Archive for March, 2009
March 21, 2009 · Filed under Architecture, Cities from Scratch, Density, Diversity, Master Planning, Place making, Retail
More than 10 years ago, a charismatic Cuban American architect embarked on a bold plan to transform a plot of Ontario farmland into a bustling urban utopia, a place where dwellers would swap cars for walking shoes and enjoy a sense of urbanity in what would have otherwise been just another suburb.
Or so that was Andres Duany’s plan.
Instead, cars today zip up and down the narrow avenues and not a pedestrian, charming coffee shop, nor restaurant is in sight.
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Popularity: 28% [?]
March 21, 2009 · Filed under Architecture, Cities from Scratch, Creative Cities, Diversity, Urban Design, Urbanization
With his eclectic studies, urban researcher Kai Vöckler, curator of the exhibition Balkanology: New Architecture and Urban Phenomena in South-eastern Europe is trying to accomplish a “mission impossible”: to prove that a participatory and sustainable urban life is also possible in South-eastern Europe.
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Popularity: 23% [?]
March 21, 2009 · Filed under Density, Diversity, Public Space, Real Estate, Shopping Malls, Urban Design
Lifestyle architect Ben Wood created Xintiandi and three other tiandis in China. He tells Nancy Zhang that his fifth, biggest and most challenging “romantic interlude” is underway in the Pearl River Delta.
Shanghai’s Xintiandi set the bar (how high is disputed) for renovations of old areas for commercial use and a new audience. Now the architects behind it are working on their most ambitious project to date: Lingnan Tiandi in Foshan, central Guangdong Province.
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Popularity: 31% [?]
March 21, 2009 · Filed under Economics, Investment, Shrinking Cities
The mood toward public-private partnerships in Michigan does seem to be changing. The state held its inaugural PPP summit in September 2008. Attendees at the Detroit meeting included representatives from the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 324 and private-equity firm Macquarie Capital. And at the end of last year, Michigan set up its first office of public-private partnerships.
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Popularity: 13% [?]
March 20, 2009 · Filed under Real Estate, Shrinking Cities
AT 6:30 on a Wednesday morning in February, James Brewer backed a pickup truck with a trailer into the driveway of a one-story beige house in a new subdivision called Murrieta Oaks and looked down at the day’s first work order.
“It’s 10 cubic yards interior, 5 exterior,” he told his three-man crew as they climbed out of the truck and pulled on canvas gloves. Within a minute, the four men had fanned out across the property.
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Popularity: 10% [?]
March 20, 2009 · Filed under Architecture, Economics, Real Estate, Shrinking Cities
The ordinary scenes of Habitat for Humanity — volunteers with saws and hammers creating homes from scratch on empty dirt — are being upended here. Volunteers are learning to rip down plaster, pull apart walls and tear off roofs. To the nonprofit group’s long-held aim of constructing houses for those in need, Saginaw’s affiliate has lately added to its mission by doing the opposite.
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Popularity: 11% [?]
March 20, 2009 · Filed under Architecture, Beauty, Heritage
It’s impossible to legislate weirdness, which is a sad thing for the city’s architectural heritage.
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Popularity: 10% [?]
March 20, 2009 · Filed under Architecture, Artificial Landscapes, Beauty, Creative Cities, Economics, Revitalization, Urban Design
In the first major redesign effort since Napoleon III, teams of architects offer ideas to reignite the City of Light.
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Popularity: 21% [?]
March 19, 2009 · Filed under Creative Cities, Economics
Which is more important to London’s economy, the gleaming corporate office or the grungy rock club that launches the best new bands? If you said “office,” think again. Elizabeth Currid, author of The Warhol Economy, would argue that creative industries like fashion, art, and music drive the urban economy as much as – if not more than – finance, real estate, and law. And these creative industries are fuelled by the social life that whirls around the clubs, galleries, music venues, and fashion shows where creative people meet, network, exchange ideas, pass judgments, and set the trends that shape popular culture.
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Popularity: 6% [?]
March 18, 2009 · Filed under Creative Cities, Waterfronts
As the Olympic countdown continues, Vancouver prepares for its close-up as the “supermodel of North American cities. The accolade comes from Friday’s Life section cover story by USA Today — the largest national American newspaper in circulation.
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Popularity: 16% [?]
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