Archive for July, 2009
July 31, 2009 · Filed under Creative Cities, Economics, Real Estate, Shopping Malls
Hard times for the retail industry could be a boon for artists and dancers in need of space to work and perform.
In a collaborative effort with the Arts Initiative at Ohio State University, Campus Partners plans to offer rent-free space to emerging artists in its South Campus Gateway complex along N. High Street. The artists will occupy empty retail storefronts amid the Gateway bars and restaurants, with a goal of attracting the energy and excitement of the arts to the still-evolving commercial and residential district.
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Popularity: 48% [?]
July 31, 2009 · Filed under Artificial Landscapes, Ecosystems, Emergence, Exhibitions, Landscape, Nature, Urban Structure
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The work of over 500 AA students will be shown in a combination of displays from small-scale models to 1:1 installations.
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Popularity: 67% [?]
July 30, 2009 · Filed under Cities from Scratch, EcoCities, Energy, Infrastructure, Planning, Urban Design, Urban Structure, Visualization
Off-Grid Scenarios: solutions for the endless city was recently chosen by Mark Linder of Syracuse University, Stanley Tigerman of Tigerman McCurry Architects and Sarah Whiting of Princeton University as “best in show” at UIC, an annual award given to the top project of the school. The studio, which was led by Alexander Lehnerer of the ETH Zurich, was titled Chicago Rules: inclusionary regimes within the American city.
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Popularity: 72% [?]
July 30, 2009 · Filed under Density, Diversity, Ecosystems, Families, Housing, Revitalization, Slums
Dharavi, at the heart of Mumbai megalopolis, recently became the iconic symbol of slums in Asia and in the world through its intrinsic permanence, multiplicity, dynamism, density and scale. Partially caused from the emergent glamour of informality and feticisation of poverty, and its strategic location in the modernisation of the city, Dharavi emerged as the last frontier of oppositional practices confronting neo-liberal mega-projects of urban redevelopment and thus symbol of a contested urbanism.
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Popularity: 53% [?]
July 28, 2009 · Filed under Diversity, Emergence, Heritage, Housing, Urban Structure
Urban society may seem a modern phenomenon but cities have been around for a lot longer than one might think. Indeed, once nomadic tribes began to settle in one location, they saw that it was good, became fruitful, and multiplied. Decades, centuries and millennia passed while war, climate change and human migration all took their toll. Relatively few ancient cities have managed to survive the test of time. Here are 10 that have not only survived, but continue to thrive.
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Popularity: 46% [?]
July 28, 2009 · Filed under Artificial Landscapes, Density, Housing, Multi-Level Urbanism, Public Art, Public Life
Maybe this can also ease the American housing crisis: Two brothers in Brazil are literally living on the outside of a building in Rio’s Old Center. Since May, twenty-seven-year-old Tiago Primo and his twenty-year-old brother Gabriel, have been sleeping, working and eating on the side of a building 33 feet up in the air for twelve hours every day. They plan to continue this display until August. Um yes, it’s art.
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Popularity: 62% [?]
July 28, 2009 · Filed under Energy, Infrastructure, Night, Pedestrians, Safety
Residents of a German village can turn on a street light like they would a reading lamp: whenever they need to.
Dörentrup, located 320 kilometres west of Berlin, has adopted an energy-saving program that lets someone use a cellphone to turn on a street light by dialling the code number found on the lamppost.
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Popularity: 43% [?]
July 28, 2009 · Filed under Creative Cities, Emergence, Information Design, Infrastructure, Mobility, Urban Structure
So these cities of the future are still made of concrete, but also of transient slivers of silicon and amorphous clouds of wireless activity. Atoms and bits. The great promise of informatics – or whatever we end up calling it – is that the fabric of the city is once again malleable, responsive and can adapt through learning from layered patterns of behaviour. Perhaps we don’t call it informatics, but architecture and engineering, just a new form of both crafts. Yet these developments pose radical changes, from the point of view of skills, processes, business models and purpose, and Ratti and his crew of collaborators are indicating one possible future for our work. He concludes by tentatively suggesting, “It’s almost redefining, I believe, what being an architect is.”
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Popularity: 50% [?]
July 28, 2009 · Filed under Architecture, Density, Diversity, Housing, Planning, Suburbs, Zoning
Don’t write the obituary for McMansions just yet. Although mass-produced behemoths more than 3,000-square-feet in size have only been common (and commonly criticized), since the late ’90s, home sizes have never been influenced by need alone. The builder association’s report also points out that houses ballooned most—about 1,000 square feet—during the period between 1970 and 2008, when household size dropped from 3.11 to 2.57. Homes are getting smaller now because people feel poorer, but all that will change once the recession ends and consumer confidence is restored.
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Popularity: 46% [?]
July 27, 2009 · Filed under Creative Cities, Diversity, Public Life, Public Space, Urban Actions
The piano was standing innocently near the Millennium Bridge, minding its own business except for a cheeky come-on — “Play Me, I’m Yours” — printed on its side. For a 24-year-old Australian tourist named Lauren Bradley, it was as alluring as a sign saying “Free Chocolate.”
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Popularity: 37% [?]
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