(We're in USDA Zone 7b, 5 to 10 degrees Farenheit, I think?)

Possible plants...
To grow up the wall, or to cover brick wall from the parking lot side:

• carolina jessamine (pretty yellow flower)
• trumpet creeper (funky pink/red flower)
• clematis (pretty purple/blue flower)
• creeping fig (if we're just going for greenness)

To grow in containers:

• lantana (very ( Read more... )

As far as making the bench(es) "pretty," I've considered using "found" objects (i.e. chunks of Montevallo bricks, rusted metal o-rings, bottlecaps, etc.) and, of course, the leaf imprint method that our professor suggested is also a very cool idea. Implementing colored concrete might be cool. I haven't researched how it works yet, but maybe it ( Read more... )

Links to 3 blogs about sustainability/being "green":

• Re-nest
  
  • green ideas for refurbishing and maintaining your living space--little things like re-imagining an ugly coffee table instead of throwing it out or uses for eggshells, etc.
• Treehugger
  
  • articles about sustainability issues concerning many different areas, including a cool Design + Architecture ( Read more... )

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Flooring/"ground cover":

• Refurbish the preexisting slab
• adding colored concrete
  • perhaps in some sort of artistic fashion. perhaps in brown, green or gray hues to complement the colors of the surrounding landscape without making the ground cover so dark as to make it hold in heat
• adding stamped concrete

Awning:

• triangle-shaped cloth, such as canvas or ( Read more... )

( Read more... )