Archive for May, 2011

May 31, 2011

Replacing Windows in Historic Neighborhoods Should Require a Permit

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet Last month I was invited to participate in a Window Advisory Committee set up by the City of Phoenix Historic Preservation Commission. This may sound a bit esoteric to many of you, but some important issues were discussed that pertain to our historic neighborhoods. Here’s some background. We have 35 designated historic residential neighborhoods in the City of Phoenix. You can find out where they are here. These neighborhoods fall under Historic Preservation Overlay Zoning meaning that they are subject to Historic Preservation Design Guidelines. So if you live in one of those neighborhoods and you want to make…

May 30, 2011

Michael Pinto on How Architects Can Save the World

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet In March, I had the pleasure of seeing architect Michael Pinto speak at the Taliesin West Spring Lecture series. Michael’s office, Osborn Architects, is based in Los Angeles, a city that faces a lot of the same problems as Phoenix, except magnified and sometimes it’s a little bit further ahead in addressing those problems. The reason I decided to interview Michael was that I could tell that he takes a much broader approach to architecture than just designing beautiful buildings. He actually thinks that architects can change the world for the better. And so I was hooked. Michael proved…

May 25, 2011

The Words and Forms of Paolo Soleri

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet Last week I attended a special event organized by the AIA-Arizona an hour north of Phoenix at Arcosanti. I rode up with friends and sustainability wonks Jonce Walker, Joe Zazzera and Jeremy Stapleton in Joe’s Prius. The event included a tour of Arcosanti and a subsequent talk by Paolo Soleri. Mr.Soleri introduced The Lean Linear City concept to us and then proceeded to answer the questions of the various design professionals in the audience. Below is a photo essay of my unforgettable experience at Arcosanti mixed in with Mr. Soleri’s always remarkable thoughts. It’s a shortsighted proposition that we…

May 23, 2011

Reevaluating Valley Metro’s West Valley Light Rail Plans

by: Will Novak

Tweet Today’s post is by Will Novak, a regular commentor on Blooming Rock full of good ideas and a deep knowledge of our city. Even though Will has moved away, it seems his heart is still in Phoenix. We hope to lure him back here some day as his vision for Phoenix is a great one. Will Novak is an urbanist & Stand-up Comedian from Central Phoenix. He moved to Boston to chase his comedy dreams (and a girl). You can follow him on Twitter at @RealWillNovak, or watch video of him telling jokes at WillNovak.com. With the success of…

May 22, 2011

Recent Articles

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet Check out the articles I’ve written recently on other sites: On Firefly Living: Jane’s Walk Phoenix On Downtown Phoenix Journal: 2011 Urban Land Institute Real Estate Summit Starts Today On Vanishing Phoenix: Michael Levine to Michael Crow – A Question About Tearing Down Buildings

May 18, 2011

Peter MacDonagh on the Importance of Green Infrastructure and Old Trees

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet The Marq2 was a 48-block long redevelopment project in downtown Minneapolis. This project utilizes the Silva Cell, to contain large amounts of bioretention underneath the paving. Photo courtesy of The Kestrel Design Group. Do you know what green infrastructure is? It’s the stuff inbetween gray infrastructure (streets, piping, roofs, bridges, drains) and blue infrastructure (the lakes, rivers and other natural bodies of water). Green infrastructure helps filter, clean and minimize the amount of gray infrastructure run-off that goes into our lakes, rivers and natural bodies of water. I learned all this from the brilliant landscape architect Peter MacDonagh, partner…

May 16, 2011

Frank Lloyd Wright, Santiago Calatrava and the Beauty of the Section

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet My husband Paul shook me awake the morning after I arrived in Milwaukee at 3am just 6 short hours before. Groggily I resisted being woken up, but he insisted. He said, “you’re going to want to see the Frank Lloyd Wright exhibition at the Milwaukee Art Museum”. Grudgingly I acquiesced and dragged my tired self out of bed. But once we pulled up to the museum, my face brightened and I felt a rush of adrenaline. It was a dark, rainy spring day in Milwaukee, but the museum addition jutting out onto Lake Michigan by Santiago Calatrava looked stunning…

May 11, 2011

APS Shade Tree Program!

by: Doreen Pollack

Tweet My friend Doreen Pollack, who is the Garden Goddess, an expert in community and residential gardens and someone who serves on the board of the Valley Permaculture Guild, now is coordinating the APS Shade Tree Program. When she told me that you could get up to 3 shade trees FOR FREE from APS, I wanted to hear more and I thought you would too! So she crafted this small announcement about the program. Planting shade trees in your yard can save you up to $50 per year on your energy bill by blocking the sun’s rays and reducing your…

May 08, 2011

Photos from Jane’s Walk Phoenix – Call 16

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet This morning’s Jane’s Walk on Calle 16 (on 16th Street between McDowell and Thomas) was phenomenal. We learned so much about the mural project from artist and co-founder of Calle 16 Hugo Medina. He showed us how the mural project is helping the people of this neighborhood take pride in where they live, how it’s helping to get locals involved in doing something larger then themselves, how it’s helping mentor young artists into established socially-minded artists and how it’s really the beginning of a movement to show off the talent and creativity that we have here in Arizona. Also…

May 04, 2011

Jane’s Walk – Calle 16

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet Gennaro’s mural on Calle 16, photo from Arte + Gennaro A few months ago Yuri Artibise, urbanist and Arizona state coordinator of Jane’s Walk, a series of free neighborhood walking tours, asked me if I would help organize a Jane’s Walk on Calle 16. Of course I was delighted and said yes because Calle 16 is MY neighborhood. But I was also a little sad because part of the reason Yuri asked for my help was because he was moving from Phoenix to Vancouver. Yuri and his wife Linda left last weekend and have reached their destination safely. We…