Twenty five hundred years ago, a group of peoples settled Tikal, surrounded by the lowland rainforests of the Petén Basin of northern Guatemala. Their descendants would create a remarkable civilization that populated cities and villages across much of southern Mexico, Belize and Guatemala. Today, it has returned to the forest but turned into a major archeological attraction.
Landscape
An expanse of earth, adorned, improved, contoured, designed, and experienced. Architecture, travel, design, culture.
Agricultural Urbanism: Designing Cities as Edible Ecosystems
The world’s population is expected to rise to 10 billion by 2050. Yet with 80 per cent of the planet’s usable farmland already cultivated, the effects of climate change wreaking havoc across large areas of existing farmland, and more than 10 per cent of humanity going to bed hungry every night, growing enough sustenance for three billion new mouths is not going to be easy.
Wilderness of Minarets: On the Coyote Trail of Muir and Adams
Frank Gehry: Toronto’s Trio of Living Sculptures
Developer David Mirvish hopes his string of sculptural towers in Toronto arts district will provide an antidote for the banality of the traditional glass box condo tower. “I am not building condominiums,” he said at the announcement. “I am building three sculptures for people to live in.”
Earthship Biotecture: Self-Sufficient, Off-the-Grid Communities
Passive solar Earthships provide electricity, potable water, sustainable food production, with contained sewage treatment, and can be built anywhere in the world. Renegade eco-architect Michael Reynolds’ construction and design process called Earthship Biotecture creates beyond LEED Architecture, a sustainable green building design made of natural and recycled materials.
Austria: Operatic Spectacles Rise from the Lake at the Bregenz Festival
The Seebühne, a floating opera stage of bewildering proportions rises every summer from Austria’s Lake Constance, the centerpiece of the annual Bregenzer Festspiele (Bregenz Festival). It has staged productions such as Verdi’s “Aida,” Giordano’s “André Chénier,” Bernstein’s “West Side Story,” and next year will be Mozart’s “The Magic Flute.”