecture Magazine had an interesting feature by Mike Singer. The article, titled “Are We Done Yet? Measuring for a project’s success is keeping clients and designers engaged well after installation,” explores an emerging trend in the field: extended contract periods to address the long-term success and performance of the site’s landscape.
There are so many reasons why trees are beneficial in urban areas. This abundance of evidence can have the strange effect of sometimes making the benefits we cite feel like platitudes rather than proven, compelling facts (“trees are so great, here’s a million reasons why…” *staring off in to space*). For that reason, as much… More
New York has an ambitious Green Infrastructure plan, and lately their enhanced bioswales have gotten additional attention. These five foot by twenty foot planters look great from street level, so why do I feel uneasy about them?
This video of time-lapse root growth from the Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station and the Soil and Water Conservation Research Division of the USDA was done in the 1950s or ’60s. It’s a looong video, but it’s pretty neat.
There’s no arguing that, at first glance, the Silva Cell just looks like a hunk of black plastic. Its humble and basic form definitely doesn’t reflect the extensive design, testing, and engineering that has gone in to it. Here’s a brief overview of the why the Silva Cell is the way it is.
Back in March, we introduced our Stormwater Schematics for the first time. Last week’s webinar reminded me that I want to make sure everyone knows about these as they consider how they want to use the Silva Cell on their site. The Stormwater Schematics (look under the Standard Details, Specifications, & Schematics section) are there to help designers… More
Snowfall seems to have happened very late all across the country this winter, but now that it’s here, most people are trying to find ways to get rid of it. But salt, while effective for deicing roads and streets, can have extremely detrimental effects on trees, causing things such as necrosis, burned tips, or failure… More
The specifications for most construction project are filled with seemingly endless phrases of precision such as “not less than 100 percent maximum density,” “no variation greater then ¼,” “shall be at least .005 in thickness,” “minimum strength of 3,000 psi,” etc. Why is this? Buildings, bridges, roadways, utilities, and the like are all intended to… More
Through my work with DeepRoot, I’ve come to love and appreciate trees – especially urban trees – in a way that I never anticipated, so much so that I recently became a certified arborist. But my greatest love, since I was very little, was for animals. There is an intersection between these two interests, of… More
This post is now out of date! Please see the updated post here. In the day-to-day, we can become so focused on what isn’t working with the way we design and plant street trees that it can be difficult to focus on the people and places that are actually doing right by them. It’s just so… More
I read a lot of news stories about development projects described by words like sustainable, walkable, dense, and multi-use. These characteristics are experiencing a real surge in emphasis from both a design standpoint and from media coverage, and rightly so. They are some of the pillars of community design that support the physical and economic… More
Soil. Stormwater. Sustainable Infrastructure.
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