Our Shanghai Studio is going quite well - Lise Anne Couture of Asymptote was supposed to be in town today for a lecture and to critique our studio but was not able to make it due to snow. Unfortunate, but we hope that she will be able to make it out here to still give her lecture and give our studio a crit sometime next month.

my project is looking at the dramatic lack of public open space in Shanghai and what such space could be used for if it did indeed exist. I've begun the project with a straight forward morphological approach - seeking to understand what I can through the statistics that are available. However, I've grown to realize the problem with that trajectory is that it can be difficult to identify a finishing point; a place where you really have enough data. So, in light of the limited time a quarter presents I've decided to articulate a few but well thought through questions regarding the introduction of new infrastructures into the city.

what if new infrastructures generated new land?

the diagram above illustrates a conceptual proposal for a new elevated public realm. a green parkway that connects those living in a very removed location from a very [spatially] limited public realm.

what if this new land filtered and treated all storm, gray and black water in the city?

an elevated layer provides opportunities in between to address how the city might more efficiently deal with storm water - these layers could provide filtration, storage and opportunities for re-use.

how might this new infrastructure generate new technologies and techniques for healthy high densities?

an infrastructure of this magnitude is a prime opportunity to engage progressive environmental research from ground to sky - soils, water[s], and air

obviously the beginning but a start that i'm excited about - the next step involves addressing this notion of new infrastructures generating new land and what that really looks like. i will look at defining a hierarchy of pieces that will compose the new elevated public parkway - where it should/can be inserted. then i will zoom back in on the expo site and get into more details as to what the project looks like there.

My studio this quarter will be focusing on the Lupu bridge in Shanghai that connects land on each side of the Huangpu River. This land is the site for the Shanghai World Expo in 2010. A primary focus of the studio will look at how the bridge can facilitate an effective integration with the city... View full entry

Winter quarter is quickly approaching and I still have not posted final images from Autumn quarter studio. In the end this studio proved to be one of my favorite thus far here at the UW. Primarilly because it gave me the opportunity to dig deeply into the urban design portion of the project... View full entry

This quarter has been busy and probably the most exciting of my time here at the UW so far. We had a review last week that went well overall in spite of my cold that kept the volume of my presenting voice a little too quiet. My project involves evaluating the alley system in the neighborhood and... View full entry

Our studio project this quarter involves a site in downtown Seattle just south of Pioneer Square. Gehl Architects are consulting with the city of Seattle on roughly the same site - analyzing pedestrian, biking, vehicular activity (which is probably an inadequate summary) and generating a report as... View full entry

Classes begin today so this entry won't be as detailed as I was hoping, but I still wanted to post some thoughts on this new development on the outskirts of Copenhagen. The panorama above is for me the best illustration of the space. Tall buildings that are swallowed by vast areas of open spaces... View full entry

I just returned to Seattle yesterday after spending two-weeks in Copenhagen studying public spaces, bicycle planning and pedestrian oriented urban design. Most of my pictures are waiting for me on a friends laptop that is still in Europe so I will post a more images later but I wanted to get... View full entry

As noted in my previous entry, my studio last winter took a field trip to Vancouver. We spent a weekend looking at buildings and wishing U.S. dollar was still stronger than the Canadian version. Here are the photos for the entire trip. A few highlights below... Surrey Library Patkau Skytrain... View full entry

Hello. I am currently about to begin year 2 of the 2 year+ M.Arch program here at the UW. We're on the quarter system here so I don't officially start classes again until the 24th of September. However, my studio this fall is an interdisciplinary urban design studio w/ master of landscape Arch... View full entry