A recent competition to design a creative zone in Beijing yielded this fascinating proposal to incorporate open space and an economic zone on the edge of the Beijing River. The winner of the competition was UNstudio, whose approach to the challenge was to compress the two distinct zones together in an accordion-like fashion, weaving both nature and the urban fabric together. Stores, shops and craftsmen will all take residence in the creative zone allowing tourists and Beijing residents to be able to enjoy the peace of the greenbelt as well as shop in local stores.

Read the rest of UNstudio Wins Challenge to Revitalize Beijing with Their Creative Zone

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Post tags: arup, Beijing, beijing creative zone, creative zone, economic zone, greenbelt, mixed-use development, open space, park, UNStudio

If you were at West Coast Green this past weekend you would have surely noticed the elegant bamboo structures along the waterfront surrounded by beautiful native landscaping. What you may not have realized unless you looked closely is that the structure was actually supporting hanging gardens of marsh grass and was a way of preventing and remediating pollution from water runoff. A collaboration of The Natural Builders, Design Ecology, Floating Islands and Bertotti Landscaping, the installation was the talk of the trade show and highlight for us at Inhabitat.

Read the rest of Hanging Bamboo Gardens Make Beautiful Biofilters

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Post tags: bamboo sculpture, Bertotti Landscaping, Bioremediation, Design Ecology, Floating Islands International, storm water, The Natural Builder, waste water treatment, west coast green

A lush lawn can be a wonderful thing to stretch out on. Unfortunately, the high-maintenance needs, which include frequent seeding and fertilizing, of grass can make it more of a pain than a joy, leaving would-be loungers disappointed. Fortunately, grassy seating can put back some of the fun. The idea of creating seating out of grass is no new concept, as you may find with the lawnge chairs or living lawn chaise. In this formulation, the Floating Green, by Ling Fan, is a stretch of lawn that appears to have rebelled against horizontality by springing from the ground, doing an elegant twist and then settling into a vertically folded position to offer passers-by a place to sit.

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Post tags: "green wall", city seating, eco-art, environmental art, garden bench, grass mat, lawn care, shanghai art, street furniture, streetscape

As the construction process for Hudson Yards drags on in New York, we’re glad to see green urban design is alive and well in Chicago. The windy city is no stranger to sustainable building, and this urban park, located on the fringe of the city’s downtown, will certainly give Chicago even more green cred. Perkins + Will, the architects behind the design, developed the park to create more open space for the city, but the greenway also proves to be a pedestrian-friendly gateway that connects the existing downtown to any future development across the Kennedy Expressway.

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Post tags: chicago city planning, Landscape Architecture, sustainable urban planning, Urban design, urban expansion, urban park, urban planning, urban restoration, urban revitalization

Vancouver-based architecture firm Bricault Design’s vegetation-clad house in Venice, California is a sexy study in green. The mod abode incorporates sustainable design in a new residential addition that features a lush living wall on three sides of the house and a breezy roof garden perfect for relaxing in the sun. Read on to see the other eco-conscious touches that make other homes green with envy.

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Post tags: Bricault Design, Brooks Avenue House, California, canada, green additions, green finishes and fixtures, green roofs, Living Walls, Los Angeles, Marc Bricault, sustainable design, Venice

If you enjoyed our coverage of New York City’s High Line raised park, we think Telok Blangah Hill Park’s dizzying infrastructure will “elevate” you to an ever higher level. Located in Singapore, the park’s fly-over style “walkways” are reminiscent of those ancient rope bridges you see suspended over caverns in movies, giving you the very rare experience of viewing towering treetops from a monkey’s perspective. The pathways and suspension bridges are anything but rickety though. In fact, many of them are elegant works of art and architectural precision. But at 120 feet above the forest floor at their highest points, they aren’t for the faint of heart!

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Post tags: elevated parks, elevated pathways, flying architecture, green spaces, high line, hsbc tree top walk, raised parks, Singapore, suspensions bridges, Telok Blangah Hill Park, Urban design

On Monday, July 13, 2009, Diana Balmori and her NYC-based landscape and urban design firm hosted a forum that was part-academic discussion, part-social media experiment. The forum, called Making Public Places, was hosted in the Meatpacking District (MPD) while it streamed live online via Twitter and Ustream. The design firm was joined by 40 landscape architecture and urban design students from the Netherlands. Photos and tweets were updated throughout the event and yours truly was there to see it in action and provide you with highlights. But for more in-depth information, you can check out Balmori Associates‘ recently launched blog focused on public places.

Read the rest of Making Public Places: Forum on Placemaking in Cities

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Post tags: Landscape Architecture, placemaking, public place, public space, social media, Urban design

Much like a floating Club Med, “The Swimming City” by Andras Gyorfi could be the perfect solution for ocean-bound adventure seekers. As most of us have daydreamed about abandoning our complex land-ridden existence for the simple life at sea, Gyorfi – the winner of Seastead’s first design contest – has brought this idea to new heights. His design is playfully inviting, with many recreational facilities including a large swimming pool, outdoor amphitheater, helicopter landing pad, and shaded marina.

Read the rest of The Swimming City: A Water World for Future Generations

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Post tags: Andras Gyorfi, floating city, future architecture, Recreational resort, Seasteading Institute, swimming city

It seems virtually everyone—from Wall Street bankers to small business owners—has been affected by the economic downturn. Now, the recession’s latest victims may be American cities. The Obama administration is reportedly considering plans to raze sections of 50 economically depressed US cities, condensing these towns’ shrinking populations and city services to smaller areas. The plan, dubbed “shrink to survive,” may seem kooky, but it could be big news for environmentalists: In many cases, bulldozed districts would be returned to nature via forests or meadows.

Read the rest of US Government May Bulldoze 50 Cities; Create More Green Space

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Post tags: bull dozed, destruction, green design, public space, raze, shrink to survive, sustainable design, tear-down, united states cities, urban space

Let’s be clear – paving a surface does not reduce storm water run-off, but if you must create a street, parking lot, driveway, or any other form of this detriment, an apples-to-apples comparison between pervious concrete and asphalt paving will show many exciting benefits from this innovative form of paving. First of all, those little air pockets mean less material overall, and with the cost of oil as unstable as the resource itself, petroleum-based asphalt is no longer the cheapest form of paving. For the first time in history, the cost of concrete and asphalt have reached comparable dollar values. Add in the cost of additional storm water management devices – grids of piping directed towards drains and retention ponds, and suddenly permeable concrete starts making a lot more sense. Then there is the environmental cost of leaching toxic chemicals, such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) used as a sealcoat on asphalt, into what should be nature’s flow of water back to the ground table.

Read the rest of Holey Concrete: Pervious Paving Reduces Stormwater Run-off

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Post tags: green building strategies pervious pavement, green design, green landscaping, permeable pavement, rainwater runoff, stormwater run-off, sustainable design

The High Line opened this week!! The Inhabitat team was lucky enough to gather together to see it this week on Monday, and we loved it! It’s green, it’s public space — and visitors feel like they are walking above the city, so what’s not to love? And in case you weren’t already as ecstatic over it as we are, here’s your second chance! We hope you saw our coverage of the High Line here, but we want to share the buzz we’ve been seeing around the web.

Huffington Post has some great aerial shots of the project.

Curbed announces the opening, and features a shot taken from The Standard’s webcam.

NY Times provides comprehensive coverage of the opening.

Treehugger and thedailygreen put up slideshows here and here for us to enjoy the greenery at home.

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Post tags: chelsea high line, city greening, elevated park, green space new york city, high line, landscape architecture, landscape architecture nyc, landscape design, new york city parks, nyc parks, public space new york city, urban greenery, urban greening

This week the highly anticipated High Line Park in NYC opened to the public for the first time. We were super excited to be on the scene for a sneak peek of the new elevated park, which was built on the remains of an abandoned rail system in New York City. Check out our video of the new High Line, with exclusive interviews with the design team including Lead Designer and Landscape Architect James Corner of James Corner Field Operations and architect Ricardo Scofidio of Diller Scofidio + Renfro who made this stunning new park possible. Enjoy!

+ High Line Park in the Sky
+ The High Line
+ James Corner Field Operations

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Post tags: diller and scofidio, high line, james corner, new york city, railroad park, sky park

An elevated park in the sky built on top of the skeleton of an old rail system? It may have sounded impossible only five years ago, but today, the eagerly awaited High Line elevated urban park officially opens for thousands of New Yorkers looking to escape the hubbub of the city below!

Here at Inhabitat, we have been following the journey of the High Line for the past several years and were super excited to get a sneak peek yesterday of the new park, which was renovated / designed by James Corner Field Operations, Lead Designer, with starchitects Diller Scofidio + Renfro. We were thrilled to get a chance to scope out the High Line yesterday as we’ve been waiting for this for ages!), so check out our pics below!

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Post tags: chelsea high line, elevated park, high line, new york city green space, sky park, trainyard park, urban green space, urban oasis, urban park design

As the topic of urban restoration garners more attention, we have seen an increase in the investigation and experimentation relating to NYC’s ecological past. NYC Wildflower Week demonstrated a rise in popularity of plants native to New York City. Coupling urban restoration and indigenous plants, Julie Farris and Sarah Wayland-Smith, both landscape designers, were commissioned by the Public Art Fund to design and construct ‘A Clearing in the Streets,’ a 15-foot wide, plywood structure containing the beginnings of a meadow. The temporary installation, meant to invite passers-by to appreciate and watch the “re-insertion” of nature back into the city, offers a glimpse into NYC’s native landscape.

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Post tags: art installation new york city, eco-art, environmental art, public art, public space installation, temporary art installation, urban art installation, Urban design, urban ecology, urban garden, urban landscape, urban restoration

In the ever-expanding metropolis of Mexico City, green space is hard to come by. An estimated population of 22 million inhabitants bears an impressive weight on the Valley of Mexico and, in recent years, architects and urbanists have been examining solutions to combat the thickening smog. This stunning Vertical Park by Jorge Hernandez de la Garza intends to infuse the city with much-needed green space in the form of a modular skyscraper made up of a series of stacking units. The solar-powered structure contains sky-gardens in addition to spaces for living and working, and recycles all of its own water.

Read the rest of Vertical Park: Stackable Solar Skyscraper for Mexico City

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Post tags: "sustainable architecture", air pollution, d.f., Green Building, green design, hernandez de la garza, mexico, mexico city, photovoltaic, Solar Power, structural, sustainable design, vertical park