Symbiosis of Room and Nature: Solarlux

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With its moveable glass facades, German family-owned company Solarlux is blurring the lines between outside and in seamlessly merging the outdoors with indoor living spaces.

As far back as Roman times, windows have been used as an architectural design element and light source. Over the course of time and due to the evolution of technology, small panes of glass have given way to the desire for larger, movable glass facades. It stands to reason that the greater the proportion of glass, the more daylight can enter the interior. This is most desirable due to how natural light increases the feeling of wellbeing within the home and provides both positive physical and psychological effects. So, its no surprise that the illumination of rooms using daylight is a fundamental element of new buildings and renovations.

The surrounding external space becomes part of the interior - shaping and creating a seamless link between architecture and nature.

Bright rooms are not only healthier, visually they also appear larger. This is because large area window and facade solutions remove spatial boundaries between inside and outside. So the surrounding external space becomes part of the interior and helps to shape it creating a link between architecture and nature. This effect is further enhanced by movable glass elements, which offer not only boundless views, but also open up space across broad areas.

Dr Peter Kuczia is an architect who, in many of his projects, creates a connection between inside and outside using movable glass facades. A perfect example of his work is the Wormhouse a detached house in Zablocie, Poland, for which he won the German Design Award. The avant-garde exterior of the building opens up completely to nature. The environment outside enters the interior, thus visually expanding the living space. This was made possible by the folding glass wall from Solarlux.

The flexible, bi-folding door can be unfolded across the entire width of the room, with the connected glass elements stowed away neatly and narrowly on the side. Even with the glazing in a closed position, spatial conventions are dissolved, creating extraordinary, almost limitless spatial impressions. This is because the filigree aluminium profiles with a face width of only 99 mm offer maximum transparency.

As an architect, it is fascinating to see how a room changes, whose glass wall can be simply folded away completely without frames or posts.

Peter Kuczia: With Solarlux, you simply have great technical parameters from sound insulation and burglary protection to very good energy efficiency. But as an architect, it is fascinating to see how a room changes, whose glass wall can be simply folded away completely without frames or posts. The effect is huge, even for me as a professional. The landscape, the forest are brought into the house.

Solarluxs wide range of movable window and facade solutions has also convinced other well-known international architects such as Foster + Partners. They designed the new Ocean Terminal in Hong Kong a glazed extension to a shipping terminal that also attracts people due to the unique views of the city it offers visitors. The architectural concept allows visitors to experience the unique atmosphere of the surroundings inside the building itself. The interior-exterior relationship was implemented with the aid of the large sliding window cero. Extremely narrow profile views of only 34 millimetres, a daylight component of 98 per cent and elements up to six metres high create maximum transparency and make for generous views.

Glass facades and energy efficiency need not be a contradiction in terms. With well-thought-out technology, they can be highly thermally efficient all the way up to passive house level such as the bi-folding door and the sliding window cero. And they can even serve to optimise the energy efficiency of a building. For example, Solarlux balcony and facade glazings full-length transparency makes room boundaries disappear, but also acts as an additional outer shell and thus as a heat buffer.

Internationally active and based in Melle, Lower Saxony, Solarlux have been pursuing their mission for over 35 years. All products are developed in-house, manufactured with passion and precision, and meet the Made in Germany quality standard. As a partner in the planning and implementation of construction projects, this German, family-owned company specialises in providing comprehensive support to architects. Care and inventiveness are skilfully combined always with the aim of developing the optimum solution for every project, no matter how demanding.

Read more about Solarlux on Architonic.

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Symbiosis of Room and Nature: Solarlux - ArchDaily

For about the past year and a half, the Rothko Chapel has been closed for a $16 million restoration ahead of its fiftieth anniversary, in 2021. Those involved with the project are careful to call it a restoration, not a renovation, because the goal is to realize painter Mark Rothkos original intentions for the space, which were never properly executed.

Completed in 1971 and located on a tree-lined block in Houstons Montrose neighborhood, the Rothko Chapel is a modernist icon that is on the short list of any tour of must-see art or architecture in Houston. But describing the structure itself is oddly difficult. Its a stand-alone octagonal building whose one room houses a permanent collection of paintings created specifically for the space. But its not exactly a chapel, a gallery, or a museum, although its partly all of those things.

So why all the fuss? To its devotees, the chapel is sublime: a darkened cosmos that facilitates powerful spiritual experiences. The space, which features fourteen dark paintings by Rothko, is famous for being dim and moody. Its a sensory deprivation chamber that also functions as a theological deprivation chamber. Many customary signifiers of religionstatues, altars, stained glasshave been stripped away. It is, as Houston architectural historian Stephen Fox puts it, a space that seems sacred for a post-religious world.

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Enthusiasts have long described how, if given a chance, the chapels stark minimalism can pull you out of your day-to-day mundanity and force you to turn inward. As Carol Mancusi-Ungaro, a conservator for the Whitney Museum of American Art, in New York, wrote in 2007, The Chapel . . . leaves you alone with yourself, your thoughts, your emotions, your vulnerabilities. . . . The artist did not want the paintings to come out to you; he wanted them to draw you in.

The idea underlying Rothkos art, especially the chapel, is that you sit and stare and stare and stare, and after a while you enter a heightened state ofhallucination? Soul-baring interiority? Boredom? Or all of the above, because no two single experiences of the chapel are the same. The nature of every encounter with the chapel, its supporters say, depends on what you bring to it.

But the same minimalism that some people love has also made the chapel an easy punching bag for critics. The space is dark. It has a facade only a mother could love. It offers nothing to hang on to beyond inchoate experience, which could also be said about a lot of pretentiously vacuous art made in the decades since. Texas artist Seth Alverson bluntly said of the chapel, Its a place where art and life and imagination go to die. Even New York art critic and artist Brian ODoherty, who was a great defender of Rothko, referred to it in 1973 as at worst a well-designed crematorium.

The critique often extends to the paintings themselves. Gallons of ink have been spilled about their color subtleties and their many restorations. But regardless of how perfectly lit they are or how well theyve held up over the decades, the fact remains that they are essentially black monochromes. Dominique de Menil, who, along with her husband, John, commissioned Rothko to create the chapel, reportedly said of her first impression of the paintings, Frankly, I expected color. Rothko, for his part, noted that it had taken him a year to decide what he wanted the paintings to be: something you dont want to look at.

Admittedly, it may be facile to draw a direct correlation between light colors and happiness and dark colors and sadness. But many people find the chapel to be depressing. Personally, I have visited the chapel many times since I was a child, and I have yet to be transported by it. Whats interesting is that Rothko himself probably would have been unhappy with the way the chapel has looked all these years. Although he envisioned the space as muted and meditative and made paintings to achieve that effect, it has never looked as he imagined it.

The chapel interior restoration in progress, including its new skylight.

Photograph by Arturo Olmos

In the sixties, Houston art patrons John and Dominique de Menil offered the New Yorkbased Rothko the opportunity to design a chapel for the citys University of St. Thomas, a private Catholic college. A Russian Jew by birth, Rothko did not practice religion in any conventional sense. But he jumped at the chance to design a Catholic chapel with modernist sensibilitiesnot another church filled with crucifixes, as his son Christopher says, but something that would speak to a contemporary mind and a contemporary spirit.

The project encountered difficulties from the start. The architect Philip Johnson was initially commissioned to design the chapel where Rothkos paintings would be installed. But the chapel wasnt big enough for those two colossal egos, and Johnson walked off the project early on when it became clear that Rothkos ideas for the building had no room for Johnsons. (Looking at Johnsons design now, its hard to imagine the triumphal building with its sixty-foot spire as the Rothko Chapel. Johnson wanted showy architecture, which could not be further from the low-ceilinged brick structure that Rothko envisioned.) Rothko now had total design control over the chapel, which is exceedingly rare for artists.

Rothko rented a large carriage house in New York City where he could experiment with a scale model of the room. The building had a big skylight that he loved, and he decided his chapel would have one, too. He had regarded the studio as a place to model the chapel, and he ended up modeling the chapel on the studio: it would be an octagonal space with a single large skylight, its most important architectural element and the primary source of light. His dark paintings would exist in a soft glow of natural light that would reflect the changes in season, weather, and time of day.

It was beautifulin theory. But there were practicalities to work out, and in early 1970, three years after completing the paintings but before construction of the chapel began, Rothko committed suicide. In the wake of his death, the de Menils were left to parse out his intentions: What Would Rothko Do? Dominique de Menil must have keenly felt the onus to fulfill the late artists wishes, given the monumental solemnity of the chapel, his final commission. To further complicate things, the de Menils had a falling-out with the University of St. Thomas, moved the chapel off campus, and made it nondenominational, with an interfaith mission of uniting people from different religions. (Its unclear if Rothko ever knew that the chapel would not be Catholic. After his death the de Menils stuck to his design as envisioned, which is why the chapel retains echoes of Catholicism: its fourteen paintings likely correspond to the number of the Stations of the Cross, and one of its triptychs has a raised central panel that plainly suggests an altarpiece.)

Barnett Newmans Broken Obelisk, outside of the Rothko Chapel, during renovations in Houston onMay 18, 2020.

Photograph by Arturo Olmos

Finally, construction moved forward. When the chapel was completed, however, a new problem emerged: the skylight. Rothko never visited Houston, but Philip Johnson knew Texas light, having already designed the de Menil house and other buildings in the state. Hed warned that a large skylight in Houston wouldnt achieve the soft, ambient, Upper East Side light that Rothko wanted. He was right.

People who visited the chapel when it first opened, in 1971, spoke of a column of light that blazed into the room, simultaneously damaging the paintings and obscuring them, cast as they were in relative darkness around the perimeter of the space. All the subtleties of the paintings vanished in the intense Texas sun.

And so began years of attempts to try to get the lighting right. First, the curators installed a scrim over the ceiling. This proved insufficient, and in 1976 the decision was made to install a giant baffle that blocked much of the skylight. The baffle worked, sort of, in that it successfully dimmed the light. But it also exacerbated the chapels gloominess. Most visitors have never seen the chapel without this black spaceship (as Christopher Rothko puts it) hovering above their heads. Many people dont even realize the chapel has a skylight.

The baffle didnt just lower the ceiling and darken the space excessively. It also meant that the windowless chapels single connection to the outside world, its pressure valve, in the words of Christopher Rothko, was gone. Ancient sacred buildings often had an aperture in the roof that could symbolize a connection to the transcendent (think of the Pantheon in Rome). Perhaps because we think of Rothko as a gloomy figure, we assume that he intended for the chapel to be an intensely somber space. But while he meant for it to be dark and contemplative, he surely didnt want it to feel like a cave of despair.

Blue tape outlines where Rothkos paintings will be rehung after the restoration is complete.

Photograph by Arturo Olmos

A detail of the new skylight.

Photograph by Arturo Olmos

Blue tape outlines where Rothkos paintings will be rehung after the restoration is complete.

Photograph by Arturo Olmos

A detail of the new skylight.

Photograph by Arturo Olmos

Given the skylights importance to the chapel, no effort has been spared to get it right. The new skylight was designed by the Washington, D.C., lighting firm George Sexton Associates, which has worked on prominent museums and houses of worship around the world. The skylight it created is made up of multiple layers of UV-resistant glass screened by louversessentially large venetian blindsto mitigate Houstons harsh daylight.

In addition, the spaces glass doors, added to the interior of the chapel in 2000 to ward off excessive humidity that damaged the paintings, have been removed; this restored an entry foyer that feels more spacious and elegant. Theres also a smart new visitors center across the street. In a second phase of construction (the timing of which has been thrown into uncertainty by COVID-19), a new archive building and a programming center will also be built, allowing for more events and for the memorial services, weddings, receptions, and bar and bat mitzvahs the chapel has always hosted.

Perhaps the most significant change for some visitors will not be the chapel itself but the area outside. The Houston office of the Virginia-based landscape architecture firm Nelson Byrd Woltz has taken a forgettable patch of landwho knew the Rothko Chapel had a side garden?and made it inviting, with long, pleasant alles of birch trees. Theyve also replaced the forbidding wall of bamboo around the chapels reflecting pool with a more porous and attractive border of tall Savannah holly.

Enormous thought, effort, and money have gone into this project. The chapels many fans should be pleased. But will the changes also change the hearts and minds of its critics?

I recently visited the chapel, still under construction but with the skylight installed, on an overcast afternoon. The light in the room was more even, ambient, and brighter than I remembered. It was still gloomy, but more pleasantly sopensive, rather than melancholy.

Stilland with the caveat that I have not seen it with the paintings reinstalledI remain unmoved by the chapel. While I have grown to appreciate the sincerity of Rothkos ambition, which I think was to deliver no less than the experience of a different plane of existence, two things prevent me from joining the ranks of worshippers: my personal taste and my approach to faith. To love the Rothko Chapel, you have to love modernism, a historic movement that pushed abstraction, both in art and architecture, to its logical dead end. The modernist architect Le Corbusier said that a house is a machine for living in, and I think the Rothko Chapel is a machine for worship. I have always found it to be a little too dry and puritanical, although perhaps its not the sparseness I object to so much as the zealous sanctimony it inspires in some people.

As for faith, there is the art of religion, and there is the religion of art, and the Rothko Chapel aspires to embody both. With the art of religion, you dont have to buy into the religion to love the art. By contrast, the chapel is a religion unto itselfit demands that you believe in it. Without any theology at its core, however, that belief is unfixed and open-ended.

To put it another way, all religions tell stories, and the Rothko Chapel has no stories to tell. Whether this is an asset or a flaw depends on your point of view. Like any religion, the chapel comes down to a question of faith. You either believe in it or you dont.

The Rothko Chapel is scheduled to reopen in mid-July with a limited capacity, timed tickets, and visits limited to thirty minutes. It will remain free.

This article originally appeared in the July 2020 issue of Texas Monthlywith the headline Let There Be Light. Subscribe today.

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Critics of the Rothko Chapel Say Its Too SomberWill a Pricey Restoration and Skylight Change That? - Texas Monthly

What has changed and what has Covid taught us about public realm?

It has taught us that public realm can be reconfigured quickly. In London, the GLA Streetspace initiative has rapidly and radically changed the way we use and interact with public open space. It has also taught us that this change is easy to enact and well supported when the purpose of the change is very clear; replacing the sometimes confusing jargon of the landscape architect and the town-planner with simple, clear messages like easier, safer cycling and walking, improved air quality and better public health.

Covid has also shown us that public realm does not have to be dominated by cars and other motor vehicles. Currently temporary measures to make roads shared space have captured imagination and demonstrated the possibility of more engaging, more inclusive and genuinely less polluted urban areas. There is a tension however as appetite for convenience re-asserts itself over these less easily defined benefits and we would be unwise to write the motor vehicle out of the public realm script just yet.

Covid has also taught us that it is easy to genuinely engage the community in defining what public realm it wants. It has rapidly accelerated the transformation of community engagement from a dreary and formulaic ritual, all-too-often mistrusted by communities and distained by authorities to a rich, multi-faceted relationship that jointly defines need, shapes designs and curates outcomes. There is still a long way to go on this journey but Covid has accelerated us along the way.

As well as faster change, the challenging of transportation shibboleths and better engagement, there are encouraging signs that public realm design is becoming more bold, more willing to experiment and less bound by convention. Fail Fast Fail Often is more normally associated with tech innovation than in public realm design but we are seeing promising indications that public realm can be experimental, temporary and intuitive to very rapidly changing community needs. We can expect to see public realm become progressively less monolithic and more pop-up, using richer community engagement to flex and adapt to community needs

Public realm will be a key component in a post-Covid green recovery. Even before the crisis, more and more organisations declared climate emergencies and, with them, ambitious commitments to de-carbonising our communities. Putting public realm at the heart of this is simply too good an opportunity to miss.

There are already great examples of this globally from Bostons Big-Dig (pictured) to New Yorks Dryline to Amsterdam and the Randstats focus on polycentricity; the use of imaginative public realm as part of a placemaking strategy to create a multitude of self-sustaining, 20-minute communities, rather than one urban centre, surrounded by residential dormitories. Already we are seeing an increasing appetite for zero-carbon master-planning which quantifies and codifies the net carbon position of place.

Experiences of lockdown have made communities more aware of their relationship with and reliance on public realm. More than ever, people realise that public realm done well supports their health and well-being, focuses their communities and improves their quality of life. We can expect that public realm design can no longer be a semi-detached afterthought to master planning or a stand-alone transport strategy divorced from the place it supports. We can expect to see greater integration than ever of public realm and transportation design into placemaking including in the development of the benefits-case for place.

In 1665, Sir Isaac Newton had his Year of Wonders when, isolated from all distractions on his family estate in Lincolnshire due to the plague epidemic of that year, he used the time to revolutionise humankinds understanding and application of science. Will 2020 represent a Year of Wonders for designers of public realm, with similar revolutionary advancement? The opportunity is there...

Peter Hogg is UK cities director at Arcadis UK

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Changing the face of public realm design post-Covid - LocalGov

The weather is getting warmer, and youve been dreaming about creating that backyard oasis for some time now. You want to know where to start, who to call, and how to make your vision a reality.

Look no further.

Coastal Custom Builders, Coastal Land Design, and Islands Pool Cape Cod are the three remarkable brain children of landscape architect, Tim Klink, founder and CEO of The Coastal Companies.

Im a landscape architect by schooling. Thats where I started my career 20-plus years ago, said Klink. When I started that, I had all intentions of having a landscape design/build firm. Over the years, weve gotten more involved in actual home construction and, now, with the trend in resort living, people want bigger, better outdoor areas and back yards. And thats where he comes in.

Looking at the demographic of Cape Cod, he said, there was a real need for an in-house firm that can do everything from designing the home to doing landscape, to building the pools. The Coastal Companies three divisions offer everything you need in one place.

Starting back several years ago, we noticed people were traveling less. But those who did were doing a cruise, for example, or going to resorts that were all-encompassing that had an outdoor bar and a pool and a fire pit and thats how families would vacation, Klink said.

What weve seen is that, now, as they choose their summer homes, theyre coming to the Cape more, and they want to re-create that resort feeling. So, were finding that, in lieu of putting on big additions with multiple bedrooms and multiple bathrooms, people are choosing to remove the deck off the back of the house, put some stairs in, built a patio, build a fire pit and then do something with a water feature, be it a pool or something else, and add an outdoor kitchen. They want to really create that resort feeling at their own house.

Klink and his team are seeing the trend in backyard pools rise even more as the sharks have become more prevalent.

Believe it or not, the sharks are having a positive impact on the pool business! Its their home. People feel safe, theyre protected, and they have some space from their neighbors, versus going to hotel. Especially with the unknowns about going to the beaches (thanks to the COVID-10 pandemic), theres even more of a push to do the resort living at home.

Hes also seeing that parents want to be able to control what theyre kids are doing. In lieu of kids going to the beach with their friends, having a pool at home allows your kids friends to come over and the parents can be present and keep an eye on them. It can become a social time for the parents, as well as a playtime for the kids, he added, saying that getting a quote for land design or for a pool is no problem for The Coastal Companies.

Weve always been proactive, since were a young firm, with over 20 years of business, Klink said. Weve a very tech-heavy business, and a lot of our business is done with iPhones and iPads and via the Internet. We were already set up for this situation. I dont need to meet you in person give you a quote for a pool. I can go over and take a walk around your yard, take a look at it, come up with some drawings and set up a (Go to Meeting) meeting. We can go over the pictures with the clients and walk them through, from their couch, everything were going to do.

Whether your needs are such as installing a new lawn or putting privacy plantings in place, to larger jobs such as creating and installing your new landscape, pools, stonewalls we are equipped for all phases. The Coastal Companied will work from your plans or, if you like, from plans created by its experienced design staff.

We do everything in-house. We have our own licensed employees, Klink said. We have employees and divisions and managers in all three groups, ready to help.

To get your estimate on land design, building, or installing an amazing pool, visit buildwithcoastal.com or call 508-240-2114 today.

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Homeowner's Headquarters: A Discussion With The Coastal Companies on Outdoor Living - CapeCod.com News

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In 1979, author Joan Didion wrote that shopping malls are toy garden cities where no one lives but everyone consumes.

That was when malls and their role in American culture were at their pinnacle.

The 1985 blockbuster hit Back to the Future repurposed a shopping mall parking lot into a time-travel launch point between past and present. What could be a better symbol of American destiny in the affluent 80s?

Now, decades later, hundreds of malls nationwide are closing or contracting. Now, as the shelter-in-place orders are being loosened and malls are starting to reopen, its clear that a few powerhouse malls in the Twin Cities will continue to evolve and thrive.

Well-located and managed by savvy owners, malls such as Ridgedale Center in Minnetonka and Rosedale Center in Roseville are reinventing themselves as experiential, mixed-use destinations where shopping is just one of many reasons to visit.

We are way over-retailed when it comes to built space, said Joan Suko, Ridgedales senior general manager, adding that the United States has more retail square footage per capita than any other country.

Thats why Suko sees the loss of anchor stores, such as a Sears or a Herbergers, not as harbingers of doom for brick-and-mortar retail, but as opportunities to reinvent shopping centers for the next generation as community hubs.

Architect Bill Baxley, who heads the Minneapolis office of the international architecture firm Gensler, led the recent conceptual revisioning of Rosedale. Like Suko, he sees department store closings as creating new options for 24-hour activities including health clubs, shared-work spaces, theaters and restaurants.

We approach it as a planning process in reverse, Baxley said. Rather than building from the ground up, we start with an existing property and rethink it to relate back to the community that surrounds it today.

The former J.C. Penney footprint at Edinas Southdale, another mall on the remake, has become a 204,000-square-foot Life Time fitness facility, where guests can exercise, play indoor soccer and even work in the shared office environments on-site. Soon, a new Southdale Library will open, connected to the mall.

By the end of this year, Ridgedale will have three major multiunit residential projects right next door. This is the kind of density and mixed uses long advocated by Julie Wischnack, Minnetonkas director of community development.

The Avidor Minnetonka apartment project is a pioneering example of how Minnesota is rethinking shopping malls. Scheduled to open this fall, the 168-unit Avidor, marketed to ages 55 and over, shows how buildings can bring walkability to places long dominated by the car.

Opening directly onto the new 1.8-acre Ridgedale Park and parkway boulevard, Avidor is a city-scaled building that frames the space around it rather than standing alone. The Ridgedale Library is just across the boulevard and a nearby bike trail will connect to Crane Lake Park (just to the east of Ridgedale) and all the way south to the Minnetonka Mills Park and Minnehaha Creek. New roundabouts and trees will calm traffic and introduce a green buffer on the malls southern edge.

Rethinking Rosedale

Built in 1969 as one the original dales shopping centers, Rosedale Center is still thriving. Its also evolving into a walkable village center with outdoor streets, a new grocery store and perhaps even a hotel.

According to plans drawn up in 2019, the center will have a new entry plaza along a curving boulevard. There also will be a pedestrian street slicing through the old Herbergers, which will essentially create a distinct stand-alone building where Kowalskis Markets is slated to open. The revamped structure will also house other retail and entertainment businesses on the street level along with apartments and, possibly, a hotel above.

We are still planning for a green space near restaurant row [the plaza near AMC] and pedestrian connections along the south side of the current mall, says Lisa Crain, Rosedales senior general manager. The improvements are expected to be made in the next three to five years.

In the post-quarantine years, such schedules may change. But a new generation of mixed-use community centers is coming possibly even more alluring now, as we rediscover the healthfulness and value of being outside.

Frank Edgerton Martin is a landscape historian who has written for Landscape Architecture magazine, Architecture Minnesota, Fabric Architecture and co-authored a book, The Simple Home.

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The Twin Cities leads the way in tranforming malls into town centers - Minneapolis Star Tribune

Progress continues on the extension of the Glacial Drumlin Trail in Cottage Grove to the Capital City Trail in Madison, but bike riders hoping to make the trek this year will have to wait a little longer.

While village officials are moving ahead with its portion of the project, thanks to a $554,800 Transportation Alternatives Program (TAP) grant, Dane County is a little slower on its end.

We are currently working on design and engineering for the segment of trail between the interstate (39/90) and Buckeye Road, and are at about 60 percent completion, said Chris James, senior landscape architect with Dane County Land and Water Resources-Parks Division. We are also working with the DOT (Department of Transportation), DNR (Department of Natural Resources) and Wisconsin and Southern Railroad on negotiating terms of the shared right of way for both the trail and railroad to co-exist through the corridor under the interstate. My best estimate now is we should be finalizing plans and approvals by early 2021 for the segment between the interstate and Buckeye Road, with construction potentially in 2022 pending available funds.

The connection between Buckeye Road and Cottage Grove is possibly even farther down the road.

We are still trying to acquire lands necessary for the trail between Buckeye Road and Cottage Grove, James said. Timing for that segment is uncertain.

In Cottage Grove, officials will begin work this year on connecting the trailhead in the village with a point that will become the east end of the Dane County portion.

The off-road path will run along the east end of Clark Street, replacing the sidewalk that currently exists on the south side of the street, according to a May 15 memo from JJ Larson, director of public works, to the Cottage Grove Village Board. As it heads west, the path will move through Bakken Park, utilizing some of the existing path there.

During the initial application and concept planning, there was no plan to have real estate work needed, as the project will stay entirely inside the right-of-way of Clark Street. However, now that officials are into the design aspect of the project, it has become clear there will be some real estate work required.

Specifically, we will need to have temporary limited easements from the property owners along two blocks of Clark Street, Larson said. These allow work on private property, in order to match grade of existing driveways for the most part, while not needing a permanent easement granted, as the finished project still remains entirely in the existing right-of-way.

Larson said the village is working on a three-party contract with the DOT and MSA (village engineering firm) the engineering and design of the project.

Because this real estate work is not eligible for funding through the TAP grant, the village will pay MSA for the work, estimated at $45,850.

Larson said the costs will be covered by the village planned project borrowing in 2021.

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Village to begin work on bike path extension - HNGnews.com

The COVID-19 pandemic has altered humans relationship with natural landscapes in ways that may be long-lasting. One of its most direct effects on peoples daily lives is reduced access to public parks.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issuedguidelinesurging Americans to stay at home whenever feasible, and to avoid discretionary travel and gatherings of more than 10 people. Emergency declarations and stay-at-home ordersvary from state to state, but many jurisdictions have closedstateandcounty parks, as well as smaller parks, playgrounds, beaches and other outdoor destinations.

Theres good reason for these actions, especially in places where people havespurned social distancing rules. But particularly in urban environments, parks are important to human health and well-being.

Richard leBrasseur(Photo: The Conversation / Contributed Image)

As alandscape architect, I believe thatFrederick Law Olmsted, the founder of our field, took the right approach. Olmsted served as general secretary of the United States Sanitary Commission during the Civil War, and his knowledge of contagious diseases informed his visions for his great North American urban parks, includingCentral Parkin New York,Mount Royal Parkin Montreal and BostonsEmerald Necklacepark system. In my view, closing parks and public green spaces should be a temporary, last-resort measure for disease control, and reopening closed parks should be a priority as cities emerge from shutdowns.

Making healthy places

Olmsted was born in 1822 but became a landscape architect rather late in his career, atage 43. His ideas evolved from a diverse and unique set of experiences.

From the start, Olmsted recognized the positive effect of nature, noting how urban trees provided a soothing and refreshing sanitary influence. His sanitary style of design offered more than mere decoration and ornamentation. Service must precede art was his cry.

Olmsted came of age in the mid-19th century, as the public health movement was rapidly developing in response to typhoid, cholera and typhus epidemics in European cities. As managing editor of Putnams Monthly in New York City, he regularly walked the crowded tenement streets of Lower Manhattan.

At the U.S. Sanitary Commission during the Civil War, Olmsted led efforts to improve sanitation in Union Army military camps and protect soldiers health. He initiated policies for selecting proper camp locations, installing drainage and disposing of waste, ventilating tents and preparing food, all designed to reduce disease. And in 1866 he witnessed adoption of New YorksMetropolitan Health Bill, the first city law to control unhealthy housing conditions.

Antidotes to urban stress

The insights Olmsted gained into connections between space, disease control and public health clearly influenced his landscape architectural career and the design of many urban park systems. For example, his design for the interlinked parks that forms BostonsEmerald Necklaceforeshadowed the concept of green infrastructure.

This system centered on stagnant and deteriorated marshes that had became disconnected from the tidal flow of the Charles River as Boston grew. City residents were dumping trash and sewage in the marshes, creatingfetid dumps that spread waterborne diseases. Olmsteds design reconnected these water systems to improve flow and flush out stagnant zones, while integrating a series of smaller parks along its trailways.

Olmsted also designedAmericas first bike lane, which originated in Brooklyn, New Yorks Prospect Park. Of the tree-lined boulevards in his design for Central Park, Olmsted said, Air is disinfected by sunlight and foliage. Foliage also acts mechanically topurify the air by screening it.

In all of his urban parks, Olmsted sought to immerse visitors in restorative and therapeutic natural landscapes an experience he viewed as the most profound and effective antidote to the stress and ailments of urban life.

Parks in the time of COVID-19

Today researchers are documenting many health benefits associated with being outside. Spending time in parks and green spaces clearly benefits urban dwellerspsychological, emotional and overall well-being. Itreduces stress,improves cognitive functioningand is associated withimproved overall health.

In my view, government agencies should work to make these vital services as widely available as possible, especially during stressful periods like pandemic shutdowns. Certain types of public green spaces, such as botanical gardens, arboretums and wide trails, are well suited to maintaining social distancing rules. Other types where visitors may be likely to cluster, such as beaches and playgrounds, require stricter regulation.

There are many ways to make parks accessible with appropriate levels of control. One option is stationing agents at entry points to monitor and enforce capacity controls. Park managers can use timed entries and parking area restrictions to limit social crowding, as well as temperature screening and face mask provisions.

For example, inNew Jersey, many public parks have reopened for walking, hiking, bicycling and fishing while keeping playgrounds, picnic and camping areas and restrooms closed. They also have limited parking capacity to 50% of capacity.

In Shanghai,China, the government recently reopened most parks and several major attractions, including theChenshan Botanical Gardenand thecity zoo. Entry requires successful screening and online reservations, and visits are limited to a maximum of two hours.

Technologies such as GPS tracking and biometrics can set a precedent for future green space interaction. Residents could sign up for reserved time slots and log into apps that monitor their entry and distancing behavior. Some Americans might be put off by such technocentric means, but officials should be clear that making visitation easy and safe for all is the priority.

There will be challenges, especially when peopleflout social distancing rules. But urban parks and nature offer plenty of benefits that are especially important during a pandemic. I believe that finding ways to enjoy them now in a manner safe for all will be well worth the effort.

Richard leBrasseur is an assistant professor of Landscape Architecture and director of theGreen Infrastructure Performance Lab atDalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada. He wrote this for The Conversation.

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When construction on the$1 billion Virginia Tech Innovation Campus is completed, it will be a mostly walkable campus with underground parking and significant open space, according to a presentation Tuesday by the Virginia Tech Foundation and developer JBG SMITH.

The first phase of development will occur at the current location of the Regal Potomac Yard movie theatre, which is closed due to the pandemic. It is unknown if it will open again before construction begins.

The developers unveiled plans for the first phase of development, which includes the construction of a9-10 story structure will be located along E. Reed Avenue, Potomac Avenue and a campus green space. The building, as well as the other Virginia Tech buildings, willbe built to reach LEED Silver certification and the areas immediately around it will include lawns and walking paths.

There will also be a slope of less than 5%, meaning that there will be no steps or handrails on the campus.

The overall illustrative plan shows the projects contiguous an interconnected network of open spaces that stretch between Potomac Avenue and George Washington Memorial Parkway, said Simon Beer, a landscape architect with design firm OJB. All of the design of these spaces at this point are conceptual in nature, as we present them today. Our team is going to continue to work with the city with you and with each individual buildings architect as we continue the process.

The open spaces includePotomac Yard Park, a Metro plaza, a market lawn and a pedestrian plaza.Virginia Tech will take up four acres of the northern end near the Alexandria border with Arlington, and the underground parking will be available once the buildings are finished.

The development will alsosee the construction of three academic buildings dedicated to computer science research and development programs. The permanent campus is currently planned to be operational by fall 2024, and will accommodate 750 computer science masters degree students per year and more than100 doctoral students and postdoctoral fellows.

The city will undergo the approval process for the projects preliminary infrastructure plan this June, in addition to an approval for a pump station to handle sanitary sewer flows from the proposed project and other off-site properties so that construction can begin in the fall.

Images via JBG SMITH

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UPDATED: 05/22/20 2:39 p.m.

On June 9, the Historic Preservation Commission of the City of Tampa is holding a public meeting to discuss the future of the Seminole Heights Baptist Church, which is arguably the most prominent structure in Seminole Heights (its steeple can be seen from I-275).

A city document says the request pertains to the demolition of property listed, Eligible for listing, or pending listing in the National Register of Historic Places (National Register) individually or as contributing in a National Register-listed historic district or property in the HPC workplan. The document also mentions a request for determination of economic hardship.

Creative Loafing Tampa Bays calls and voicemails to the listed authorized agent, former Tampa City Attorney Julia C. Mandell, have yet to be returned along with calls and messages to City of Tampa building inspector Jerry Schrenker, and Eddie Browder.

Browders LinkedIn profile says hes a project manager and landscape architect at Orlando engineering firm S&ME. S&ME submitted a plan for the church, located at 810 E. Hillsborough Ave. in Tampas Seminole Heights neighborhood, to the city.

Those plans, like many related to this demolition, can be seen by anyone via the citys Tampas Accela Citizen Access site.

City of Tampa

And for now, without comment from the engineering firm, developer and city officials or any of the newest documents, we have to speculate about the process and future of the historic structure (with a lowercase "h," by the way, not "Historic" as in on the National Register of Historic Places).

Josh Frank, Principal and Urban Designer at Wide Open Officewhich works to establish new relationships between people and their environment through landscape architecture, urban design and community developmenttold CL that these are typical documents for these kinds of proposals.

But based on the docs available,the plan for the demolition of the church could pretty well be on its way.

Frank, 31, said those plans could be for marketing and pointed out that there could be a new plan for the site that isn't online yet.

But a look at aforementioned test fit site plan, which shows a 10,860 square-foot free standing emergency room within the footprint of the church, which was founded in 1921. The plan also shows a future expansion zone (blue dotted line, ironically next to the shadow of the churchs famous steeple) in addition to a list of all the requirements for permitting on the right side of the sheet. There are square footage numbers for the parking, plus floor-to-area ratio numbers that all signify that the project is pretty close to applying for permits.

If it was purely for funsies, you wouldn't necessarily do those calculations, Frank told CL.

Sill, to many on urban development blogs like URBN Tampa Bay, it looks like there's an intent to demolish the church.

The old fire station on the Taliaferro side of the property is also in jeopardy according to the preliminary site plan.

The plan also shows a desire for a curb cut (entrance/exit) on Hillsborough Avenue, but a note on the plan says it is unlikely to be approved.

Frank agrees that the curb cut will be disapproved since Hillsborough Avenue is an Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) road thats close to the interstate.

That shows me that they know what they're doing and that maybe they've had conversations with FDOT to some degree, Frank said.

Brant Adams, Pastor of Seminole Heights Baptist told CL that, "The plan you are looking at is not official or anything that has been submitted, from preliminary discussions."

He said church members are trying discover what their rights as a property owner are.

"The Church Membership is the property owner, whom has built and removed many buildings over the decades on this property," Adams added.

CL also reached out to Atelier Architectures Vivian Salaga, who is listed as the Chair for Tampas Historic Preservation Commission.Salaga wrote that, Unfortunately, I cannot speak with you regarding this matter.

I sit on the Historic Preservation Commission and this would be considered ex parte communication and render me unable to act on this matter at the public hearing, Salaga added in an email.

CL then asked for comment from Dennis Fernandez, Manager of Tampas office for Architectural Review and Historic Preservation.

This is a developing story, and we will update this post later today.

The public meeting is set for Tuesday, June 9 at 9 a.m. inside meeting rooms 14-17 on the first floor of the Tampa Convention Center, located at 333 S. Franklin St. Social distancing measures will be in practice, and members of the public who do not wish to appear in person may submit written comments for the Architectural Review & Historic Preservation Office by mail (4900 W. Lemon St., Tampa, FL 33609) or email (beverly.jewesak@tampagov.net) no later than 24 hours before the meeting.

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There's a public meeting to discuss the demolition of the Seminole Heights Baptist Church - Creative Loafing Tampa

Is an M.Arch from a top-tier school necessary based on my interests/background? | Forum | Archinect '); }, imageUploadError: function(json, xhr) { alert(json.message); } }}); /*$(el).ckeditor(function() {}, {//removePlugins: 'elementspath,scayt,menubutton,contextmenu',removePlugins: 'liststyle,tabletools,contextmenu',//plugins:'a11yhelp,basicstyles,bidi,blockquote,button,clipboard,colorbutton,colordialog,dialogadvtab,div,enterkey,entities,filebrowser,find,flash,font,format,forms,horizontalrule,htmldataprocessor,iframe,image,indent,justify,keystrokes,link,list,maximize,newpage,pagebreak,pastefromword,pastetext,popup,preview,print,removeformat,resize,save,smiley,showblocks,showborders,sourcearea,stylescombo,table,specialchar,tab,templates,toolbar,undo,wysiwygarea,wsc,vimeo,youtube',//toolbar: [['Bold', 'Italic', 'BulletedList', 'Link', 'Image', 'Youtube', 'Vimeo' ]],plugins:'a11yhelp,basicstyles,bidi,blockquote,button,clipboard,colorbutton,colordialog,dialogadvtab,div,enterkey,entities,filebrowser,find,flash,font,format,forms,horizontalrule,htmldataprocessor,iframe,image,indent,justify,keystrokes,link,list,maximize,newpage,pagebreak,pastefromword,pastetext,popup,preview,print,removeformat,resize,save,smiley,showblocks,showborders,sourcearea,stylescombo,table,specialchar,tab,templates,toolbar,undo,wysiwygarea,wsc,archinect',toolbar: [['Bold', 'Italic', 'BulletedList','NumberedList', 'Link', 'Image']],resize_dir: 'vertical',resize_enabled: false,//disableObjectResizing: true,forcePasteAsPlainText: true,disableNativeSpellChecker: false,scayt_autoStartup: false,skin: 'v2',height: 300,linkShowAdvancedTab: false,linkShowTargetTab: false,language: 'en',customConfig : '',toolbarCanCollapse: false });*/ }function arc_editor_feature(el) { $(el).redactor({minHeight: 300,pasteBlockTags: ['ul', 'ol', 'li', 'p'],pasteInlineTags: ['strong', 'br', 'b', 'em', 'i'],imageUpload: '/redactor/upload',plugins: ['source', 'imagemanager'],buttons: ['html', 'format', 'bold', 'italic', 'underline', 'lists', 'link', 'image'],formatting: ['p'],formattingAdd: {"figcaption": {title: 'Caption',args: ['p', 'class', 'figcaption', 'toggle']},"subheading": {title: 'Subheading',args: ['h3', 'class', 'subheading', 'toggle']},"pullquote-left": {title: 'Quote Left',args: ['blockquote', 'class', 'pullquote-left', 'toggle']},"pullquote-centered": {title: 'Quote Centered',args: ['blockquote', 'class', 'pullquote-center', 'toggle']},"pullquote-right": {title: 'Quote Right',args: ['blockquote', 'class', 'pullquote-right', 'toggle']},"chat-question": {title: 'Chat Question',args: ['p', 'class', 'chat-question', 'toggle']}, "chat-answer": {title: 'Chat Answer',args: ['p', 'class', 'chat-answer', 'toggle']}, },callbacks:{ imageUpload: function(image, json) { $(image).replaceWith('

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