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Last Friday, Los Angeles City Councilmember Kevin de León proposed an ordinance prohibiting street takeovers, drag racing, vandalism, and climbing the arches, among others, of the recently-opened Sixth Street Viaduct. In the three weeks, since the $588 million Michael Maltzan-designed... View full entry
The new 20,000-square-foot Children’s Institute (CII) campus in Los Angeles designed by Frank Gehry is set to open later this month. This is the non-profit’s first-ever purpose-built home in the community of Watts. Located at Success Avenue and East 102nd Street in South Los... View full entry
Brooklyn-based architectural design practice SITU and the Design Trust for Public Space have announced the launch of Turnout NYC, a community-oriented initiative that aims to transform underutilized spaces into vibrant and accessible venues for arts and culture, while highlighting underrepresented... View full entry
London’s proposed Camden Highline has been submitted for planning. Led by the practice behind the New York High Line, James Corner Field Operations, and Camden-based firm vPPR Architects, the project will regenerate a disused railway viaduct to establish an elevated park that connects Camden... View full entry
Golden Gate Park's John F. Kennedy Drive has been blocked off to vehicle traffic since the start of the pandemic, and on Tuesday night San Francisco's Board of Supervisors voted to keep it that way. — SFGate
A meeting with the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency last week resulted in the board voting 7-4 in favor of Mayor London Breed’s legislation to permanently close off a 1.5-mile-long stretch of the roadway to car traffic. In April 2020, the section of JFK Drive was closed to... View full entry
Bloomberg Philanthropies has announced a European expansion of its Asphalt Art Initiative on the heels of a new study from the organization and Sam Schwartz Consulting that revealed some eye-opening statistics about the improvement of blacktop spaces in urban areas. A total of 20 new cities will... View full entry
Foster + Partners has shared an update to its recently announced retrofit of William Pereira’s iconic Transamerica Pyramid Center in San Francisco. New renderings appear to show fresh and open office spaces upgraded for workers’ comfort and workplace flexibility in addition to an on-site... View full entry
Once it opens, construction will start on public playing fields, gathering areas, green spaces and a dog park at the foot of the bridge on the Boyle Heights side, and a performance stage and green spaces on the Arts District side. And cyclists can gear up for the fall unveiling of a 10-foot-wide bicycle lane going both directions on the bridge, which they can access from the bike lane at the river via a steep spiraling ramp. It is a ride that will take some energy. — KCRW Los Angeles
LA architect Michael Maltzan spoke about his desire for the reborn cinematic landmark to be received as a public space that is suis generis within the available Downtown and Boyle Heights vistas, which are mostly blocked by hilly areas and typified by a lack of public space. “The bridge is... View full entry
Big changes to the Big Apple’s alfresco restaurant scene are on the table — including a plan to get rid of its popular, but controversial, outdoor dining sheds.
The head of the city Department of Transportation’s Open Restaurants Program told a City Council committee on Tuesday that the makeshift structures won’t be allowed to remain standing after the COVID-19 pandemic eases.
— New York Post
The makeshift structures will be allowed to remain in place until July, according to Department of Transportation’s Open Restaurants Program director Julie Schipper, who said a more thorough application process would be enacted that would do away with “these full houses … in the... View full entry
Zaha Hadid Architects’ Eleftheria Square in Nicosia, Cyprus has been inaugurated. The project intends to be the city's primary gathering space, establishing new connections to unite a divided capital. Image: Laurian Ghinitoiu / Zaha Hadid Architects Eleftheria Square is located near the... View full entry
As part of an effort to enhance the quality of life for residents of Hong Kong’s North Point district, a new public art installation will provide an inspiring space for a reimagined kind of citizenry brought on by the neighborhood’s contemporary transformation and supported by the Hong Kong... View full entry
LAA Office, a Columbus, Indiana-based multi-disciplinary design studio, has unveiled its transformation of a street in downtown Columbus into a new arts district. Called 6th Street Arts Alley, the project was realized in collaboration with the Columbus Area Arts Council. This project aimed to both... View full entry
The Department of Care should be designed to break through bureaucratic silos. Caring for public space will require multiple agencies to invest time and resources, and to work collaboratively with local stakeholders who know their communities best. This means having everyone at the table: from the Departments of Transportation, Sanitation, and Health to the Parks Department and the city’s Economic Development Corporation to Small Business Services and Cultural Affairs. — Justin Garrett Moore on Medium
Mayor de Blasio appears to have reneged on his police 2020 commitment to taking $1 billion out of the annual NYPD budget. Justin Garrett Moore, who left the city's Public Design Commission in December and was appointed to the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts by President Biden this... View full entry
A new report released by New York City-based, non-profit advocacy group Transportation Alternatives reveals the deficiencies of Mayor Bill de Blasio's Open Streets program, an initiative formed in the wake of the pandemic to create safe, socially distanced outdoor space for New Yorkers. Less than... View full entry
On June 24th, the Fallen Journalists Memorial (FJM) Foundation announced its partnership with global engineering and infrastructure firm AECOM, Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic Paul Goldberger, and the Levinson Group on a new site that pays homage to journalists worldwide... View full entry