Siftings 01.04.12

A veritable log-jam of links worth checking out, so I thought I'd drop a few of them on folks - worth checking out for sure.  To start, John King of the Chronicle takes us on a tour of 'parklets' in San Francisco, or what is essentially Rebar's Parking Day in a more permanent iteration... I'd show you a pic but the SF Gate has them under lock and key so you should check out the slideshow, good stuff!  

Beautiful 3D maps by artist Matthew Picton, made from a range of media - such as "Lower Manhattan created from headlines that accompanied the 2001 world Trade center bombing and DVD covers of the film “Towering Inferno” also book covers of the novel “The Plot Against America” by Philip Roth"

Listen to an NPR story about Leonardo Da Vinci and the inherent wisdom of trees - a branching pattern where, "...when trees branch, smaller branches have a precise, mathematical relationship to the branch from which they sprang."

Map-nerds, see what my favorite christmas present, Derek Hayes' 'Historical Atlas of Oregon and Washington', or check out the 'Best American Wall Map' and find out what makes a good map better than a bad one...

In tandem with the lecture by Timothy Beatley here in Portland, check out the Biophilic Cities website...see a video about Rain Gardens, and find out how to be a hardcore locavore and make Squirrel Risotto.

You can also find out 'Things Architects Love', a somewhat tongue-in-cheek take which includes some standards like 'slatted timber' and 'drawings with birds in the sky', which seem to have become a staple of contemporary design language. 

And speaking of contemporary design, I'm not sure if I'd totally agree these were the most notable events, but Birnbaum lists 2011's 10 Notable Developments in Landscape Architecture, which includes the hopefully tongue and cheek comment that "...if we do not write about landscape, it will not endure," which i take means his obligation to the Huffington Post :)

More to come.