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Parisian designer Stéphane Malka Architecture has suggested creating affordable housing in the French capital by adding prefabricated elements on top of and between existing buildings.
The “3box” system does not require the purchase of sites. Instead, the right to build is obtained in exchange for renovating existing buildings.
According to Stéphane Malka, the housing would cost 40% less than the usual market price and could be built quickly and cheaply in workshops.
— Global Construction Plan
"The units would work with a new Parisian law, the Loi ALUR, which states that 70,000 new dwellings should be built each year, and that rents should be stabilised."Interested in other novel housing solutions? Check out some related Archinect coverage:To each their own home: A peek into the... View full entry
The hamburger stand is part of southern California’s rich tradition of roadside architecture. These buildings are typically 100 square-foot boxes, with an outdoor window to order and pick up food. Next to the structures are rudimentary dining areas, often consisting of no more than a plastic tarp and a few fold-up chairs and tables [...]
The hipsterfication of LA’s hamburger stands may... prove the final chapter in the saga of these half-century-old structures.
— The Guardian
Related:Regarding the remarkable range of prefab, self-built, movable, and vernacular dwellingsL.A. City Council Officially Votes Norms Restaurant as "Historic and Cultural Landmark"Moments in Fast Food Urbanism: First Taco Bell may be demolishedGoogie: Architecture of the Space Age View full entry
The people understood that the monster’s power was fed by liquid gold. It could go anywhere and set up a tower, even in the middle of an old neighbourhood where nobody had asked it to come. [...]
The city, however, was not about to go down without a fight. After all, it had survived many a bad period across the centuries, and was still alive – unlike those kings and queens and powerful companies of old. The neighbourhoods could see they had to get together and fight this monster.
— theguardian.com
Saskia Sassen and her son, Hilary Koob-Sassen, wrote and illustrated an urban fairy tale for theguardian.com, complete with villainous gentrifiers, Chinese skyscrapers, Jane Jacobs-style wisdom, and a cautionary conclusion on "smart" cities.More on Archinect:Fairy Tales 2015 competition winners... View full entry
Chinese citizens have for decades been limited in public services they can access by their household registration [...]
The problem is especially acute for the millions of migrant workers who are often forced to either leave their children in the countryside or place them in unregistered and often sub-standard schools in the city. [...]
“The move is to improve basic public services in urban areas and provide conveniences for residential permit cardholders”
— theguardian.com
More news from China:Touring China's past, present, and future: an examination of "Architectural Guide China"Beijing's latest "airpocalypse" is bad enough for city to issue first ever red alertFour O Nine's Andrei Zerebecky shares his must-see architectural sites in ShanghaiExploring China's urban... View full entry
The times—specifically, the sea levels—are a changin'. Luckily, Harvard's Graduate School of Design has just launched a new initiative, the Office for Urbanization, to start amassing design research for new urban realities for cities around the world. The Office is described as being "a venue... View full entry
After a boom in construction and investment in real estate projects in recent years, work is drying up amid a slowdown in the world’s second largest economy. Property developers are cutting back on new projects, and with construction starts down 16% in the first half this year from a year ago, many firms are cutting salaries or letting staff go. [...]
“We are adjusting to a slower pace of urbanization in China with a recovery of the American and Middle East markets”
— blogs.wsj.com
More from the architecture market in China:How the "Chinese Steve Jobs" is trying to build the ideal cityConstruction stalled on 'world's tallest building', so locals made its foundation into a fish farmA landscape architect just joined China's roster of billionairesChinese prefab company builds a... View full entry
India is currently the second most populated country in the world, closely following China, at 1.25 billion people. Around 30 percent of its inhabitants, roughly the population of the entire United States, live in urban areas that continue to grow. The astonishing numbers are proof of the... View full entry
All of America’s cement consumption during the [20th] century adds up to around 4.4 gigatons (1 gigaton is roughly 1 billion metric tons).
In comparison, China used around 6.4 gigatons of cement in the three years of 2011, 2012 and 2013 [...]
The country is urbanizing at a historic rate, much faster than the U.S. did in the 20th Century. More than 20 million Chinese relocate to cities each year, which is more people than live in downtown New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago combined.
— washingtonpost.com
The undoing of the master narratives of modernism should not be taken as an opportunity for an architecture of spectacle and fantasy, but instead one that, utilizing the lessons of the past, speaks to the complexities of the present and the forces that shape us. It is crucial to deconstruct the idea that design can be universal and instead, to think in terms of an architecture that derives inspiration from the specificity of geography, culture and place. — huffingtonpost.com
The region of Ordos made headlines in 2010 for the pre-built metropolis that had everything but people. Now, however, Kangbashi city is rapidly filling up with country people who are being encouraged to live in cities and diversify China’s economy. For ageing farmers who’ve spent their whole life on the land, however, becoming “urbanites” is a tall order. — theguardian.com
Related:Ordos: The biggest ghost town in ChinaOrdos in 2014 - "Brave City of The Future" View full entry
By the end of next year one-in-three of the world’s 100m+ skyscrapers will be in China, as its state-orchestrated urbanisation drive prompts a megacity building bonanza [...]
China now has over 140 cities of more than one million people; America has nine
— theguardian.com
Hanoi has faced the same population pressures as other Asian cities. But thanks to vague and informal conventions, the state has been able to avoid extreme levels of disservice, even to the most impoverished new urban areas. And the construction of homes themselves has remained at least loosely connected to the regulations of the more formal suburbs. Together these factors have prevented the formation of slums as they are typically defined. But how has this come about? — theguardian.com
The Chinese government issued proposals on Wednesday to break down barriers that a nationwide household registration system has long imposed between rural and urban residents and among regions, reinforcing inequality, breeding discontent and hampering economic growth.
Yet even as officials promoted easier urbanization [...], they said changes to the system [...] must be gradual and must protect big cities like Beijing.
— nytimes.com
In the projects shown here, architects and artists reflect on the problems and possibilities of economic and urban growth. How is rapid urbanization happening? Who is benefiting, and who is being displaced or excluded? What can architects and citizens do to exert leverage on processes at once local and global? — Places Journal
On Places, Jonathan Massey reviews the 10th Sao Paulo Architecture Biennial, and presents a slideshow of selected works. View full entry
Indeed, at heart of our SUPE Platform lies a sincere wish to contribute to a broad conversation on urban political ecology that takes a broader experience of urbanization into account...We wish to participate in building a collaborative and supportive community open for conversation to all those interested in understanding the politics of urban ecologies and environments in a world of cities — Situated Ecologies
Henrik Ernstson reflects on the difference between “pluralizing” and “provincializing” urban political ecology. View full entry