A big congratulations to the Urban Green Council Emerging Professionals, whose Natural Talent Design entry “RAMPed UP” was placed in the Top four by a national jury and is now slated to be built in New Orleans’ Broadmoor neighborhood!

Team Name: “RAMPed UP”
Team Members: from Buro Happold, Irmak Turan, Daniel Bersohn, Tim Hanna, Rossella Nicolin, and Lauren Page; from Rogers Marvel: Yavuz Akcora, Nicholas McDermott, Shane Neufeld, and Jenny Wu

Check out other finalists:

Team Name: “Rising to the Challenge”
Team Members: Emily Balaban, Emily Clark, Jaliya Fonseka, Rebecca Lai, Laura Langridge, David McMurchy, Andy Oh, Laura Pellow,and Steven Zhao
Team affiliation: University of Waterloo School of Architecture, University of Waterloo

Team Name: “Focus on Essential Values”
Team Members: Alan Stevenson, AIA, LEED AP, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP
Charlie Marino, LEED AP, AKF Group LLC

Jamestown Properties commits to “greening” their entire $4B US portfolio. Yes, that’s a ‘B’ as in billion, which is a lot of green square feet. Their US operations are based in Atlanta, but several of their NYC properties are discussed in the New York Times piece.

ASLA has developed a great web resource: Designing our Future: Sustainable Landscapes. The site includes a wide variety of inspiring case studies, from a clever $500 backyard renovation, the Crack Garden, to a 30 acre urban farm project in New Orleans featuring traditional Vietnamese fruits and vegetables.

A great survey of the incredibly important efforts to restore Louisiana’s coastal wetlands.

Clemson has constructed a green Coastal Ecology and Forest Science building at a nearby wildlife refuge, taking pains to avoid the pine forest habitat of the local, endangered woodpeckers. Understanding your proposed building site as habitat for local wildlife seems a simple enough idea- but even 10 years ago this sort of consideration was almost totally non-existent. It’s great to see the beginnings of whole system thinking on a more regular basis.

Hat tip to ArchNewsNow.com