It's Fall again...

Well, I'm back to my computer in studio now that break is over so I finally have easy access to my picture archive that I use for posting on this blog. Back when it was still Fall, I took several pictures of the street that I live on in KC to capture how great the colors were this year. This will probably be the only time I will ever get to see this street during Fall so I am glad that I got the opportunity to capture it while there were still some leaves on the trees. Also, sorry about the small amount of blurriness in the images but I didn't have my camera tripod with me to hold the camera more steady. The Red Maple in our front yard was especially nice to look at as it beautifully lives up to its name. I should have also gotten a picture of the really old Black Mulberry tree in our back yard since it has one of the coolest trunk pattern ever.

Outdoor Linoleum?

So when walking around the properties that border our site we came upon a large patch of linoleum on the ground. As you can see, all the edges were starting to curl up in a cool way from the exposure to the outdoors which I thought made for a fun picture. Basically, there was once a building that was here but when they demoed it, only the walls and roof were taken out. (building still shows up on Google earth) Who knows why they decided to leave the flooring in place but they did. Unfortunately, we also don't have much say over this giant property since it is owned by a developer out of Houston who wants to put a bunch of housing units on it....which would have already been here had the housing market not recently bottomed out putting this development on an indefinite hold.

The building in the back left of the image is HOK Sport's new building. If you don't know who they are, HOK is probably responsible for designing about half the professional sports stadiums in the country. In fact, if you add in the other firms around Kansas City, this city designs about 98% of all college and professional stadiums in the country. So keep that in mind if you ever feel the need to build a multi-million dollar stadium in your back yard, a firm from Kansas City will most likely be doing the design.

The Train Barrier

Trains have always been fascinating to me and so when I found out that a major line ran straight through our riverfront site I got excited. However, with this excitement comes the knowledge that trains can sometimes be incredibly difficult to work with when you are trying to design something around them. For one, train companies don't like to deal with anyone normally. They are extremely protective of their tracks and land. Trains and pedestrians also don't mix very well and usually there must be walls or fences up to ensure that everyone stays away from the tracks. Apart from that, bridging over or under the tracks are doable but it usually requires a whole lot of negotiating.

Well currently there is a pedestrian bridge on site that bridges over the tracks and provides essentially the only connection to the river and our site. What our group is proposing would be to create another bridge over these tracks (through either a building or land bridge) that would allow additional connections to this limited access site.
I also found out that the train company is proposing to take a new line off of the above track and also run that through our site which would add yet another barrier to what we are doing. Currently the area it would be running through is an old dirt road that is surrounded by archaeological sites of the original town of Kansas.

As for the two pictures that you guys are seeing, I took both of them from on top of the Town of Kansas pedestrian bridge that I mentioned earlier. The top image is facing East and interests me a lot since the train seems to snake through the landscape. The other image to the right I thought was cool since there are multiple trains going in different directions and at different elevations.

Anyways, enough about that, I couldn't decide which train image was better so I threw both of them up there and will let you guys decide upon them.

Into the Soil

This is just a side note but I have created a second blog that will focus on other topics outside of photography. I plan on maintaining this site since I still enjoy posting the new and exciting pictures I take, but the other site will enable me at least to speak more about other stuff. The new site is called Into the Soil in relation to the other half of a tree that people don't normally see and it will be available as a link on the side of this blog.

Federal Courthouse Plaza, Minneapolis

A year ago I took a trip to Minneapolis for the 2006 ASLA annual Expo with several friends and while we were there we visited the Federal Courthouse Plaza. For those of you who don't know, the plaza is made up of these large grassy mounds or drumlins that abstractly represent the Minnesota landscape. The funnest thing about the whole plaza were all these little sculptural creature guys spread throughout the place that were doing the oddest things. I don't know who the artist was for them or how long they were to stay in the plaza, but while they were they're, they sure added a lot of extra excitement to the place.

As you can see in the pictures, they were doing the most random things too like mowing the grass, taking pictures, stacking themselves in a giant 20' tower (thats what he is taking the picture of) or even being carried off by other little creatures. Basically, these guys were hilarious and I would like to congratulate the artist for making such a great art instillation. What this also tells me is that as a landscape architect, I should always remember to think of including artists in the design process since theres always a lot that they can bring to the table.

Dumbarton Oaks - Revisited

Back in March, April and later November of 2006 I posted several images from my DC trip and more specifically, images taken from Dumbarton Oaks. Despite the fact that I took over 480 photos of the garden, only a few finally found their way onto my Blog. So I thought I might take a stroll down memory lane and post a few new ones of this completely amazing garden. The thing I like most about Dumbarton oaks is how well Beatrix Farrand played around with the topography and changing elevations throughout the garden. The whole place is incredibly dynamic in how people move throughout the hillside. The giant mass of flowering Forsythia on one slope caught me completely by surprise for I had never seen it used this extensively before. Trying to capture the sheer mass of the whole thing in a elegant picture was difficult and I'm not sure if I ever really succeeded at it.

Another thing I enjoyed during the 3 hours I walked around the place was finding the occasional little wildflower, all tucked away in obscure corners of the garden. Finding these were like stumbling on a hidden treasure, instantly bringing excitement for such a unique find.

Overall, the whole garden was amazing and one of my favorite places we visited in all of DC. Anyways, thats all the reminiscing for now. Expect to see some new pictures of my project site in the near future since I took a few exciting one yesterday in the snow.

The River

What boggles my mind about the whole riverfront project I'm working on is that the city has hasn't put nearly the kind of effort into developing the site like other cities have. I mean, just look at the image above taken from the lookout of the Town of Kansas pedestrian bridge and tell me this is not a great place. And though you can't see it so well in the image, the entire opposite shore is actually somewhat naturalized! The shoreline has been allowed to develop however it wants to with a levee behind it that's covered all in native riparian trees. Whats even better is that the trees are all tall and dense enough that they almost completely block from view all the heavy industrial lands behind them. Kansas City is sitting on a gold mine with it's beautiful natural riverfront and almost nobody knows about it.
Just look at any major city in the Midwest with a major river running through it and both banks are usually packed with random industrial stuff with no signs of naturalness. But here, despite the fact there's a major industrial hub just north of the river and the city center sitting a mile to the south, the river itself is actually a very quiet, somewhat natural place with little view of heavy industry. Coming out here, you can almost get sense of what the place may have looked like 150 years ago when the city first started to develop. That is, not considering the three sets of bridges that jump out from the city to the south and disappear into the dense vegetation to the north.
For my site, the naturalness is much more diluted with 3 railroad lines running through it and a small coal power plant to the SE that supplies steam to most of the buildings downtown. Add to that an archaeological dig for the original town of Kansas, two power substations, and a recently created wetland from an old failed project on the site and you've got one fun riverfront project to work with. I guess its these kinds of projects that we live for as Landscape Architects though.

Anyways, Enjoy the picture and I'll add more from the site soon. In the meantime, we just got an inch or two of snow and I'm going outside check it out.

The good Life

So in contrast with the last post which came from the highways of LA, this one comes from the old growth forests of the high Sierras. Actually, though you can't see it in this picture, this was taken in Sequoia National park and all around me are giant sequoia trees. Anyways, this place was amazing. We got up here early in the morning and found a great trail that was completely devoid of people. Morning light is really great up here for taking pictures.

extra notes about the picture: This picture is actually a merging of two different shots. One focused on the background while the other focused on the moss/mistletoe? covered foreground tree.

Well thats all for now, enjoy!

Neighborhood Safety Meter

Welcome to the great new way at quickly finding out where your neighborhood ranks in the ol' safety factor. To find out, the general safeness and/or amount of gang activity in your neighborhood is directly related to the amount of razor wire surrounding and protecting your street signs. And just in case your don't know which way the scale goes:

More razor wire= safer street signs=less safe neighborhood.

Funny how that all works out.

Which way do I go?

Here is the cool sign post that is on the riverfront project I am working on this year. The structure in the background is the elevator for the town of Kansas pedestrian bridge that overlooks the Missouri river. The steel has also weathered fairly nicely to match the character of the area. Anyways I just wanted to get this out there for you guys to look at