For fourteen years, Scott Strazzante, a Pulitzer prize-winning photographer at the Chicago Tribune, tracked the evolution of a typical Illinois family farm through its transformation into a suburban subdivision. With housing sprawl replacing grazing land and big box stores built where crops once grew, this award-winning documentary depicts a phenomenon all too familiar in rural areas.
As often as we talk about sustainable building design strategies and technologies, it’s just as critical to look beyond the building and immediate site, to the context of the street, neighborhood, and community infrastructure.
The use of prefabricated and modular building strategies has been an area of much discussion in the realm of architecture, construction, and design in recent years, and sustainability advocates often discuss its relevance in terms of social and economic issues, such as affordable housing, urban development, and environmental responsibility.
Addressing the natural and built environment from a different perspective, we taking a cue from Japan, with regard to sustainability in a social and cultural context- more specifically, the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial, the world's largest public art festival, occurring every three years in the Niigata Prefecture.
As a follow up to last week's post on The Ecology Center's book, Backyard Skills: A D.I.Y. Handbook, we're officially sharing our favorite images of this project, taken after the project's completion in the fall of last year.
