Urbanism News
Tuesday, September 30, 2003
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Is Wal-Mart Too Powerful? Low prices are great. But Wal-Mart's dominance creates problems -- for suppliers, workers, communities, and even American culture. |
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Suburbia and Its Discontents Most Americans don’t think much about the design of the built environment, odd though this may seem to those who do. But every so often broader issues bubble up into public discourse. The debate over sprawl, until recently confined to land use planning circles, seems to be everywhere now: at town meetings, in daily newspapers, and in latte lines at Starbucks. |
Monday, September 29, 2003
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In a glass of its own Ignore the one-liners, Norman Foster's infamous gherkin points the way to the City's future |
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Details mar the extraordinary in Koolhaas' IIT campus center Five years ago, when the celebrated Rotterdam architect Rem Koolhaas won a much-hyped design competition for a campus center at the Illinois Institute of Technology, there was breathless talk about the sexy new building, and how it would devise a new architecture for the 21st Century just as the stern steel and glass boxes of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe endowed the 20th Century with some of its most recognizable forms. |
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The Burbs Weigh In Moving from the city to the suburbs may not be a ticket to paradise with a two-car garage. |
Sunday, September 28, 2003
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Can a zero-energy housing project win the Stirling Prize? There is a part of Surrey that is just south of London, that is dangerously close to the "edge city" of Croydon, where run-down inter-war surburban housing rubs shoulders with the depressing half-timbered developers' offerings of recent years, plonked down into the scrubby remainders of what was once countryside. An in-between, Nowheresville kind of place. But here, the unexpected sight of rows of intriguing brightly-coloured rotating wind-catchers tell you that something unconventional is going on. They signal one of the shortlisted candidates for British architecture's grandest award, the Stirling Prize. And they might just represent the future of housing. |
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Oedipus Rem Rem Koolhaas engages Mies van der Rohe at the crossroads of the IIT campus. |
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The Design Image vs. the Reality Somewhere, there is a silvery-white Time Warner Center whose mass seems to de- materialize against the sky, a bronze Trump World Tower whose facade is an animated checkerboard, a Westin New York at Times Square with a cometlike beacon on its north side. |
Saturday, September 27, 2003
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The Park is Open
The Westergasfabriek Park in Amsterdam opened on September 7 by Mayor Job Cohen. Floortje Louter and Jaco Kalfsbeek were there to witness the promising start for a park that will reach maturity in the coming years. |
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EEA wins in Copenhagen Erick van Egeraat associated architects was awarded first prize winner in the international competition for the housing development Krøyers Plad in Copenhagen. |
Friday, September 26, 2003
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Selling France to the French The French risk losing a monopoly even closer to home: building French villages. |
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Virtual Is No Refuge From Reality For children, no escape from America’s car-dependent, cheap-oil fiesta. |
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Good Vibrations Frank Gehry’s Disney Hall is a musical pleasure palace. |
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New 'cities' springing up around many U.S. airports When thunderstorms roll in, gusty winds whip through wheat fields and farm pastures that stretch as far as the eye can see. For years, Denver residents wrote off these deserted plains northeast of the city as a no-man's land that might as well be in Kansas. Denver's explosive suburban growth veered in the opposite direction. |
Thursday, September 25, 2003
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City Unveils Plans to Turn Old Rail Line Into a Park The Bloomberg administration moved ahead yesterday with its plans to transform an abandoned elevated rail line into a 1.6-mile-long park and make it the centerpiece for new commercial and residential developments along the western edge of Chelsea. |
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Back on the block Streets are being redesigned to revive communities and get people out of their homes. |
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Making a fine art of urban renewal Cultural institutions have become a force in city redevelopment. |
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Beijing Olympics Images of competition entries. |
Wednesday, September 24, 2003
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Quirk solutions His architecture has been described as both 'barmy' and 'brilliant', but Will Alsop insists that exciting people is essential to Britain's urban renaissance. |
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Strolling through an urban gallery One of Europe's finest art collections is on display in the public spaces of Barcelona. |
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Architect of the imagination Will Alsop used to be famous for failing to get his designs commissioned. Now he is being asked to redesign huge swathes of urban Britain. Here are some of his latest projects. |
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Emperor's new clothes Themed visions for towns and cities are the latest idea in regeneration. But the visions do not stand up to scrutiny. |
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Winnipeg mayor proposes radical shift in tax burden
Winnipeg's crusading mayor, Glen Murray, has unveiled a radical new plan to cut property taxes in half and raise money with new fees for everything from calling police to buying liquor. |
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Secret Geography Discovering secret geography -- the alleys and small streets, often with shops and restaurants, that are largely invisible from major streets -- you begin to feel ownership over a slice of the city. |
Tuesday, September 23, 2003
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Six Homes Torched in Protest Act San Diego blazes destroy four upscale houses under construction and damage two more. Environmental group takes responsibility. |
Monday, September 22, 2003
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New street grids blend old designs The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. has developed a new residential street pattern design that could soon change the way developments are built in communities across Canada. |
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Space-Age Garages That Save Space It lumbered and thudded into existence — three years late, some still-debated but hefty amount over budget — but the Hoboken municipal parking garage that opened its robotically controlled doors last year displays a stunning agility. It lifts and carries cars about on computer-controlled steel pallets as if they were delicate ballerinas, moving with precision and speed inside a structure that is remarkably compact. |
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The Architecture Zoo When you think housing development, you don't think great architecture. McMansions, yes. Taliesins, no. But in Southampton, New York, on the wealthy eastern end of Long Island, developer Coco Brown is creating a modernist art gallery disguised as a subdivision. |
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Shinichi Ogawa Works At first sight, it seems like Shinichi Ogawa’s architecture is no different than other architecture. however, this one is different because of its incomparable approach. the fact is that his architecture does not look for the balance between form and functionality or a living ideal. |
Friday, September 19, 2003
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Lost cities of the Amazon revealed Archaeologists discover a grid of villages and managed parks. |
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Logical / Ecological Design Most buildings are terrible. They're unhealthy, and they're bad for the soul. |
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Under one roof The death and life of the New York department store. |
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How Much Is That View in the Window? A view of Central Park was the centerpiece of each of 160 fund-raising parties given on Monday night to celebrate the park's 150th birthday. Park views are reason for celebration the rest of the time as well, since prominent real estate brokers unanimously declare Central Park the most valuable view in the city. |
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Ground Zero to hero His US critics should heed Frank Gehry's inspiring cancer care unit. |
Thursday, September 18, 2003
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Tenerife Opera House, Spain Before the official opening of Frank Gehry's much anticipated Walt Disney Concert Hall in October, Santiago Calatrava's Tenerife Opera House in Santa Cruz, Tenerife will open to the public. |
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The 'lofting' of America
Down with the yard and two-car garage! In cities of all sizes, people of all ages flock to the loft. |
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Suburban towns draw on pre-auto design Live-work-play environments favored in keeping town centers alive. |
Tuesday, September 16, 2003
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The era of malls is over -- what next? Retailing: Evolving lifestyles drive shopping centers to stress price, convenience or the 'experience.' |
Monday, September 15, 2003
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The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis Perhaps the most important characteristic young architects can possess is patience. |
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Shanghai slashes skyscrapers to avoid sinking feeling China's largest city Shanghai is to curb the number of new skyscrapers being built because it is gradually sinking under the weight of thousands of tall buildings, state media reported. |
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Sound of a city stuck on traffic The honks and bells and engine revs give it away — Toronto is in a hurry |
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Well, well, well—lookee here. If it isn't a small, family-owned retailer. How quaint. Pretty nice shop you got here. Okay if I take a look inside? Don't mind me. I won't be long. Neither will you, but that's a story for another day. |
Sunday, September 14, 2003
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Big and Blue in the USA Having just returned from a week in England where, among other things, walking more than ten yards a day is quite normal, I was once again startled by the crypto-human land whales waddling down the aisles of my local supermarket in search of Nabisco Snack-Wells, Wow chips, and other fraudulent inducements to "diet" by overindulgence in "low-fat" carbohydrate-laden treats. And they did not look happy. |
Saturday, September 13, 2003
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Selfridges - Birmingham, England Wednesday, September 4, saw the opening of the new Selfridges Department Store in Birmingham, England. Designed by London's Future Systems, the blob-like building is a contemporary take on the windowless retail box, a standout in this otherwise architecturally typical, yet ambitious, development in the city center. |
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Koolworld
‘Rem Koolhaas: architect, iconoclast.’ Thus reads the photo caption on the cover of Wired magazine. It may be the June 2003 edition, but worth while drawing attention to its contents. Here’s an account of my visit to ‘Koolworld’ where Rem Koolhaas directs a matinee performance entitled ‘The Ultimate Atlas for the 21st Century’. The rest you’ll find on the Wired website. |
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V & A explores animal architecture London's Victoria and Albert Museum will hosts Zoomorphic, an exhibition that explores how contemporary architecture is inspired by the animal kingdom. |
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Design: Beyond the Trailer Park Forget tornado trailers and bland, low-rent subdivisions. A new generation of architects has dramatically re-envisioned prefabricated housing—using cheaper materials, clever construction strategies and the best of modern design. |
Thursday, September 11, 2003
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Blame It on Canada Vancouver urban planning guru preaches high-density tower living in San Francisco. |
Wednesday, September 10, 2003
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Garden Shed This small, soaring structure by the revered 95-year-old Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer looks like a suspension bridge on the outside and feels like a miniature Modernist airport lounge on the inside -- although what you see through its wide elliptical window is the lush landscape of Kensington Gardens in London rather than takeoffs and landings. |
Tuesday, September 9, 2003
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Urban Warriors Daniel and Nina Libeskind thought they had figured out how to get a building built. Then they came to New York. |
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Still Delirious: Has Rem Koolhaas Abandoned City? More than any architect in recent memory, Rem Koolhaas bet his career on New York City. But he didn’t do it by building; he did it by writing. |
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Coop Himmelb(l)au - North Jutland House of Music - Aalborg, Denmark Coop Himmelb(l)au envisions the House of Music as a cultural hub and as a center of communication and interaction for the region of North Jutland. |
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Henning Larsen Opera House Copenhagen, Denmark The new Copenhagen Opera House is located on the waterfront on Holmen, the former Royal Naval Dockyard. |
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Sitting in China
The exhibition combines large format still life photographs of chairs and journalistic photographs documenting the topic of sitting in china, with vernacular chairs and footstools collected by wolf during |
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Sign as surface Sign as surface is a group exhibition of built and speculative projects by ten young international architectural practices. |
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smartwrap: the mass customizable print façade A 24-foot-high outdoor pavilion on show, designed by stephen kieran and james timberlake at the cooper-hewitt design museum, new york. |
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Goodbye Car, Hello Bus In a car crazy culture, a planner decides to make the switch to transit. |
Monday, September 8, 2003
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Trend shows city centers changing Living in a large American city isn't just a convenient way of life for Steve Esau, it's also the realization of his dreams. |
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Cedric Price: architect for life Cedric Price, an architect more renowned for his ideas than his buildings, once proposed the concept of ‘Non-Plan’ in response to violations of landscape. |
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Ailing south suburb takes renewal into own hands Riverdale plans to buy and rehab hundreds of townhouses in its down-and-out Pacesetter area--and then sell them to the tenants. |
Sunday, September 7, 2003
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China's new cultural revolutionaries: they wave not Mao's book but eviction orders Elderly are evicted as leafy old Beijing is bulldozed in build-up to 2008 Olympics. |
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Building Momentum Asymptote is out to prove—in cyberspace and in real life—that architecture doesn't have to stand still. |
Friday, September 5, 2003
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As Suburbs Grow, So Do Waistlines Two years ago, Jason and Maria Witt moved here, to the western suburbs of Washington, and fell in love with their 1970's subdivision, Poplar Tree Estates. The Witts bought a 4,800-square-foot house in which they are raising three boys, 8-month-old triplets. They have quiet streets and big lawns. What they do not have is an easy way to walk, as they once did when they lived in Manhattan. |
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City Maps Drawn on the Senses A faucet, garden, silo and sewer grate are featured in Twin Cities tours designed to offer fresh (or not-so-fresh) insights into urban life. |
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Pierwise, One Person's Wreck Is Another's Art For years, artists and architects drawn to elegant decrepitude have fought to keep the High Line — the abandoned elevated railroad that snakes through Chelsea and the meatpacking district — from being demolished. Now that a renovation is scheduled for the railroad, some of those artists and architects are focusing on another relic of the city's industrial past. |
Thursday, September 4, 2003
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Calatrava Wave in Tenerife It was originally intended to be a simple concert hall, but the multifunction building for the city of Santa Cruz, Tenerife, in the Canary Islands, also promises to be a landmark. The distinctive, overhanging "wave" curving out over the white concrete Auditorio de Tenerife is the latest creation of renowned Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava. |
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Holiday Living
Until the end of September a small site on the edge of Leidsche Rijn has been turned into a settlement of alternative, transportable, flexible 'dwellings' grouped under the name Parasite Paradise. On show is much of what has been designed in this field in recent years. An opportunity not to miss! |
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Dongbu Kangnam Tower.....Seoul, Korea Korea's recent boom in construction has created it's share of bland high-rise architecture, a phenomenon not limited to its urban centers, but others such as Chicago with its predominance of painted concrete boxes. |
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Forget the Freeway - Beer Here! It's gone. The freeway to nowhere in downtown Milwaukee is officially history. Thanks to Steve Filmanowicz for the link. |
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Zoning Needs An Overhaul Cities would do better to loosen prescriptive zoning codes and give more flexibility to developers. |
Wednesday, September 3, 2003
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U.S. Pedestrians, Cyclists Tempting Fate -- or Worse Pucher and Lewis Dijkstra of the European Commission in Brussels found that cyclists and pedestrians in the United States were two to six times more likely to be killed than their German or Dutch counterparts. Per kilometer traveled, U.S. pedestrians were 23 times more likely to get killed than the occupants of a car, while bicyclists were 12 times more likely to be killed.
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Walking the Portland way For more than a decade, Portland has proudly extolled its virtues as one of the most thoughtfully planned cities in the country. |
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B.U.G. / Designers stray outside the lines Some people think deeply about how things look, how things work, how they work together, how they change, how they might improve. These people are designers. |
Tuesday, September 2, 2003
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Two neighbors create public garden that's pride of the area On a palm-studded median in the heart of San Francisco's Bayview District, the corn and peanuts are almost ready for harvest, while the basil and snapdragons have reached their prime. |
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Trouble in Counterculture Utopia Seeking countercultural idealism and hedonistic creativity, thousands attend Burning Man in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada, though the event's base there is in jeopardy. |
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Top of the blobs The astonishing new £40m Selfridges building in Birmingham is the shape of things to come. |
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More Vehicles in U.S. Than Drivers High gas prices, pollution, traffic congestion - seemingly nothing can interfere with Americans' love affair with the car. How passionate is it? For the first time, there are more vehicles than people to drive them in the average U.S. household. |
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