this is how my friend luis alberto matanzo signed off one of his emails not long ago. (loosely translated: “a very very strong bear hug.”) luis was killed in a car accident yesterday, and already his loss is resonating far and wide. not only was he an immensely talented designer and rising star with respect to landscape architecture in mexico, but luis had what one of our other friends referred to as “an incredible inner magnet” — not a soul who met luis could resist his energy, his intellect, his sense of humor, his generosity, that sparkle in his eye. i feel lucky to have visited him in his hometown of puebla, and to have shared dinners with him in mexico city and new york a handful of times these past few years. the world just lost one its best and brightest, and in his honor i will never again shy away from speaking spanish… as mangled and blush-inducing as mine may be. so: te mando un abrazote muy, muy fuerte, luis. siempre estaras en mi corazon.

i love this woman. i knew nothing about her until my dearest film-hound-of-a-friend dragged me to see “beaches of agnes” this summer. but what a gem of a human, what a mind, and what a sweet and sophisticated riot… at 80!

…fall is on!

(Image respectfully stolen from Jordan / Martha Stewart.)

So after three+ years in my apartment, I finally talked to one of the NYC Dept of Environmental Protection construction guys across the street and found out once and for all what they’ve been working on: a 13 ft diameter pipe bringing fresh water (from upstate reservoirs – another discussion altogether) down the west side of Manhattan, connecting presumably to the 13th Street Pumping Station. This block of Gansevoort Street has been under construction since 2004 – apparently the pipe is buried something like 400 feet underground! – and I suppose I finally asked because Mr. DEP and I were literally the only two people out at 8:00am on a Saturday morning. I’d also been noticing the original cobblestones piling up on the sidewalk and wanted to know their destiny – thankfully they’re going to put back as many as they can.

And now at least I know that all those early morning jack-hammers were in service of a major infrastructural improvement… thirteen feet is huge! Reminds me of this awesome advertisement in Civil Engineering magazine:

a stunning and thought-provoking project by nataly gattegno and jason kelly johnson opened last night at van alen institute, and will be on view in the gallery through october 16, 2009. nataly and jason are founders of future cities lab, an “interdisciplinary design and research collaborative bridging architecture and landscape urbanism with material sciences, robotics and engineering.”  they were in residence at van alen as new york prize fellows this past summer, and with the help of carrie norman, thomas kelly, and a small army of enthusiastic and crazy smart recent design and media grads, nataly and jason brought not only the aurora project but the entire van alen institute to life. they are fantastic thinkers, makers, and educators, and i highly recommend checking out this exhibition – and their work more broadly – if you’re into craft, technology, phenomenology, cartography, ecology… you name it, they nailed it.

the exhibition includes three installations: “aurora” superimposes the ephemeral qualities of the arctic ice field with the dynamic behavior of visitors, translating the shifting dimensions of the ice into an immersive system of flickering auroras and responsive luminescent skins. presented alongside aurora is “terra incognita,” a map room consisting of original drawings, diagrams and other materials that provide a view into how the arctic region has been represented, claimed, and mythologized in the past and present. a smaller interactive instrument, “the glaciarium,” engages visitors’ senses through the sight and sound of a melting ice core.

sadly i had to abandon what would have been a fantastic trip to boulder this labor day weekend, so in an effort to make up for the nature i’m missing i spent some time this morning appreciating the little patch of green i’ve cultivated here at home… not such a bad view to wake up to every day:

right now i’ve got two kinds of basil, flat and curly parsley, mint, a variegated vinca, a bunch of lantana, and a tallgrass out on the fire escape. the windowsill is home to my jade plant, some lemon thyme, two string-of-pearls, chives, and a baby succulent i picked up at the union square farmers market not too long ago.

there’s definitely been an influx of birds and butterflies this summer… could it be the highline?

as i sift through all things NPS, i have to put in a plug for the new ken burns documentary coming out in a few weeks. it’s called “the national parks: america’s best idea” and from what i hear it’s brilliant – poignant and relevant and celebratory in all the right ways.  here’s what ken burns’ longtime collaborator and producer dayton duncan says about the project:

“Making this film was one of the greatest joys of my life,” said Dayton Duncan, who has visited all but one of America’s 58 national parks and who is the author of the companion book, to be published by Alfred Knopf. “Each park is unique and has its own fascinating historical story. But they are all connected by the transformative idea that they belong to each of us, providing a shared place that lives in the memory of every individual and every family that has visited them over the years. And they are connected by the notion that individual Americans, in the best possible example of democracy, worked to make sure that future generations could enjoy them.”

that last idea – that all the parks are connected by their innate publicness, and that the founding and ongoing preservation of each national park points to the truest of democratic principles – is something we’re striving to drive home in the envisioning gateway publication.  i have the pleasure of working with some really fantastic NPS scholars and managers on this – ethan carr and rolf diamant, specifically – and it’s a challenge to balance this message with some of the more dire and complex realities of gateway as a landscape. on top of all this, we’re also arguing that design matters (read: nature is constructed) and that the park service needs to reconnect to the latest innovations and practices in landscape architecture and urban design/planning in order to address those complexities. quite a task, but one i’m honored to undertake.

i’m not feeling much summer love because of this book deadline (it’s midnight on sat and i’m sitting on the porch with my laptop), but one look at this lovely polaroid and i’m transported:

3 months of silence is a long time! i suppose i’ve been distracted by weekend getaways and a steady stream of visitors – two things that characterize summer in NYC for me – and now i’m staring down the barrel of a four week push to finish the manuscript for a book about gateway national recreation area. gateway is a 26,000 acre stretch of the NY-NJ harbor under the jurisdiction of the national park service – home to bird refuges, drowning salt marshes, historic airfields and military buildings, and a huge portion of new york city’s waste infrastructure, among other things – and the book builds upon the “envisioning gateway” initiative that van alen institute has been a part of since 2006.

the photo here is one i took over memorial day, when i spent a gorgeous afternoon and evening on a boat in jamaica bay with broad channel resident / former NPS manager don riepe and landscape photographer laura mcphee. i contacted laura a year ago to see if she’d be interested in contributing to our publication, and as a wilderness enthusiast and native of the new york metropolitan area (not to mention daughter of science writer john mcphee) she enthusiastically accepted the commission. she’s been visiting the park about once a month since then, and works with this stunning 19th century large format camera. the waders are evidence that we were racing against the rising tides that day.

it’s been a total treat to work with laura and, more broadly speaking, to assemble a constellation of journalists, historians, designers and political advocates that can shed new light on gateway. more on the project as it comes together these next few weeks!