Urbanism News
Friday, July 4, 2008
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Air France eyes move to railways =Air France is holding talks on a joint venture that could lead to it offering high-speed rail travel. |
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Japan Sees a Chance to Promote Its Energy-Frugal Ways With its towering furnaces and clanging conveyer belts carrying crushed rock, Taiheiyo Cement’s factory looks like an Industrial Revolution relic. But it is actually a model of modern energy efficiency, harnessing its waste heat to generate much of its own electricity. |
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Bowling Alone in Urbanistaville Much has been written in recent years about the negative impacts of “sprawl.” It is said to increase traffic congestion, commute time, and air pollution. It gobbles up agricultural lands and open space. It is also said to have serious social implications like bowling alone. |
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City housing should work for middle class, too San Francisco has a huge problem with getting people into housing. But not in the way you think. The homeless guy living under the freeway underpass? We know about him. The city, prompted by an outcry from the progressive community, has taken steps to get that person - the extremely poor, unemployed, impoverished homeless camper - into some kind of housing. |
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Foster + Partners reveals Rimini waterfront design Architect unites town centre and seafront in historic Italian city celebrating tradition of green boulevards. |
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Star architects bid to design new center for South Korean capital as 21st century model city An all-star group of international architects bidding for the chance to design a new urban center for the South Korean capital said Tuesday the vast site offered a rare chance to create a model for 21st century cities. |
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Time to call a halt to stop signs? Several communities in Europe and the U.S. have removed signs, sidewalks, traffic lights. The result? A 40 per cent decline in pedestrian fatalities. |
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The architecture of Vancouverism A London exhibition showcases Vancouver's celebrated architecture. Modernist, sustainable and performative, is this a model for the future city? |
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Bike sales soar as drivers trade four wheels for two =There have always been a few hardy commuters willing to forgo the comfort and safety of a car in favour of a bicycle, but in the face of ballooning gas prices their numbers are growing dramatically and that has proven a boon for manufacturers and retailers. |
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Board of Regents The wheatpaste of Fathima Fahmy was the first to go up just over a month ago. Two stories tall, it stands on the side of a newly-vacant apartment building slated for demolition in the heart of Regent Park. Since then, ten other larger-than-life portraits of other residents like her—those living in the fleet of low-rise buildings that are to be torn down and built on top of as part of Toronto Community Housing's $1 billion Regent Park Revitalization project—have been installed, all eleven of them photographed, constructed, and put up by Dan Bergeron (Fauxreel). |
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The backyard as holiday getaway A North Toronto couple with a yen for Zen didn't have a crystal ball when they spent $250,000 to turn their backyard into a Japanese paradise almost 20 years ago. They didn't divine today's snarled weekend traffic and high gas prices — they just worked long hours and had no time to travel to cottage country. |
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Eco-Luxury is the New Black Nothing is more American in spirit than the latest trend in mashups - eco-luxury. The idea, of course, is that you can still have your lavish lifestyle of excess without the guilty conscience. Or simply put, you can have your cake and eat it too. |
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Concerns deflate city’s bike rental proposal Portland’s plan for a European-style fleet of rental bicycles has been parked back in the rack. |
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Google faces 'Street View block' Google's plans to launch a mapping tool in the UK could be referred to the Information Commissioner. |
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America's Most Fuel-Efficient Neighborhoods With the national average price of gasoline topping $4 a gallon, it's a propitious time to make the case for gas-sipping neighborhoods. Indeed, Americans coping with soaring energy costs are choosing to spend their economic stimulus checks at the gas pump and reduce their driving habits by billions of miles. |
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BANKSIDE Urban Forest by Witherford Watson Mann The Bankside Urban Forest framework aims to highlight the relationship between the less intensively developed urban interior and its active, increasingly corporate, edges. By recognising the capacity of the public realm to be shared by each, the framework identifies improvements to open spaces and connecting routes, to support interaction between residents, workers, visitors, local institutions and organisations. Existing projects are drawn together with our proposed ones to help to negotiate, informally influence and direct emerging projects and to secure additional funding for enhancing the public realm.” |
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Development needs to reflect new social fabric Ethnic groups are coming up with unique uses for public spaces, says the curator of a new design exhibit. |
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
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Survival of the swiftest "You're No. 1 when you're driving. You're No. 1 when you're walking," Ms. Lake says. "It's all your own point of view." |
Saturday, June 28, 2008
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Rome launches bicycle-sharing scheme Visitors and residents to Rome are being asked to embrace efforts to reduce congestion and pollution with a new bicycle-sharing scheme. |
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In new condo villages, fitting in is job one Residents break the ice on the Internet.
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Parent network aims to create urban village It's a dream of young Toronto parents to live within a five-minute walk of everything they require, including the grocery store, good local schools, parks, work, the lake and cafes. |
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High-Cost Condos, Low-Cost Laborand Threats of Violence to Union Organizers In this age of housing gluttony, high-rise builders sink to new lows. |
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The Best U.S. Cities, by Design Architectural firm RMJM Hillier weighed sustainability, awards, and both expert and residents' opinions in its list of top 10 U.S. cities for design. |
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A4 to sink to reconnect Hammersmith to the Thames A group of architects has got together in London to propose a series of schemes to reconnect Hammersmith with the river, including sinking the A4 below ground from the Hogarth roundabout to Hammersmith Town Centre. |
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Battersea Power Plan -- is Rafael Violy a menace or a sustainable design hero? Architect Rafael Violys plan to redevelop the Battersea Power Station site, is certainly causing a stir. The proposal sees the iconic power station, which has loomed over the south bank of the River Thames since 1939 (and which memorably featured on Pink Floyds 1977 Animals album cover) recast as a vast mixed use complex, with the eight million square foot plan including residential, retail, hotel and office space as well as an open-air park and an extension to the Northern line on the underground. |
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Curitiba's Urban Experiment Thirty years ago, Curitiba, Brazil unveiled a master plan to address urban issues with environmentally-friendly public transit and social programs. |
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Taken for a Ride Although quiet and convenient, escalators unfortunately cost more money to install, operate and maintain than raising a child. |
Friday, June 27, 2008
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Chelsea Gets a Thicket The designers of the High Line revealed a scheme for the parks second section today that channels the wisdom of a certain pop song: Beauty is where you find it. |
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Who Owns Central Park? How Frederick Law Olmsteds 843 acres of civilizing wilderness became a type-A battleground. |
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
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Life on the fringes of U.S. suburbia becomes untenable with rising gas costs Suddenly, the economics of American suburban life are under assault as skyrocketing energy prices inflate the costs of reaching, heating and cooling homes on the outer edges of metropolitan areas. |
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At $5 a gallon, we'll start telling stories again Eighty-six percent of the American people believe the price of gasoline will climb to five bucks a gallon this year, a big shift in public opinion from a year ago when most people felt that oil prices were spiking high and would soon return to normal - which is 35 cents a gallon, same as a pack of smokes - and we'd be able to head west in our Winnegabo motor home for a nice summer vacation. |
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Exodus of S.F.'s middle class It's urban flight flipped on its head: The number of low- and middle-income residents in San Francisco is shrinking as the wealthy population swells, a trend most experts attribute to the city's exorbitant housing costs. |
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Bristol named first cycling city Bristol has become England's first "cycling city" in a £100m government scheme aimed at encouraging cycling. |
Monday, June 23, 2008
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Forbidden Cities Beijings great new architecture is a mixed blessing for the city. |
Saturday, June 21, 2008
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Spaced Out A new book on 60s architecture provides surprisingly fresh lessons for todays designers. |
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This icon of 60s New Brutalism has its champions. So let them restore it. The heritage minister, Margaret Hodge, must decide next week on the fate of a twin-slab estate of flats in east London called Robin Hood Gardens. It is grimly sandwiched between a main road and the approach to the Blackwall tunnel and has an ironic title. Never have the rich been robbed to dump so much concrete ugliness on the heads of the poor. The tenants and Tower Hamlets council want the place down, and now. |
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Kobenhavn cool - Socially sustainable Danish architecture Danish architecture’s love of light and openness encourages a high level of spatial and social interaction. |
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'Feel-good' towers not wanted, form-fit is Libeskind's Ascent is out of place, but van Berkel's Five Franklin borrows from its neighbours and hits the right note. |
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Sharp Rise in Shopping Center Vacancies The number of shuttered box stores and empty strip malls has expanded dramatically over the last six months, according to data compiled by commercial real estate brokers and investment advisors. And the situation is likely to get much worse. |
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Farming at the Museum Urban stretches of gravel and gray concrete may not be the typical platform for produce, but, as of today, P.S.1 will prove the exception to the rule as "P.F.1 (Public Farm One)," a new installation, conquers its courtyard. The winning design of the museum's annual Young Architects Program, "P.F.1" consists of two slanting sheets of cardboard tubes, the highest of which sit 35 feet in the air, that angle downward and meet in the middle of the courtyard. In each tube lie orderly bunches of adolescent vegetables, flowers, and vines, which will dangle down to the ground by summer's end. |
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