Sorry for the delay in keeping the blog up to date.  Things have been fast and furious

to begin 2012 here at BLA.  This month marks the two year anniversary of BLA, and I

would like to thank all those that have supported me and this venture over the past two

years.  2012 promises to be an exciting year, and I look forward to sharing several great

things with you this year.

I have been fortunate to have been elected to serve as the section chair for the Alabama ASLA

chapter.  In serving in this post, I hope to help educate the public on what Landscape Architecture

is, and the benifits that we provide in the designing spaces, and the way that Landsape Architects

shape our environmog ent.

If ASLA, or I can be of service to you in the coming year, please let me know.  I promise the blog will

more up to date this year with exciting topics and other items.

I hope that your 2012 is a very Happy New Yeat!!

This week, Huntsville City Schools made a major investment in our children's future.

The school system purchased several netbooks, and ipads for the schools geared to

help position our children to complete in the workforce.

Is this the answer to helping our children be ready to compete?

At one school in the heart of Silicon Valley, the answer is no.  With students who's parents

work for such technology giants as Apple, Ebay, Google, Yahoo, and Hewlett Packard.  This school says

no..  The thought at this school is that computers "inhibit creative thinking, movement, human interaction,

and attentions spans"

While some thought is that students will not tune in without these elements, certain evidence suggest

otherwise.  Because of wonderful applications like google, technology  is as easy to use as possible

making it easy to learn at a later age.

Other studies back up the curriulum at the Waldorf School. In 2001, the Alliance for Childhood,

a nonprofit organization in College Park, Maryland, released “Fool’s Gold: A Critical Look at Computers in Childhood,”

a report supported by more than eighty-five experts in neurology, psychiatry, and education, including Diane Ravitch,

former U.S. assistant secretary of education; Marilyn Benoit, president-elect of the American Academy of Child and

Adolescent Psychiatry; and primate researcher Jane Goodall. “Fool’s Gold” charged that thirty years of research on

educational technology had produced just one clear link between computers and children’s learning.  This was that on

standardize test, drill and practice programs appear to improve scores modestly though not as much or as cheaply

as one on one tudoring"  Also "A 1995 analysis by the college board showed that students who studied the arts for more

than 4 years scored 44 points higher on the math, and 59 points higher on the verbal sections of the SAT.  Nonetheless,

over the past decade, one-third of the nation's public music programs were dropped.  During the same period,

annual spending on School Technology tripled to 6.2 billion.  Between early 1999, and September 2001, education

technology attracted nearly 1 billion in venture capital, according to Merrill Lynch and Company"

While the problem isn't with the computers themselves as they are just the tools, the problem becomes overdependance

on them removing or replacing other sources of learning from the arts to nature.

Technology is a tool.

In Schools where technology is the forefront, scores on standardize test have become stagnant.  There is little proof that

technology is the answer to improving these test scores.  A district in Arizona that has spent over 33 million on technology

updates has seen this first hand.  If our eduators are teaching software applications, then are math, reading and writing

fundamentals being compromised?

Richard Louv Last Child in the Woods, Kindle Edition

New York Times-A Sillicon Valley School that doesn't compute

New York Times-In Classroom of Future-Stagnant Scores

So everyone knows that trees take in CO2, and replace it with oxygen which

we all breath, but do you know how many trees it takes to sustain one person for their

lifetime?  Suprisingly, it is not as much as you would think.  Any guesses?

No?  Well, it just takes two mature trees to provide the oxygen for one person's lifetime.

One tree produces 260 pounds of oxygen per year.

Forgetting the other values that trees provide, this alone is enough reason for the

planting of trees.  If you have some space, why not plant a tree or more for your kids, and

grandkids?

Tomorrow, 8.17.11 Landscape Architects from all over the US will be hitting the streets, and

showing the public what Landscape Architects do.  That we create the very places used to live, work, play.

That we connect cities.  That we create experiences.  That Landscape Architecture is

your environment designed!

Ever wondered what the trees in your yard are worth?  Have you thought

"Can you put a monetary amount on the value of the tree?"  We hear about the

curb appeal of trees, and landscape, and how that is the first impression of potential

buyers, and guest and those are true.   Now it may be possible to place a value to trees.

Two guys in Portland have collected data, and created calculations to help do just that.

By taking into account the types of trees, evidence of disease, proper pruning, and other

data and ranking them with the size of the crown of the trees in conjunction with houses

sold, they estimated that street tree adds $8,870 to the sales price of the property  it's in front

of, and also minimized the time of a home on the market by 1.7 days.

The researchers also ascertained that mature trees provided on average $12,828 to the value

of other homes around it.

While this research was solely based in Portland and the numbers will vary for the market,

the monetary value of street trees, and yard trees is unmistakable.

Doesn't this make you want to plant a tree?

Information from:Trees in the City: Valuing Trees in Portland Oregon by Geoffreey Donovan

and David Butry; Landscape and Urban Planning, vol. 94, 2010

Last year I wrote a blog post titled "What is it going to look like?"

The post was about the software Google Sketch-up, and how the program can

show clients what their design might look like before it is actually built.  Last week,

revisited the project depected in the sketch-up model to take some pictures of the

finished installation to see how close the project looks to the preliminary model.

Here is the model of the site, and below is a picture taken from approximately the same angle.

Here is another picture of the model

Here is an installed picture showing the backyard from the same side of the yard.

As you can see from the pictures, the modeling software is not a perfect science, but it does allow you

to give the client a glimpse.  The installation of a landscape project also changes with site conditions.

If you would like to see more completed project pictures from this project, please visit the residential gallery

on the site.