LA_great public spaces...

Thanks to Curbed LA for catching Brian's tweet about looking for sites to photograph on his trip to LA this weekend. Know anything we should be on the lookout for, let us know!

Concrete replacing asphalt?

Via the Infrastructurist, concrete as a paving material may be replacing asphalt as the cheaper paving option with the future of higher oil prices. Down currently due to the drop in oil prices, at it's record highs asphalt and concrete were very close in pricing.

Concrete also has many additional benefits pointed out in the article, giving it an edge over asphalt. This was consistent with pricing on projects we were seeing prior to the residential/ commercial development crash.

This also bodes well for porous concrete paving. Porous concrete is initially seen as much more expensive as compared to traditional concrete As local contractors become more familiar with the installation process, the price of porous also tends to come in-line with traditional concrete. Chicago saw a large price reduction as they took on educating and developing specific mixes for their 'Green Alley' project.

Porous concrete demonstration

LID Slideshow_Natural Resources Defense Council

Stumbled on this slideshow from the NRDC highlighting a few projects incorporating LID practices.

NRDC Green Infra In Smart Growth Developments

View more presentations from nrdcsmartgrowth.

The slideshow lists a few projects we've photographed on the West coast. Here are links for more photos....

High Point, West Seattle

South Waterfront, Portland

Central Park_sustainable transportation...

We saw this on treehugger the other day and figured it had to be a joke.

Environmentalists agog about Airport in Central Park

The idea behind the airport is the reduction in fuel consumption from auto trip reduction between Manhattan and the major airports. It's our 'environmental responsibility.'

But not to fear, they'll work to incorporate as many historic park elements as possible...

Vestigial architectural elements of the original Central Park site will, when possible, be retained or reworked in to the context of the new designs. Past will meet present in an aesthetic, yet pragmatic dialogue as our city’s priceless architectural heritage is reshaped and infused with a bold new relevance and sense of purpose befitting the financial and cultural capital of the world.

From the image above, it really looks like they've done a good job working those elements in....

After a little more digging and the ever-accurate wikipedia, it looks like this might be a hoax...let's hope someone isn't serious about this proposal.

Post frequency, to find the time...

future sitephocus contributor (probably more of a low-angle view early on)

Who knew having a 4 month old would cut into blog time? But alas, it has. Add in the day job as an LA and catching up on sitephocus photo edits, and spare time is hard to find. I'm hoping to re-energize some posts in the coming months. We'll see if I can stick to it that pledge. The following posts will be a quick run through of some things we've seen recently, but hopefully they're not too dated....

Sitephocus July 09 Update...

Sitephocus' July update went live earlier in the week with photos from Brian's recent trip to Copenhagen and Barcelona. This month's phocus was the first installment of Copenhagen. More next month. Below is a sampling of the overall update....

Inner Norrebro





Canal Village (Sluseholmen)

Inderhavnen

Miscellaneous Copenhagen


Kastellet
Nordhavnen

Nyhavn

Orstedsparken

Orestad City

Rosenborg Have


Stroget and Latin Quarters