Landscape Architecture: A Reading List
A survey of classic and contemporary works revealing how cities, materials, power, and ecology shape landscapes—and how design can create healthier, more just places.
Designing for Community and Climate in Los Angeles
How can we design public spaces that help people thrive and connect—with each other and with their environment?
In Praise of Loitering
A possible remedy to sexual harassment and assault in public spaces is to encourage more people of all kinds to spend time on the streets.
The Case for a Public Social Media Platform
Artist and writer Joshua Citarella explores why corporate platforms corrode democracy—and what a postal-service-style digital commons could do differently.
Bread, Circuses, Baths: Bathing in Rome, the Public Way
By the fourth century CE, Rome had some 856 privately owned public baths, the grounds of which served as civic gardens adorned with sculptures.
Greening Philly’s Neglected Lots
Spearheaded by the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, an urban beautification program transformed neighborhoods in the city of brotherly love.
In the Sharing Garden
How one family physician fosters food justice, social connectivity, and better health at a local community garden.
We Descend from the River
Public spaces are often sites of commemoration of events in the nation’s history. But which public is represented in and served by those spatialized celebrations?
Living Laboratories: Science and the National Parks
National parks in the US are filled with glaciers and volcanoes, which isn't an accident, as the parks developed alongside the sciences of glaciology and volcanology.
The Tamest Grizzly of Yellowstone
Adored by tourists and studied by scientists, a grizzly mother named Sylvia became an emblem of the fragile balance between humans and the wild.