Veg.itecture News RoundUp

A new feature will offer some weekly links to the latest in news from the vegetated architecture realm. Obviously the hot news of last week was the opening of the High Line and it's had a ton of press, photos, love, and strangely enough, a bit of resentment.

:: Renovated High Line Now Open for Strolling (NY Times)
:: On High, a Fresh Outlook (Nicolai Ouroussoff Review for the NY Times)
:: Abandoned Rail Line Get's New Life as NYC Park (NPR)
:: Inhabitat Exclusive Video: The NYC High Line Opens! (Inhabitat)


:: image via NY Times

Another interesting tidbit that a number of people commented on this week was the way the project's authorship was credited... was the project led by James Corner Field Operations or Diller Scofidio + Renfro? As with every project, it's a moot point because collaboration creates all projects - particularly in the case of a complex urban retrofit such as this. Some missing the point (although it was good to see the updated info on some of these):

:: The New York High Line officially open (Arch Daily) - subsequently corrected
:: The High Line NYC (cool hunting)

But in the bigger picture, can the press comprehend that, gasp!, a landscape architect could lead something like this - or do we get put in our subservient role as the 'planting designers' (a job wonderfully done in this case by Piet Oudolf). The best case of this was Metropolis, who had been doing a spot on job of covering landscape architecture... they kind of missed the boat - scroll down to the comments from 'angrylandscapearchitect' for some ire towards this (FYI: the original tag of 'plantings were designed by James Corner' has been edited)...

:: On the High Line at Last (Metropolis)

And moving past this big news... some other tidbits from the Vegitectural realm:

:: Dubai Municipality is going for 100% green roofs. (Green Roofs Australia)
:: Study will look at combining solar panels, eco-roofs (DJC)
:: Green Roofs: Are they Worth the Expense? (NY Times)
:: Toronto Makes Green Roofs the Law, Approves Controversial Bike Lanes (Treehugger)
:: GRA Inc supports UQ research into new Brisbane roof plants (Green Roofs Australia)

And an interesting resource, found via the blog Land4Us:

:: International Green Roof Association (IGRA)