Urbanism News
Monday, February 28, 2005
|
UN sees 40% rise in world population by 2050 The world's population will increase by 40 per cent to 9.1 billion in 2050, but virtually all the growth will be in the developing world, especially in the 50 poorest countries, the UN Population Division said. |
|
Urban green space linked to walking, cycling levels The degree to which city people walk or ride bicycles for their daily transportation needs depends largely on how much green space there is, says a new study that examines the role of urban design in physical fitness. |
|
San Francisco top city for health The degree to which city people walk or ride bicycles for their daily transportation needs depends largely on how much green space there is, says a new study that examines the role of urban design in physical fitness.The degree to which city people walk or ride bicycles for their daily transportation needs depends largely on how much green space there is, says a new study that examines the role of urban design in physical fitness. |
|
Without a Car in the World The trumpet sounded from eighth row center at a Washington University lecture hall in St. Louis five years ago. It was early in my explorations for the book that would become Asphalt Nation, and I was happy preaching to the choir. Or, I should say, to fellow passengers; for the students at the architecture school were already on the same trip. They knew intuitively, if not literally, the design formulas that I recited from the podium-for example, that every motor vehicle required building an ancillary seven parking spaces to hold it at rest. They realized that big chunks-some 30 percent-of our cities were hardtopped in service to the car's voracious appetite. And they knew how that transformed the built environment into a grim "carchitecture." |
|
An exodus from suburbia? A population drain on Long Island has officials debating how much they can compromise to stem the loss of taxpayers and workers |
Sunday, February 27, 2005
|
National @ Docklands Turning the tower on its side, bligh voller nield’s new waterfront hq for the national australia bank puts amenity before status as it helps bring about workplace change. |
|
Housing The Future What futuristic potential to particular materials hold? Six architects undertake ambitious physical experiments in concrete, cardboard, glass, timber, steel and clay. |
Saturday, February 26, 2005
|
The New Serenity
Architects who design museums have been retreating from explosive innovation to favor classicism, tranquillity, and a more restrained Modernism. |
|
Sorry kids, fun is banned Public spaces are becoming boring because of public liability fears.
|
|
A dreamer with designs on us
British architect Will Alsop put OCAD on stilts, then set up shop in this 'unbelievably ugly' but charming city, |
Friday, February 25, 2005
|
The Flood The main programme of the second International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam, which will be held from 26th May till 26th June, is known. |
|
More Sign Than Space, Las Vegas Revisited Robert Venturi and his wife Denise Scott Brown visited the Netherlands to promote their latest book ‘Architecture as Signs and Systems’. |
|
City Murmurs: Magazines and New Media are Tapping into our Cities’ Unconscious Why sit here? Grab your coat and head out for a walk. Explore the back alleys and peer into backyards and courtyards filled with garbage cans, clotheslines and idle children’s toys. Ride the subway and consider the faces of the people around you; take a closer look at the tile work of the stations, the subtle aspects of design that make a place unique. |
|
N.Y. Exhibit Showcases Power of Landscapes A garbage dump turns into an ecological sanctuary. A bomb site becomes a public plaza. And a city's strife-torn center turns into a garden. This is the power of urban landscape design, a new exhibition shows. |
|
Happiness is Back Growing incomes in western societies no longer make us happier, and more individualistic, competitive societies make some of us positively unhappy. Public policy should take its cue once more from Bentham's utilitarianism, unfashionable for many decades but now vindicated by modern neuroscience |
|
Nowhere land As US towns sprawl into the countryside, creating anonymous zones dominated by soulless malls, one of Britain's leading historians asks if it could happen here. |
|
From shack towns to split-levels: Suburbia's story The verdict on the 'burbs seesaws back and forth -- good one decade, bad the next. But quick judgments ignore diversity. |
Thursday, February 24, 2005
|
From Ruin and Artifice, Landscapes Reborn The name Frederick Law Olmsted, the landscape architect who built Central Park when Fifth Avenue was no more than a dirt road, is often on the lips of landscape architects these days. |
|
Confronting Blight With Hope Landscape architects have long felt sidelined or devalued by their architectural brethren. But as the boundaries between the two professions slowly dissolve, it seems that landscape designers are advancing some of the most potent visions of how blighted cities can be revived. |
|
Why I Don't Love Richard Florida In classifying a whole host of occupations as "creative," our leading pop economist overstates the influence of urban professionals. |
|
Widening the foundations David Adjaye tells Michelle Akande why British architecture needs a rich mix of new recruits. |
|
Passion for Parks Frederick Law Olmsted was America's best known landscape architect. Writer, engineer, and visionary, he became a driving force behind many of America's urban parks. |
Wednesday, February 23, 2005
|
Once grand, now bland Branch banks are booming. While the services are praiseworthy, the architecture ---- and the effects on neighborhoods ---- is troubling. |
|
Society is dead, we have retreated into the iWorld I was visiting New York last week and noticed something I’d never thought I’d say about the city. Yes, nightlife is pretty much dead (and I’m in no way the first to notice that). But daylife — that insane mishmash of yells, chatter, clatter, hustle and chutzpah that makes New York the urban equivalent of methamphetamine — was also a little different. It was quieter. |
|
Rebuild Like You Give a Damn The flip side of disaster is a fresh start - at least for those lucky enough to survive. Cameron Sinclair founded Architecture for Humanity in 1999 to help apply innovative design to humanitarian crises. Its motto: "Design like you give a damn." |
|
Car Sick Surburban dwellers are driving their way to poor health. |
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
|
How Milan got a masterplan Italy's industrial centre is about to burst into the architectural limelight, and the astounding new Milan Fiera complex is leading the way. |
|
The Temporary Urbanism of Critical Mass Critical Mass, a monthly gathering of cyclists originally founded in San Francisco, has quickly become a worldwide phenomenon. |
|
Traffic in the United States Freeways get clogged, minutes tick by and tempers sometimes flare, but there's another side to the daily commute for millions of Americans: Most of them actually like it. |
Sunday, February 20, 2005
|
A Crack in the Broken-Windows Theory What causes some neighborhoods to thrive, while others decay? It's a question that has fascinated social scientists for decades and led directly to the Broken Windows theory, which holds that ignoring the little problems -- graffiti, litter, shattered glass -- creates a sense of irreversible decline that leads people to abandon the community or to stay away. |
|
Bologna Decides To Erase Ugly Buildings From Its Center Sergio Cofferati, the new Mayor of Bologna, has decided to erase the two controversial modernist buildings from the very center of the city -the Piazza Maggiore area- and the demolition has started on February 2005. |
|
Knowing Squat Moving beyond the standard pity and fear of slum dwellers. |
|
Forget safety - cities need skateboarders, say experts
"The very things that make our streets, parks and squares interesting places are being stripped out for fear of causing an accident or injury," writes Julia Thrift of the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment in the report. |
Saturday, February 19, 2005
|
Stay-in-car shopping A new kid on the block wants to change the way America shops, with a one-stop supercenter for groceries, videos and dry cleaning. |
|
Bloggers transform design community As design blogs proliferate and develop loyal followers the sites are forcing the established shelter and design publications to take notice. |
|
Our waste howling 'cyberness' Blogging, I've discovered, is about as stimulating as singing to my refrigerator. The echo of my words dissolves quickly into silence. |
|
A 3-D View of the City, Block by Block Both the vehicle and a plane that flew over the same area were taking authorized pictures of each building and its surroundings, at the behest of the downtown improvement district. Now the terabytes of imaging data are being used to build a three-dimensional model of central Philadelphia, down to the last cornice, mailbox and shrub. |
Friday, February 18, 2005
|
Whoopee Cushions and Robert Moses Urban planning: Now there's a concept that screams sex, drama, intrigue. |
Thursday, February 17, 2005
|
Pollution May Affect Babies' Genes A study of New York City newborns suggests that prenatal exposure to air pollution may be linked to genetic changes associated with an increased risk of cancer, researchers said Tuesday. |
|
Clearing the Roads Would you give up your car if you could share one instead? How a hot concept could ease gridlock. |
|
Authors share the lowdown on the city's ever-changing skyline Maybe it is the city's inherent interest. Maybe it is that so many authors, agents and editors lunch within its boundaries. Whatever the explanation, books on New York City and its built terrain have sprung up in recent years with more alacrity than Donald Trump's taste for self-promotion. |
|
Olmsted vs. Christo Why the architects of Central Park would have vetoed "The Gates." |
|
Designers tuning in to the urban culture The automotive industry is responding more to urban trends, realizing the value (sales potential) of keeping up. |
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
|
'New urbanism' embraces Latinos This is a slice of Orange County you won't see on TV's The OC. Bridal shops and corner grocery stores. Families strolling downtown. Workers walking to lunch. Store signs in Spanish next to the ubiquitous Starbucks shops. Street vendors. Professionals living in artists' lofts a block from Main Street. |
|
Extreme Commuting More workers are willing to travel three hours a day. But what is the long-term cost? |
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
|
The real urban sprawl Thanks to Desperate Housewives, they can hardly take the SUV to the mall nowadays without being suspected of having fallen victim to the epidemic of libidinous faithlessness sweeping the suburbs and taking up with the gardener or pool boy or contractor or whatever. |
Monday, February 14, 2005
|
The revival cycle "Flippers" restore old homes and rescue neighborhoods in decline. Their numbers are rising thanks to a real estate boom. |
|
Cars killing suburban dwellers, heart foundation says Cars are killing Canadians, and it's not the accidents, the Heart and Stroke Foundation said Thursday. |
Saturday, February 12, 2005
|
Still Single in the City Big cities are said to be the perfect place for singles to meet. But often it's not that easy.
|
|
The Kids Are Alright in Green Housing Competition When the Cradle-to-Cradle (C2C) Home Competition opened last summer in Roanoke, Virginia, it became an instant inspiration for architecture students and educators from around the world. |
|
Park? What park?
The big question about Downsview Park isn't 'when will it be done?' It's 'will people actually come?' |
|
The big fix - 7,500 people will be uprooted and $1 billion spent on Regent Park's remake The pigeons perched on the rooftops of Toronto's Regent Park have a fabulous panoramic view of the dozens of apartment buildings that make up the country's oldest — some also say poorest — public housing project. |
Friday, February 11, 2005
|
Suburban life - it's killing us Risk of heart disease may depend on where you live. |
Thursday, February 10, 2005
|
How's that for a grand design? It's the most ambitious makeover series yet. Channel 4 is attempting to regenerate a whole town - the impoverished former mining community of Castleford in Yorkshire. But, how do its forthright residents view the arrival of sculpture-strewn greens and swanky riverfront developments? |
|
The wow factor on campus Universities are learning that impressive architecture can woo students and give a new identity. |
|
Yawning aside, decorum fits Bay Area nicely In an age where the shock of the new is a badge worn with pride, the Bay Area's sense of decorum can have a certain allure -- even when it doesn't leap off a magazine page. |
|
An Architect's Wet-Cement Dream Architects are supposed to draw up plans, erect structures, and finish on time and under budget. Roche is exploring what happens when the usual constraints are allowed to fall away and things get wild and loose. |
|
Celebration in Action Disney's controversial town, a decade on. |
|
The mid-Atlantic perspective Few places are as cosmopolitan as a London architect's office. Of the 40 or so architects in David Chipperfield's office when I went to interview him recently, he told me that only three were British. I don't think Foreign Office Architects had any Britons at my last visit, and even that quintessentially English figure Piers Gough has an office packed with foreigners. |
|
Creative Class War: The Debate over Richard Florida’s Ideas What this all comes down to is fostering an environment where as many different kinds of people as possible can thrive. |
Wednesday, February 9, 2005
|
How Big Is Too Big? A growing number of cities and towns are adopting store size caps to ensure that new retail development is scaled appropriately for the community and does not overwhelm the local economy or exacerbate sprawl and traffic congestion. |
Tuesday, February 8, 2005
|
The eyes have it There's no room for secrets in Finland's new parliament building. |
|
Urban birds go into swift decline Birds favour the dilapidated eaves of houses, and build their nests in small gaps and cracks in the stonework, but modern building methods and renovations to older homes have plugged these access holes. |
|
Rule, Suburbia The battle's over. For half a century, legions of planners, urbanists, environmentalists and big city editorialists have waged war against sprawl. Now it's time to call it a day and declare a victor. |
|
As Housing Costs Rise, Nimbyism Is Slipping With growing urgency, civic groups and politicians have been warning that the rise in housing costs on Long Island is a dire problem, that younger workers can't afford to live on the Island and that the resulting "brain drain" is casting a shadow on the region's economy. |
|
Green Wal-Mart unveiled Wal-Mart Canada is proposing to build a state-of-the-art store and retail complex on S.E. Marine Drive in Vancouver that will include technology innovations such as power-generating wind turbines, geothermal heating and climate-controlled skylights. |
|
Wal-Mart pitches new 'green' store Wal-Mart Canada has unveiled a $30-million-plus, environmentally correct design -- with windmills, geothermal heating and 250 dogwood trees -- for its controversial store on Vancouver's Southeast Marine Drive. |
Monday, February 7, 2005
|
Monuments Of Wit A museum in Tokyo showcases a half-century of ingenious and whimsical architectural visions. |
|
Renegade architects take their ideas to the Delaware River shore They've made a metal tepee for a homeless couple, a solar-powered synagogue and splashy waterfront nightclubs. |
|
Big changes needed in American home design "Better Homes and Gardens," the country's leading home and family magazine reaching 38 million people monthly, identifies the top characteristics Americans want in their homes today. |
Saturday, February 5, 2005
|
Mall City Critics have long cried foul over the construction of malls in New York City’s densest borough, and in recent years developers have dropped the term in favor of euphemisms like “vertical retail environment.” |
Wednesday, February 2, 2005
|
Architectural wonder Japan's most renowned architect offers some thoughts on city planning and has some words of caution for Shanghai about the pace of its urban modernization and the need to preserve more valuable old buildings. |
Tuesday, February 1, 2005
|
Groundbreaker In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re living in the era of the rock star architect. |
|
Boats, yes, but let's not miss the bus It's that old Australian dilemma - call it conflicted, call it hypocritical - that glues our lives to the tarmac while our hearts beat for the bush. |
|
You could even say it glows A sparkly, silvery parking ramp lights the night sky next to the Basilica of St. Mary. |
|
Sand in the City Building bigwig Richard Rogers wants the Smoke to reclaim its riverside al la Paris, closing the Embankment to nose-clogging traffic on Sundays to create a pedestrian-friendly urban park type thingy - possibly with a beach. |
[Archives]
Search entries: