Park(ing) Day

The City of Round Rock and BWM Group are celebrating Park(ing) day on historic main street. We transformed two parking spaces into a miniature park for the day. Why? To celebrate the virtues of green space: social, environmental, and economic. Come by for some lemonade.

Texas Baked Chocolate Chip Cookie

Ta dah! Here is the finished product. It took 4 hours of dashboard baking, instead of the 2.5 to 3 hours as suggested. I think that was because ours cookies were big. (We are in Texas after all where everything is bigger.) The only negative I found was they didn't really brown. But they were crispy, fully cooked, yummy and gooey. What is the moral of the story? Don't leave your Chanel lipstick or labrador in the car, but feel free to bake cookies in it....oh, and ask your City Council Members, County Commissioners, Governor, and President for more tree shaded sidewalks.

Heat Index

I read an article last night about baking chocolate chip cookies in your car when outside temperatures are above 100. Well, shoot, I thought. My black car tells me it is 107 when I pull out of downtown Round Rock at the end of the day. So, we are baking chocolate chip cookies in my car this afternoon! I put them in at noon and they should be ready in 3 hours. Come on by 102 E. Main Street in Round Rock after 3:00 for a taste test. Talk about passive energy use. Who needs solar panels? Wind farms, schwind farms.

Worst drought since 1872

According to the River Systems Institute, Texas is experiencing one of the worst droughts on record and described as the worst drought conditions in the country. These conditions have not been seen since 1872! Please conserve your water use - and those of us in development need to think about the implications of our planning (or lack of) ranging from vegetation type to land use decisions.

Guggenheim was not meant to be white

:: Photo: Daniel Wolf and Mathew Wolf in memory of Diane R. Wolf, the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation via The New York Times

I know how he felt. One holiday season I was driving through Cedar Park and was struck by the monotony of white holiday lights...everywhere. Where was the color? How about some red, green, or even purple? I made it home and declared only colored lights at our house from now on. My moderate - yet leaning right when it comes to aesthetics - husband quickly stomped out my declaration of hue. http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/06/24/realestate/0628-scape

Gateway

We saw this entrance feature to a residential subdivision outside Bastrop, Texas. We liked it so much we came back to photograph it. It reminded us of the past when a monument marked something special and of interest. It also reminded us that bigger is not always better. The classic column has a bed for a pretty foliage and a light on top so the entrance can be seen at night. The dark stone compliments the native landscape. Be on the lookout for a replica in some of our projects. As Chales Caleb Colton said, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Landscape Architecture Connects the Inside & Outside

"Landscape architecture is not a correcting or mitigating agent for architecture. When engaged simultaneously with the architecture, it transforms it and makes possible connectivity between inside and outside.”

I really love this statement from Diana Balmori, of New York's Balmori Associates about landscape architecture [creating great places].