More parks

1. According to the BBC story, "Yorkshire Sculpture Park wins museum of the year award." It's almost a square mile, on the grounds of a local college, and it's not quite 40 years old. The Sculpture Park is known for high profile exhibitions and for a growing permanent collection of high profile works.

Flickr photo by StarttheDay of Peter Livesidge's "Everything is connected" sculpture.

2. Chicago has five parks projects underway. I've mentioned the Bloomingdale Trail, now called the 605, and plans to amp up the Chicago Riverwalk, but there is more going on, according to Curbed Chicago, "The Five Most Anticipated New Parks Chicagoans Can't Wait For."

3. There is an initiative promoting better food service options in big parks, connecting concessionaires to local food systems and agriculture entrepreneurship issues.

See the Food for the Parks initiative and report, Food for the Parks: CASE STUDIES OF SUSTAINABLE FOOD IN AMERICA’S MOST TREASURED PLACES from the Institute at the Golden Gate/Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy.

The New York Times has a piece, "A Happy Hunter for a Must-Have Taste," about the extent to which Shake Shack, which started in NYC's Madison Square Park, goes to source locally produced foods and develop regionally-specific items.

And the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader editorializes ("Enliven River Common in summer with food vendors, boat rentals") about the need to add food and services to their Riverfront Park, to build patronship and activity.

4. In the last entry ("Short addition on garden festivals") on this topic I forgot to mention Bilbao's International Urban Garden Competition generally and a work by Diana Balmori & Associates specifically.

The Garden that Climbs the Stairs was a 2009 project, very playful that challenges how we think of landscape architectural elements within traditional infrastructure. The installations are temporary, because the city doesn't want to be in the position of having to maintain the projects long term.

Also see "Diana Balmori’s Bilbao Jardín Garden Climbs the Stairs" from Bustler.  Photos by Iwan Baan.