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Since 2005, when John Bela and his collaborators(Blaine Merker, and Matthew Passmore) installed the first Park(ing) intervention on a drab street in downtown San Francisco, the idea has gone on to enliven countless blocks around the world, and to enlighten countless urbanites, who get to enjoy spaces normally reserved for stationary cars. — CityLab
Parking Day advocates since 2005 for public access and alternative uses of parking space in cities. This now world wide event transforms parking spots into ephemeral public spaces every year on the third Friday of September. Projects include micro parks, installations by architects and artists... View full entry
In this article on the Huffington Post, Lance Hosey writes about the horror of watching white surpremacists marching in the Charlottesville Downtown Mall on August 11th and 12th of this year. The Mall, which was significantly redesigned in the 1970s, serves as a unavoidable visual reminder of the... View full entry
Brooks + Scarpa designed the Gateway Sculpture to welcome visitors to Pembroke Pines' new City Center in Florida. Painted in a bright, hard-to-miss yellow, the sculpture provides “way-finding and anchor[s] a sense of arrival.” The steel sculpture rises as tree columns that lead to perforated... View full entry
Pseudo-public spaces – large squares, parks and thoroughfares that appear to be public but are actually owned and controlled by developers and their private backers – are on the rise in London and many other British cities, as local authorities argue they cannot afford to create or maintain such spaces themselves. — The Guardian
The abundance of pseudo-public spaces, namely outdoor, open and publicly accessible locations owned and maintained by private companies in London is alarming. To this day it's largely unclear what regulations people passing through privately-owned 'public' land are subject to, and where members... View full entry
Peckham’s famous multi-storey car park has a new addition; a new viewing gallery created by Cooke Fawcett. The young practice, based in London’s creative Clerkenwell, was formed just two years ago, by directors Oliver Cooke and Francis Fawcett, after working on the Tate’s Switch House at... View full entry
The bold addition features the world's first all-porcelain public courtyard, paved with 11,000 handmade porcelain tiles in 15 different patterns. The tiles were manufactured by Koninklijke Tichelaar Makkum, the Netherlands' oldest registered company, established in 1572. — CNN
After six years of construction, the Exhibition Road Quarter, AL_A-designed courtyard space opened yesterday in London's Victoria and Albert Museum, adding 11,840 square feet of column-free flexible gallery space to the museum to help accommodate the V&A's headline exhibitions. Intended as a... View full entry
Now, Hammond has embarked on a new project: the High Line Network, an organization, which just launched a brand new website. Its aim? To help cities working on their industrial adaptive reuse projects learn from the High Line’s stumbles–and from each other. — Fast Company
In many ways, the High Line has been an undeniable success. Phenomenally popular, it has become one of the leading attractions in New York and has brought about a massive wave of development to the area. The flip side of this however, if not yet obvious, is that the project has also been lodged... View full entry
Today we finish off our series of conversations, or "Mini-Sessions", with architects and designers in LA and Detroit, sharing our conversation with Lorcan O'Herlihy. Lorcan is an Irish-American architect, with offices in Los Angeles and Detroit. His recently published book, Amplified Urbanism... View full entry
Even in this relentlessly vertical city, famous for walkways that feel like aerial labyrinths, you can’t levitate forever. Where the mountain rises up faster than the towers, you bump into a hillside and come back to earth. In Hong Kong, the ground is everywhere. — Places Journal
The terrain that weaves between streets, through public spaces, and beneath buildings in Hong Kong reminds observers of the tenuous relation between the city and its geology. Karl Kullmann photographs these zones of contact between the multilevel metropolis and the mountain, reflecting on the... View full entry
“In today’s political climate, we must affirm and ensure that New York City’s public realm provides places of refuge and play, congregation and demonstration, and dialogue and exchange.” — Design Trust for Public Space
In their latest community-driven effort, the non-profit Design Trust for Public Space recently launched “Public for All: Rethinking Shared Space in NYC”. The citywide call invites design firms, communities, agencies, and individuals based in any of New York City's five boroughs to send project... View full entry
What's the most efficient, ethical, and sustainable way to remake public spaces? If you're in Nariobi, Kenya this May 3-4th, you'll have the opportunity to answer that question by attending the "Making Cities Together - The City We Need through Safe, Inclusive and Accessible Public Spaces"... View full entry
Although still just a mock-up in the Lowline Lab, the LED grow lights designed by Lighting Science for use in the real Lowline are a promising iteration.Combining everything that's great about glowing hexagons with three different settings ("soft-white light, one that mimics daylight, and one that... View full entry
The notion of spending time at a subway stop or other major transit center for pleasure may strike you as odd, but many cities and transportation companies are investing heavily in building up this part of their infrastructure to create desirable public spaces (it adds a whole new dimension to... View full entry
Situated in Carrière-Sous-Poissy in France along the River Seine, "Poissy Galore" by Armengaud Armengaud Cianchetta (AAC) and Herlach Hartmann Frommenwiler (HHF) is designed primarily as an ecological public space for both Parisian residents and far-flung visitors. Consisting of an observatory... View full entry
The perenially opinionated Patrik Schumacher, who gave a speech about his "urban policy manifesto" at the November 17th World Architecture Festival in which he called for an end to all social housing and privatization of public space, has attracted push-back from an unexpected source: the firm he... View full entry