I'm a fairly regular camper.  Growing up in southern Ohio afforded me plenty of open space and woodlands to explore the wild and in a small way disappear from society for a brief time.  Now in southern California, I am a short drives distance from some of the greatest camping spots in the country.

In our last venture to San Onofre State Park, a surfing camp spot, the location of the designated campgrounds was less nature and more urban, but certainly not less "wild".  As we constructed temporary nomadic tent city I considered the view, to the west, native coastal plant life and beyond, the pacific.  Directly behind to the east, not ten feet away were the parking spots and our cars, just behind the access road the amtrak tracks, and beyond that the 8-lane 405.

A less idyllic vision of the camping experience but I began to envision the future experiences of campers.  As pockets of true wilderness that remain become few and far between, overcrowded and restricted access for their protection, the reason to visit these parks becomes muted.  They become a place that no longer tests your manhood against the elements but acts as more as a museum for our ancestral frontiersman.

But a new wilderness is developing.  Cities are rapidly growing, becoming more complex, and rather then locking ourselves up in our protective boxes, what if we found a new way to to test ourselves in the throws of the urban wilderness?  Rather then becoming intimately involved with nature, listening and understanding the landscape, we rediscover urbanity in a completely new way.  Smells, sounds, people, paths, roads, parks, architecture all become things of exploration rather then simply parts of the sum.

Perhaps a traveler from Sydney to New York could more quickly become familiar with the genus loci by submitting to its extreme exposure.

Import Export Architecten designed a new type of ‘small scale’ urban camping. The mobile UC can be implanted in any city centre that likes to experiment with this new type of camping. UC is a place where adventurous city wanderers can stay overnight, meet other campers and find a safe shelter with basic designed practical facilities.

Imagine some of the architectural visions of future Utopian cities, vast, and completely intertwined with giant swaths of green spaces.  Forests, urban farms, and food providing plant life.  Travelers could continuously explore the new urban wilderness, traveling from camping station to station, living off the land as they go.

I also wonder, could this create a new breed of a nomadic culture, the homeless no longer homeless but joining a tribe of wanderlust vagabonds freed from the constraints of societal routine?

+All images via Office for Word and Image 

Toyo Ito & Associates Architects / Island City Central Park Grin Grin from 0300TV on Vimeo.

0300TV presents a video of Island City Central Park GRIN GRIN in Fukuoka designed by Toyo Ito.

Project Details:
Building Island City Central Park Grin Grin
Architects: Toyo Ito & Associates Architects
Project Team: Toyo Ito, Toyohiko Kobayashi, Hiroyuki Shinozaki, Maya Nishikori, Yoshitaka Ihara
Structural Engineers: Sasaki Structural Consultants
Program: Cultural Building
Client: Fukoka City
Constructed Area: 5000 sqm
Completed: 2005
Location: Hakata Bay, Island City, Fukuoka, Japan

Source: Architecture Lab

{Los Angeles Historic State Park designed by Hargreaves and Associates. Image via Fast Company}

The budgetary woes of California is old news, and months and months of an unfinished budget debate between lawmakers and Gov. Schwarzenegger are digging a deeper hole for Californians.  Just recently however the proposed budget that's now pushing for approval is one that will effectively terminate funding for California State Parks, closing 220 parks up and down the Golden State (59 will remain open).

As anyone who's visited one these parks, especially in the summertime, one can attest to their popularity as you're rarely afforded the opportunity to experience one alone.  I can only imagine the effect that the closing of so many will have on the impact of so few.  More visitors filtered to the remaining inevitably means more degradation, more trash, and less serenity.

Part of me is willing to temporarily turn the other way given the economic crisis we're in.  Unfortunately, because of the fiscal mistakes of some sacrifices will have to come from somewhere.  But, again I think lawmakers underestimate the necessity of parks, especially for overcrowded SoCal.  And can just imagine the road rage of hundreds of over-sized truck owners when urban stresses cannot be relinquished with weekend park retreats.

The California State Parks Foundation quickly declared a Save Our State Parks Weekend (also known as the more urgent SOS Weekend) which will happen statewide June 20 to June 21. During this weekend, the campaign asks citizens to visit a park and take photos of themselves, and to wear green ribbons in show of solidarity. Save Our State Parks is compiling stories about state parks and calling for mobilization through its Facebook page, when I last checked already had over 31,000 fans.

One of the most notable parks set to close is the Los Angeles Historic State Park. One of the newest parks in the state system, these 32 acres are referred to as "the Cornfield" by locals due to a large-scale artwork by Lauren Bon that planted this former railyard with corn. After drawing awareness to the area, a park was designed by the competition-winning Hargreaves Associates to create a recreation area in this greenspace-deprived neighborhood.

{Malibu Creek State Park. Image via Fast Company}

Another unfortunate closing would be the Malibu Creek State Park. The trails of this mountainous park northwest of Los Angeles wind through canyons, over mountains with stunning rock formations, and along the 25-mile long Malibu Creek. But the park is perhaps best known as the location for many Hollywood productions, including the TV show M*A*S*H, which left behind plenty of its vintage war vehicles.

If you'd like your voice heard you can go the California State Park Foundation website for links to petitions and their facebook page.

+ Found at Fast Company

{Image via The Infrastructuralist}

We no longer have excuses for complaints that our voices cannot be heard.  Technology has given every imaginable way to organize and communicate against things we feel in the wrong.

Even in cities, above the car horns, street noise, and construction, means of pinpointing urban blight are here to give no room for them to be swept under the rug.

Through mapping technology, something I'm fond of seeing utilized in landscape contexts, is currently being developed in multiple facets in attempt to improve the lives of urban citizens.  I was recently contacted by the Environmental Mapping Technology Company SenSaris, after they read this post, to help design their personal, portable devices for measuring environmental conditions.

{Noise map around Bastille. Image via SenSaris}{SenSaris function diagram}

The mapping and measurements taken from the portable sensors directly correlate to inhabited areas to more efficiently influence which areas are in immediate of bioremediation or urban redesign.

At the social spectrum, the Infrastructionalist has created an interactive mapping system empowering citizens to pinpoint infrastructure degradation call F** This, Find It, Flag It, Fix It.  From their site:

In the land of F** This! you are granted many wonderful powers. You can become a guardian of public infrastructure. You can keep your city working smoothly. You can post pictures of busted crap–partially disassembled escalators in subway stations, cavernous potholes, permanently dark street lights–and trade snide and insightful comments with your wonderful new F** This! cyberfriends (why can’t your real life friends be this cool?). At the same time, while you’re busy enjoying yourself, we’ll see to it that the appropriate public officials get notified and the problem you identified gets dealt with. Or, if said officials prove useless in fixing the busted stuff, we’ll see to it that they endure at least some small measure of public humiliation. It’ll be fun!

{F** This map. Image via The Infrastructuralist}

While bureaucracies are a necessary evil, perhaps as tools like these become mainstays in our everyday use we become empowered to create the neighborhoods that we see fit.  If we don't, then it's a damn waste isn't it?

Apologies to any regular readers out there for the lack of posts as of late.  A lot of things going on and I've been playing catchup after a stellar trip to Sydney.  Cookin up some post ideas so June should be a good month.

I've also updated the blog list with a few of the sites I frequent, I recommend you take a gander at:

Serial Consign

Mammoth

A New F*cking Wilderness

Super Colossal