Archinect - News

Google updates Open Buildings data sets using AI

2024-10-28T10:46:00-04:00

In 2021, the Google Research Africa team launched Open Buildings, an open-source dataset of building footprints across the Global South produced using AI and high-resolution satellite imagery. The team had a simple vision: to fill a major gap in data for population and density in the developing world. Now in its third version, their dataset contains polygons for 1.8 billion buildings over an area of 58 million km² in Africa, South and Southeast Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean.

The data is useful in determining population size and other factors to solve urban density problems.

Google's Research product manager Olivia Graham says: "About 2.5 billion more people could move to cities by 2050, most of them in the Global South — this could be a real step change for governments and organizations working through that growth. If a city is planning where to put essential services like healthcare and education, or where to develop infrastructure like water and energy supplies, this dataset shows the areas that are actively growing."

The data can be explored via a searchable map using that's accessed here.

Market for digital twin buildings projected to reach $20.2 billion by 2032

2024-10-09T10:59:00-04:00

The global market for digital twin buildings is now on track to reach a projected market size of $20.2 billion by the year 2032, skyrocketing via a 32.6% CAGR from its current market of $1.6 billion. This is according to the latest reporting from Astute Analytica. The companies leading the charge include Siemens, AG, IBM, Microsoft, General Electric, and Dassault Systèmes SE. Asian countries will be among the key drivers for growth due to their accelerated pace of urbanization.

New scientific study provides vital data on sinking Chinese cities

2024-04-23T15:08:00-04:00

The toll of urbanization in China has been documented in a new paper published in the journal Science by a team of researchers from different institutions around the country. Using a method called spaceborne synthetic aperture radar interferometry (or InSAR), they were able to establish the rate at which land is subsiding in major cities, affecting over a third (36%) of the country's urban population.

The paper's abstract states that 45% of metro areas surveyed are now subsiding faster than 3 millimeters per year, with another 16% subsiding faster than 10 millimeters per year. By 2120, upwards of 26% of all coastal lands will have elevations below sea level. The source of the sinking is the combined weight of buildings and the depletion of groundwater around urban areas. "Our results underscore the necessity of enhancing protective measures to mitigate potential damages from subsidence," the authors stated.

These latest findings could potentially have bearings on the work of Turensc...

UIC researchers predict nearly half of all American cities will experience 'massive' depopulation trends by 2100

2024-01-17T12:05:00-05:00

The implications of this massive decline in population will bring unprecedented challenges, possibly leading to disruptions in basic services like transit, clean water, electricity and internet access. Simultaneously, increasing population trends in resource-intensive suburban and periurban cities will probably take away access to much needed resources in depopulating areas, further exacerbating their challenges.

Almost half (43%) of the 30,000 cities surveyed recently by the University of Illinois Chicago are expected to lose population while another 40% — among the country’s larger metros such as New York City and Phoenix — will experience growth through the end of this century.

Lead author Sybil Derrible told Scientific American: “The takeaway is that we need to shift away from growth-based planning, which is going to require an enormous cultural shift in the planning and engineering of cities.” Declining birth rates, income tax burdens, rising home prices, and the effects of climate change are all pivotal factors in causing the demographic change.

U.S. Census Bureau changes its definition of an urban area, impacting 1,300 former cities and towns

2022-05-03T11:41:00-04:00

The U.S. Census Bureau has changed its definition of an urban area, which will cause hundreds of existing urban areas to be reclassified as rural. The change is centered on a new methodology for how urban areas are calculated, with the number of housing units being used as the key metric, rather than the number of inhabitants.

Under the century-old definition used prior to now, an urban area was classed as one with at least 2,500 people. Now, a place will need 2,000 housing units before being classed as urban, equivalent to around 5,000 people. In addition, the previous distinction between an “urbanized area” (50,000 residents or more) and an “urban cluster” (2,500 to 50,000 residents) will be removed, with all qualifying areas simply referred to as “urban areas.”

In addition, the Census Bureau has created three levels of definition for census blocks, the smallest geographic unit in the United States. Census blocks will be considered urban if they contain a density of 425 housing u...

Is your city running out of space? Hong Kong says: Just build more land

2019-07-25T07:23:00-04:00

Under the ambitious “Lantau Tomorrow” plan, Hong Kong will first build a roughly 2,500-acre island—roughly the size of 1,000 football fields—around the uninhabited Kau Yi Chau Island to the northeast of Lantau. This may be followed by an additional 1,700 additional acres of land reclamation around the island Hei Ling Chau, which is roughly two miles from Mui Wo and visible from its shoreline.

CityLab reports that under a new aggressive urban growth plan, Hong Kong will create a pair of new islands totaling over 3,200 acres in area in order to create new high-density urban neighborhoods.

Record-breaking affordability issues on the island have pushed wait times for public housing passed the half-decade mark, while by certain estimates, CityLab reports, the average Hong Konger must wait 25 years to be able to afford to purchase an apartment in what is currently the world's most expensive real estate market.

Under the Lantau Tomorrow plan, CityLab reports, the city could provide between 150,000 and 260,000 new housing units with up to 70-percent of those homes earmarked as public housing.

Is Singapore really the greenest city in Asia?

2019-07-12T14:49:00-04:00

It's a small, dense, island nation where 100% of the population is urbanized. And yet, the city-state of Singapore is the greenest city in Asia, according to the Green City Index, and arguably has few competitors in the rest of the world. As Singapore's population and economy grew, so did its green cover: it was about 36% in the 1980s and it now stands at 47%, according to the Center for Liveable cities.

Becoming one of the "must-see" places in the world, Singapore has created a name for itself amongst travelers. Even Hollywood has already capitalized on the nation's likability and illustrious cityscape thanks to the top-grossing film, Crazy Rich Asians. However, beyond the food and Instagramable sites, what can other cities, urban planners, and architects learn from Singapore's urbanized infrastructure?

Singapore: Flower Dome and Cloud Forest in The Gardens by the Bay. Image © CEphoto, Uwe Aranas

In a CNN travel piece written by Meera Senthilingam, she explains, "while the word "green" can take on a variety of connotations, Singapore appears to encompass them all -- lush environments, renewable energy, and future sustainability." The Singapore Green Buildings Council (SGBC) does not take sustainability lightly. Although the city-state is budding with lush greenery, we must note the city's lack of natural resources. However, where it lacks in natural resources, it makes up for in env...

Buffalo’s population grows for the first time since 1950

2019-07-02T18:21:00-04:00

Mayor Byron Brown said there will be a significant change documented in the 2020 Census for Buffalo. "We believe that in the 2020 census will allow Buffalo to show its first population growth since the 1950 census,” he said.

After nearly 70 years of population declines, The City of Good Neighbors is growing once again.

According to Buffalo mayor Byron W. Brown, the city could register significant population growth after the 2020 Census, a product, in part, of the city's growing refugee and immigrant communities. According to Census counts, Buffalo's population registered at roughly 260,000 inhabitants in 2010; Updated estimates for the 2020 Census have not been announced.

At an event commemorating World Refugee day, Brown touted the city's population boost, saying, "Diversity is an engine of growth," adding, "It is the way our country has grown from the very beginning."

To help guide future growth, the city overhauled its zoning code in 2017, another first since the 1950s.

Rendering depicting OMA's proposed expansion of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery. Image courtesy of © OMA and Brick Visuals.

The new Unified Development Ordinance is billed as as a form-based "green code" that eliminates parking requir...

Water woes are creeping up on Phoenix, America's fifth-largest city

2018-03-22T16:01:00-04:00

Phoenix and its surrounding area is known as the Valley of the Sun, and downtown Phoenix – which in 2017 overtook Philadelphia as America’s fifth-largest city – is easily walkable, with restaurants, bars and an evening buzz. But it is a modern shrine to towering concrete, and gives way to endless sprawl that stretches up to 35 miles away to places like Anthem. The area is still growing – and is dangerously overstretched, experts warn.

With cities in the Desert West, like Las Vegas and Phoenix, rapidly growing in size and population, water is becoming an evermore hot commodity; all while the source of that water, primarily the Colorado River, is becoming increasingly unreliable due to climate change.

"And yet despite the federal Bureau of Reclamation reporting in 2012 that droughts of five or more years would happen every decade over the next 50 years," writes Joanna Walters for The Guardian's Overstretched Cities series, "greater Phoenix has not declared any water restrictions. Nor has the state government decided its official drought contingency proposal."

Infrastructure is not neutral; case studies of communities decimated by highways

2018-02-22T15:06:00-05:00

Making the case that infrastructure itself can be exclusionary is hardly straightforward. Many of the worst decisions in US planning were made decades ago to intentionally disenfranchise, marginalise and separate communities; policies such as redlining and “blight clearing” are well-documented embarrassments. But many decisions that segregated communities were unintentional. The stop sign and one-way street might seem benign, but they shape our lives in ways we sometimes don’t even realise.

Through focusing in on 5 case studies where communities have been obliterated by infrastructure decisions, the direct impact of highways and walls take on greater levels of meaning and urgency. The power of city planning also comes into greater consideration presently as the US takes on a massive infrastructure revitalization project.

"Too big to replace, too expensive to tear down", Miller emphasizes the importance of digging into the history of our country's development in order to understand past injustices, prevent future abuse, and address current issues as they stand right now.

An in depth look focuses on Detroit’s 8 Mile and historical Black Bottom neighborhoods, West Oakland in California, West Baltimore, and Jackson Ward in Richmond, Virginia. Arresting images of overlapping interstates where communities used to be reveal a truth many of us drive on in our everyday lives.

Please read Johnny Miller's full piece on how infrastructure decisions impact communities and are dir...

2017 RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship awarded to Chloe Loader of the University of Lincoln

2017-05-22T15:32:00-04:00

Foster + Partners announced today that University of Lincoln student Chloe Loader was awarded the 2017 RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship, a yearly £7,000 student scholarship that gives the recipient an opportunity to travel internationally and “research the future survival of our cities and communities”.

In her submission “Emerging Cities: Sustainable Master-Planning in the Global South”, Loader will examine how the cities of Curitiba, Mumbai, and Jakarta have each handled rapid urbanization to identify how other cities with similar economics and demographics can potentially evolve.

She'll begin her travels in Curitiba, Brazil, where she will study how the city has developed a successful urban model while handling large influxes of rural migrants. She will then travel to Mumbai and Jakarta to compare and contrast them with her Curitiba findings. Loader will conclude her project by exploring potential design strategies for urban development to engage communities.

As the global n...

Traveling the world to understand 'The Future of Cities'

2016-12-20T18:23:00-05:00

The inevitable, and accelerating, growth of cities is an undisputed premise in contemporary urbanist discourses. With the rapid rise of entirely new cities proliferating around the globe, questions arise of how much in urban life can be improved with a blank slate. This short film from The Nantucket Project (a TED-ish conference focused on big ideas) looks at how different cities are approaching that future – focusing on issues of technology, transportation, health and history.

In less than 10 years, India's construction market will become the third largest in the world

2016-08-22T13:07:00-04:00

Up to 12 million people are “urbanising” every year in India, a rate surpassed only by China. It means the country will need a sustained building spree that would see more than 75 million people employed in construction by 2022. As it races to build 110 million extra homes needed, plus necessary transport infrastructure, by 2025 the size of India’s construction market would reach $1 trillion, the third largest in the world, according to KPMG.

Related on Archinect:

Halfway there? The limits to Aravena's social housing

2016-06-14T12:52:00-04:00

"In most cities in Latin America, most of the building over last 50 years—depending on the city—40, 50, 60, 70 percent has been through incremental construction.” [...] The majority of Aravena’s social housing work has also rested on the unique conditions and high level of investment from Chile’s social housing program. [...] Isn’t asking the poor to shoulder more of the housing burden an inherently unfair proposition?

More discussion of Aravena's practice and impact can be found here:

Take a look at the rapid urbanization of China's Pearl River Delta

2016-05-10T15:23:00-04:00

The region where the Pearl River flows into the South China Sea has seen some of the most rapid urban expansion in human history over the past few decades – transforming what was mostly agricultural land in 1979 into what is the manufacturing heartland of a global economic superpower today.

Shenzen (1964)

Shenzen (2015)

Macau (1991)

Macau (2015)

Hong Kong (1964)

Hong Kong (2015)

Guangzhou (1949)

Guangzhou (2015)

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Architect turned sea-flooding specialist keeps Panama City afloat

2016-04-21T18:33:00-04:00

Banfield’s dedication to environmental issues was born by chance in 2000, when she moved with her husband and three children to Clayton...Together with Carlos Varela, her legal-minded neighbor, Banfield created a community association to defend the rainforest. She remained on the front lines for years, sacrificed her architectural career and eventually began public campaigns for a variety of environmental causes.

Although the Harvard GSD formed the Office for Urbanization recently to study the effects of sea rise and climate change, Vice Mayor of Panama City Raisa Banfield has taken a more direct approach, physically halting flood-prone projects during construction and connecting with like-minded colleagues around the globe to find solutions.

As the article notes, "As glaciers melt and oceans flow higher, 'sea-level rise is an issue on almost every coast,' says Rosetta Elkin, landscape architect and professor at Harvard University Graduate School of Design. It’s particularly tough in Panama City, because the entire town was built too far to the east, 'where sea levels are precipitously low' — thanks in part to American bases — says Arosemena. As Banfield goes through the rigmarole of finding a solution and calling together a global group of problem-solvers like the Dutch, she may stand a chance at creating some scaffolding for the many other cities that will have to look this same issue in th...

Win the "Architectural Guide China", a handy travel book of the country's architectural history

2016-02-23T12:25:00-05:00

Architectural Guide China is a unique travel guidebook that presents up-to-date insight into the rich architectural histories in Eastern China's megacities, which continue to create widespread impact through rapid urbanization, population growth, and the consequential effects on the natural environment.

In this volume of Architectural Guide, authors Evan Chakroff, Addison Godel, and Jacqueline Gargus give an architectural overview of nine major urban sites in mainland China as well as Hong Kong and Macau. If you're planning a trip to any of those places, this book can definitely come in handy.

Thanks to DOM-publishers, Archinect is giving away Architectural Guide China to three of our readers!

Read on for more about the book, and find out how to enter the giveaway.

"The 'Reform and Opening' era affected these metropolises in different ways and has influenced the existing structures of dynastic capitals, trade centers, former European colonies and discovery areas.

The volume contains 620...

A Parisian architect's plan to solve housing shortages by adding pre-fab houses to existing structures

2016-02-11T12:52:00-05:00

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.

"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:

As LA densifies, its iconic roadside restaurants disappear

2016-01-27T14:18:00-05:00

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.

Related:

A fairy tale for an age of global urbanization

2015-12-30T17:26:00-05:00

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.

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.

China relaxes restrictions on who gets perks of urban public services

2015-12-14T14:52:00-05:00

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”

More news from China:

The GSD vs. the sea: school's new Office for Urbanization tackles climate change in Miami Beach

2015-11-11T12:58:00-05:00

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 for the advancement of knowledge on the role of design research in relation to the social and environmental challenges associated with ongoing urbanization." The first project for the Office takes on the challenges facing Miami Beach.

As founding director Charles Waldheim, the John E. Irving Professor of Landscape Architecture, explained, “This foundational project of the Office for Urbanization will examine the implications of rising sea levels and increased storm events on the economy and ecology, infrastructure and identity of Miami Beach in relation to its metropolitan and regional contexts. The study will develop design strategies and scenarios to mitigate present threats and to anticipate ...

In weaker market, architecture firms in China are cutting back

2015-08-11T13:31:00-04:00

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”

More from the architecture market in China:

"Great City...Terrible Place": A discussion on the urban future of India

2015-03-27T14:00:00-04:00

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 country’s demographic explosion, and make Indian cities a fascinating combination of chaos and vitality rarely found elsewhere. Great City…Terrible Place, this year’s Z-AXIS symposium curated by the Charles Correa Foundation in Goa, explored the complex forces shaping global cities in an effort to understand the dynamism of India’s ever-changing urban centers. Held over three days at Kala Academy, one of Correa’s masterworks, the conference brought together speakers from different corners of the world to share their views with an audience eager to take an active role in India’s urban transformation.

The conference’s moderator, Pratyush Shankar, described cities as places of will, where people forge ...

China used more cement in 3 years than the U.S. did in the entire 20th century

2015-03-26T13:45:00-04:00

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.

David Adjaye: Contextualizing Approaches to Urbanization

2014-12-12T13:31:00-05:00

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.

'Re-education' campaigns teach China's new ghost city-dwellers how to behave

2014-11-13T15:43:00-05:00

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.

China's obsession with vertical cities

2014-10-30T14:04:00-04:00

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

Hanoi: is it possible to grow a city without slums?

2014-08-11T13:28:00-04:00

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?

China Moves to Ease Home-Registration Rules in Urbanization Push

2014-08-06T13:48:00-04:00

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.