by Marc Toppel

Community gardens have been sprouting up in vacant tracts of land across San Antonio where little more than trash and the daring weeds were found a year before. Now, tomatoes, watermelon, and jalapenos are being picked by the basketful. New crops of beans and squash are beginning to sprout for the fall season as a number of these gardens are just being cleared of successful summer harvests. While encouraged by movements towards neighborhood revitalization, community garden gains have strengthened significantly over the last year alongside a rise in food costs.
Much of the transformation can be attributed to the Green Spaces Alliance (GSA) of South Texas. A non-profit organization formerly know as the Bexar Land Trust, GSA is dedicated to preserving natural land in both the public and private sector. They have successfully protected large swaths of untouched forest and countryside, all the while encouraging San Antonio neighborhoods such as Denver Heights and Lavaca to repurpose the left over and forgotten patches of vacant lots prevalent in our urban landscape. Click to read more

by Alan Harmon

The Sally Cheever Girl Scout Leadership Center is the symbolic and administrative focus for all Girl Scout activities in south and central Texas. It's also a model for sustainability in the built environment.

In designing the Sally Cheever Leadership Center, the Girl Scout's vision was clear from the onset: the building was to respect the environment and embody the spirit of Girl Scouting. How to best capture this spirit became a key focus of the design effort, and the Architects chose to follow the Girl Scout law, which is an oath recited by the scouts at the commencement of every meeting, as a guide. The oath describes what qualities a Girl Scout should strive to incorporate into her character and daily life i.e., consideration, respect, and responsibility. For each passage in the law an architectural equivalent was developed that describes how a building would embody and demonstrate these very qualities. Click here to read more