Archinect - News

Boston reprioritizes Planning and Development Agency as reformers push to eliminate structural inequality

2024-04-03T19:07:00-04:00

The Boston City Council passed a measure Wednesday to shift planning authority away from the Boston Planning and Development Agency, a body that's reshaped much of the city in the 20th century and has faced criticism for the power it wields over building and urban renewal. The newly minted Boston Planning Department will assume many of the responsibilities, property and staff currently under the old agency, which will retain oversight of large developments.

As per WBUR, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu has been adamant about phasing out the current planning system during her time in office, calling it "an anachronism plagued by lack of transparency and misguided priorities."

Other critics have amplified her call, arguing that it inculcates structural racism. As a 2020 Boston Globe article stated: "The quasi-governmental agency referees Boston’s major real estate development, a sector that one agency board member described [...] as overwhelmingly white and male. The BPDA has been criticized in recent years for the cost of housing and what some view as overdevelopment."

The city is in the midst of several reforms aimed at increasing affordable housing and decarbonizing its built environment and needs to plan a massive flood barrier to protect against the effects of climate change by 2070.

Details emerge for billionaire-backed startup community plan northeast of San Francisco

2024-01-24T19:14:00-05:00

The once-secretive plan for a startup new community in Solano County, Northern California, is beginning to materialize as the company known as California Forever has begun publicizing details for their proposed development ahead of a potential November vote to determine its future.

Details made public with the start of a requisite petition drive showed a preliminary map, renderings, and area plan for the project, which would notably be the first large-scale demonstration of the "walkable city" concept designed entirely from scratch in North America.

Image courtesy California Forever

Billed as a future "amazing success story" by the company’s founder Jan Sramek, the development intends to construct some 20,000 new affordable residences plus a solar farm and network of public parks before 2040. The plan reportedly allows for further growth to support a population of up to 400,000. As the announcement post notes, much of the preliminary proposal is focused on creating missing middle ho...

University of Miami's School of Architecture to design smart 'Silica City' concept for booming Guyana

2023-12-12T11:53:00-05:00

The University of Miami School of Architecture has announced its participation in a master planning project that will help develop a smart city in the capital region of Guyana, South America.

Both students and faculty from the school will join with others in UM’s Advanced Study of the Americas program, Herbert Business School, School of Nursing and Health Studies, and Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science to realize the project, which leverages their expertise in the fields of resilient design, sustainable architecture, climate science, nature systems, technology, and more.

'Silica City' is an 11,000-acre planned community of 60,000 people near the Guyana International Airport with residential plots, a city center, an 'Innovation Village' area, and AI-bolstered infrastructure. Preliminary design work has already begun via a new 12-student studio that was taught in the fall by former School of Architecture dean Jose A. Gelabert-Navia, who said: “You cannot devel...

Former Chicago Transportation Commissioner Gia Biagi joins Studio Gang in new planning role

2023-08-24T17:33:00-04:00

While the city’s top transportation post remains vacant, the department’s respected former commissioner has landed a leadership post at the award-winning Chicago architecture firm Studio Gang. Gia Biagi will join Studio Gang as Principal of Urbanism, the firm announced Thursday. Biagi told the Sun-Times that under the newly-created role, she’ll lead Studio Gang’s planning and urban design work nationally.

Biagi told the Sun-Times architecture critic, Lee Bey, her work will help Studio Gang’s efforts to shape “how we think about cities, how we revitalize them, and how that connects to other important systems, whether that’s emphasizing ecology or looking at the important public policy questions on the ground.” She will leverage further experience with the Chicago Park District and the Department of Planning and Development in the execution of her duties.

Previously on Archinect: Studio Gang's Gia Biagi picked to run Chicago Department of Transportation

Gang says Biagi, who worked previously at the firm from 2015 to 2019, shares the same goals and values essential to the core mission of the 12-year-old planning studio. Biagi holds degrees in planning from the University of Michigan and the University of Illinois Chicago.

The CDOT is still searching for a permanent replacement after she stepped down from the role at the end of July.

SOM reveals plans for 100,000-person Sultan Haitham smart city in Oman

2023-08-23T14:53:00-04:00

A new plan for a proposed smart city in Oman has been released by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) in advance of the project’s anticipated construction start next year.

The 14.8 million-square-meter Sultan Haitham City is located west of the country’s capital, Muscat, and will accommodate 100,000 people with a total of 20,000 units of housing and climate-resilient naturalistic elements developed around twelve core aims of creating an experience that is "affordable, safe, compact, accessible, comfortable, robust, efficient, circular, healthy, smart, and lovable."

The project is part of the larger Vision 2040 initiative, which has, to date, seen the construction of the world’s largest 3D printed building made with real concrete. The development will begin with the construction of six neighborhoods around a 1.9-square-mile central core and later spread out along a 4.6-mile stretch until completion in 2045. SOM’s Managing Director Thomas Behr says it "provides a new model for sustainabl...

A job opportunity at the City of Tacoma offers insight into a career in urban planning

2023-04-05T16:36:00-04:00

Following last week’s look at an opening for the Architecture Program Chair at the University of Michigan, we are using this week’s edition of our Job Highlights series to explore an open position on Archinect Jobs for a Senior Planner at the City of Tacoma’s Planning and Development Services.

The role, based in Tacoma, WA with the possibility of a remote arrangement, calls for an individual who is “passionate about working with diverse community members to solve complex problems and building great communities.” The position also asks for either a bachelor’s degree in planning, architecture, urban design, or a closely allied field with four years of planning experience, or a master’s degree with two years of experience in the planning profession.

Why the role interests us

The position at the City of Tacoma offers insight into the role performed by public planning department...

The push for 15-minute cities is now a rallying cry for far-right conspiracists

2023-03-10T18:48:00-05:00

Never before has a mundane theory of urbanism been such a lightning rod for outrage [...] Some online forums have claimed that the 15-minute city represents the first step towards an inevitable Hunger Games society, in which residents will not be allowed to leave their prescribed areas. They see it not as a route to a low-traffic, low-carbon future, but as the beginning of a slippery slope to living in an open-air prison.

The man widely credited with developing the “15-minute city” concept, Colombian-born French academic Carlos Moreno, is the most likely source for paranoia owing to his radical left-wing identity. Though, as Wainwright points out, the idea dates to the 1920s, many conspiracists view its adaptation by cities like Brussels and Paris as tied to the “Trojan horse” that was the pandemic.

Thousands attended a rally against Oxford’s forthcoming plan last month, decrying the city’s embrace of the idea as one entiwned with Stalinism and surveillance culture. Oxford will indeed levy fines on motorists, but the plan’s core, according to Wainwright and Moreno, is more democratic than the extant circulation strategies far-right misinformation campaigns are seeking tacitly to uphold.

"Today 80 percent of urban mobility is forced, because people have to get up early and commute to school, to workplaces that are far from their homes," he told Politico recently. "In a city of proximity in which ser...

Los Angeles gets a new Deputy Mayor of Housing

2023-02-03T08:30:00-05:00

New LA Mayor Karen Bass has elevated current City Planning Commissioner Jenna Hornstock to a newly-created post as the Deputy Mayor of Housing, according to the city's announcement on Wednesday afternoon.

The appointment aligns with Bass’ comprehensive shakeup of the city’s existing multifaceted housing apparatus. It will create an office that is accountable for efforts to address the dual crises of affordability and homelessness that have become hot-button political issues for Angelenos over the past decade.

Honstock comes to the position with experience as the acting Deputy Director of Planning and Land Use for the Southern California Association of Governments and was a former aide on the Housing and Business team of former Mayor James Hahn. According to her Linkedin page, she is also the current board of advisors member for the Urban Land Institute and holds an MPP in Urban Economic Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Related on Archinect: Political disorder is...

Denver has hired its first chief urban designer

2022-08-17T13:05:00-04:00

The City of Denver has hired its first chief urban designer. Following a nearly year-long search, Eugenia Di Girolamo was selected as the city’s first employee to focus exclusively on urban design.

Di Girolamo most recently worked as the deputy director for urban design at the New York City Department of City Planning and will now be tasked with establishing a long-term plan for how Denver will develop, with a focus on community engagement.

As reported by Westword, Laura Aldrete, executive director of Denver Community Planning and Development, wrote to city staffers in an email stating: “Eugenia will work collaboratively with policymakers, Denver residents, and the development industry to create public spaces and neighborhoods that, by design, promote inclusivity, resiliency to climate change, and improve public health and well-being. In this position, she will champion design excellence citywide, from how it feels to walk down the street in Denver’s neighborhoods to large-scale t...

Chicago unveils first city framework plan in more than 50 years and seeks public input

2022-08-02T09:00:00-04:00

Chicago has unveiled a draft of its first citywide framework plan since 1966, charting how the city intends to become more equitable and resilient. The plan, titled We Will Chicago, is led by neighborhood stakeholders, artists, community partners, and city agencies. Having launched in 2020, the draft framework is now seeking public feedback before completion and presentation to the Chicago Plan Commission in early 2023.

The framework describes itself as “the first planning process in the City’s history that acknowledges the past as much as the future.” To that end, the plan seeks to address systemic declines which have arisen from previous plans, policies, and market forces, including structural racism, poverty, depopulation, and health disparities. The plan also seeks to enable the city to “survive, adapt, and rebound in the face of chronic stresses and acute shocks like climate change and pandemics.”

The We Will Chicago framework consists of eight pillars

The draft plan consists o...

El Salvador picks Fernando Romero to plan its Bitcoin City

2022-05-13T08:27:00-04:00

The country of El Salvador has picked an architect for his attention-grabbing bid to lure cryptocurrency investment to the small Central American nation.

FR-EE founder Fernando Romero is now in charge of the country’s Bitcoin City development and plans to add a new Pacific airport, according to an announcement made on social media from President Nayib Bukele Tuesday.

All images via Nayib Bukele/Twitter

Somewhat similar to the layout of the new “crypto paradise” private island development in Vanuatu, plans revealed this week display a concentric design with outlying nodes connected to a central plaza, itself forming the shape of a Bitcoin logo. The pop-up city, which includes an airport concept similar FR-EE’s contribution to the abandoned design for a new international airport in Mexico City, will be located at the base of the Conchagua Volcano (also its power source for mining operations) along El Salvador’s southern coast.

All images via Nayib Buk...

A stretch of JFK Drive in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park to become permanently car-free

2022-05-04T17:52:00-04:00

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.

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 private vehicles to create a safe space for people to walk, run, and bike, while social distancing. The vote followed a meeting with nine hours of public comment in person at City Hall and over the phone.

Critics of the move argue that a permanent closure would prevent park access to individuals who are disabled, elderly, or live farther away, and only benefit active users. Some have called for closing the road to vehicle traffic only on weekends, claiming that drivers commuting to work or transporting kids to school needed access.

A notable opponent is the de Young Museum, which has recorded a decline in atte...

The English city of Bradford develops a digital twin to help inform planning decisions and promote cultural heritage

2022-02-07T19:36:00-05:00

An online space called Virtual Bradford is set to be completed this summer that would provide a high-resolution 3D online “brick-for-brick” digital twin of Bradford, England’s city center.

The project is a collaboration between the University of Bradford and the Bradford Council. It is also partially funded by the European Union SCORE project, which aims to improve public service through smart open-data solutions. It is hoped Virtual Bradford can help how the city deals with planning, air pollution, traffic management, flood risk, noise pollution, along with the creation of green space.

“Virtual Bradford represents a revolution in terms of city planning,” said Professor Chris Gaffney, Chair in Archeological Sciences at the University of Bradford. “It will enable people to look at the built environment in a virtual 3D world, and then see what impact new developments have on things like surface water drainage, noise pollution, clean air and visual impact.”

“One of the biggest issues...

San Francisco is gearing up for a boom in housing development projects

2021-12-27T13:52:00-05:00

Even as smaller projects are stuck in limbo due to market uncertainties and astronomical construction costs, the city’s colossal multi-phased projects like those at Treasure Island, Mission Rock, Pier 70 and Power Station will steam full speed ahead. Streets are being laid out, sidewalks poured, trees planted, streetlights installed and buildings are sprouting from the ground.

The city is currently in the process of transforming Treasure Island, the artificial holm named after the Robert Louis Stevenson novel and created for the 1939 World’s Fair, into an 8,000-unit residential neighborhood with below-market housing and retail amenities that is anticipated to host a population of around 20,000 by 2032 in spite of concerns that the former U.S. Navy facility is contaminated.

The hope created by the projects is being dampened somewhat by the bureaucratic process behind development schemes, which has stalled several other mixed-use and residential initiatives in more developed areas of the city, according to The San Francisco Chronicle.

“Working people like our nurses, teachers, and even the construction workers who build our homes are suffering because we haven’t built enough housing for decades,” Mayor London Breed told the paper. “Even with the progress on moving large projects forward, we have to make fundamental changes to how we approve and permit hou...

The New York City Council's Land Use Committee approves Gowanus Rezoning

2021-11-11T15:32:00-05:00

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s controversial plan to rezone Gowanus is poised to move forward, fulfilling a decade-old ambition that aims to increase development and affordability in the fast-changing industrial enclave. The deal was approved by the City Council’s Land Use Committee on Wednesday, after the administration agreed to additional investments in public housing and sewer infrastructure.

The plan will pave the way for 8,000 new apartments to be built over the next decade, with more than a third reserved for low-income residents. The City Council’s Land Use Committee backed the proposal unanimously after last-minute negotiations between the mayor and two local council members, Brad Lander and Steve Levin, whose approval was contingent on the city’s commitment to invest $200 million to modernize two public housing complexes in the neighborhood. An additional $174 million will upgrade sewage infrastructure along the canal.

Previously on Archinect: New York City Planning Commission approves Gowanus Rezoning proposal

With the Gowanus Canal currently undergoing a federal clean-up, opponents of the plan fear that new construction could unearth toxins and pollutants, which would primarily impact the low-income residents that are intended to live there. Others argue that the area’s sewer system will not be able to withstand the volume of new residents.

As stated by Gothamis...

New York City Planning Commission approves Soho/Noho rezoning proposal, clearing the way for more housing

2021-10-22T17:47:00-04:00

The future of Soho and Noho is now up to the City Council. The City Planning Commission on Wednesday approved a high-profile proposal to rezone the neighborhoods, largely to allow for more residential and ground-floor retail. The proposal covers 56 blocks in the neighborhoods, largely zoned for manufacturing use — despite the area’s reputation as a prime retail destination.

In support of the plan, City Planning Commission Chair Anita Laremont said: “The plan significantly advances New York City’s equity and inclusivity goals, helps to address our severe and ongoing housing crisis and serves to speed New York City's economic recovery.”

According to The Gothamist, the rezoning, which aims to address growing housing needs, could see the construction of up to 3,500 new apartments, including as many as 900 subsidized units through New York’s Mandatory Inclusionary Housing requirement. This is the latest rezoning Mayor Bill de Blasio is attempting to push through following the NYC Planning Commission’s approval of the Gowanus rezoning proposal in September.

Previously on Archinect: New York City Planning Commission approves Gowanus Rezoning proposal

Concerns surrounding the proposal include fears that the rezoning could lead to too much commercial development and does not provide enough protection for historic districts. Additionally, opponents argue that i...

New York City Planning Commission approves Gowanus Rezoning proposal

2021-09-23T17:10:00-04:00

Mayor Bill de Blasio is one step closer to realizing his goal of adding tens of thousands of units of affordable housing in New York City, after a key panel passed the city’s plan to rezone a swath of industrial properties surrounding the Gowanus Canal

The proposal was approved by nine of the ten New York City Planning Commission members in a vote earlier this week. The plan calls for the rezoning of an 82-block section of Gowanus, along Fourth Avenue, between Atlantic Avenue and 15th Street. It would pave the way for the construction of up to 8,000 homes, with 3,000 of them set below market rate.

It will now make its way to the City Council, however, support may not be as unanimous. Councilmembers Brad Lander and Stephen Levin, who represent the area, reportedly want the city to commit $200 million towards repairs for two public housing complexes in the neighborhood before they can support the effort. Additionally, Brooklyn Borough President and presumptive future mayor Eric Adams, backed the plan given the city pledges $274 million for repairs at New York City Housing Authority complexes over the next five years.

The proposal has received blowback, with opponents arguing that it will lead to an influx of luxury towers and that...

10 Design reveals plan to revitalize downtown Raleigh

2021-09-02T18:23:00-04:00

North Carolina’s Research Triangle is getting a major upgrade thanks to a massive new billion-dollar mixed-use development unveiled this week by 10 Design.

The firm is behind the new Downtown South Raleigh Master Plan which includes a 20,000-capacity football stadium and virtual reality center, aiming to enhance the city’s startup-laden downtown south end.

Image courtesy 10 Design/Frontop

Per the architect: “Connectivity is at the core of the scheme. 10 Design has ensured seamless accessibility from Downtown Raleigh through the creation of a bridge loop that encloses the entire development, providing efficient circulation from in and out of the site and with the rest of the city. The scheme will be a positive connection to Raleigh’s extensive greenways system and local historic neighborhoods.”

Image courtesy 10 Design

The comprehensive plan takes the profile of native oak trees as its inspiration for the 32-acre site through a series of pocket parks and a central pedestrian walkway t...

Telosa, BIG's new vision for the future, hopes to sprout up from the desert with the help of billionaire Marc Lore

2021-09-01T18:38:00-04:00

Fans of Bjarke Ingels are in for a treat following an announcement on social media earlier today of a massive new project that would build a city completely from scratch somewhere in the western United States thanks to seed funding from billionaire Jet.com founder Marc Lore.

Bloomberg is reporting that the Danish architect has been tapped by the entrepreneur for the master plan of the Telosa city project that will transform 150,000 acres of unoccupied community-owned land into a Shenzhen-like planned metropolis which will eventually play host to over 5 million people by the year 2060.

The plan calls for an initial investment in land which will then be transferred into an endowment owned and operated by the nearly 50,000 people who will inhabit the starter city by the end of this decade.

Images courtesy BIG and buchareststudio

The project’s goal is to transform the undeveloped swath of land into a model that “sets a global standard for urban living, expands human potential, and become...

As Indianapolis' first Black Deputy Director, architect Lourenzo Giple pushes for economic development while 'preserving the integrity of the neighborhood'

2021-08-20T16:52:00-04:00

On August 16th, the Indianapolis Star (IndyStar) announced architect Lourenzo Giple as the city's new Deputy Director of Planning, Preservation, and Design. The newly appointed deputy is determined to making changes the city has been missing for years. Giple shared with Brandon Drenon of IndyStar, "Historically, zoning and planning have not been equitable. I want to do my best to shift some of those inequities."

Giple grew up in Liberia, where his family eventually fled the country because of a civil war. When his family immigrated from Liberia to Indianapolis, he discusses how his experience and upbringing in the city's lower-economic neighborhoods provided him a perspective for how architecture and urban planning could elevate the city into an equitable place.

This new role within the Department of Metropolitan Development will cover long-term projects for city development, strategies for new architectural design, and tran...

City Planning: Who designs cities?

2021-06-02T08:50:00-04:00

Who designs cities? Architecture school may lead young designers to believe that their profession shapes the spatial and aesthetic qualities of the built environment, but a look at the composition of city planning boards suggests otherwise.

City planning has existed for millennia. The Roman castrum, the Spanish Law of the Indies, and Puritans’ utopian plans for cities like New Haven, Connecticut, all used precise grids to organize urban space. Nevertheless, city planning in its contemporary form is integrally related to zoning, which began in New York City.

In 1915, a 42-story skyscraper called the Equitable Building was constructed. The 1916 Zoning Resolution followed. Regulating the height and bulk of new buildings, the resolution controlled the rapid growth of the many tall buildings that sprang up on the island of Manhattan as steel framing and elevators revolutionized architecture and building technology. Today, zoning controls much more than height and bulk, underwriting not...

Don't miss 2019's best urban planning memes

2019-12-31T14:33:00-05:00

We've covered a sprawling variety of urban planning stories on Archinect this year, but as the new decade is mere hours away from the land of the densification-averse, we'd like to raise our glass and salute the fine people at Planning Peeps for tirelessly brightening our days with the memes even Jane Jacobs and Robert Moses would get a good chuckle out of.

Here is just a small selection of our favorites this year:

Longing for more? Find the complete treasure trove on the Planning Peeps Facebook page.

Overtourism: Are cities suffocating?

2019-07-19T15:01:00-04:00

The global tourism boom that’s inundated legacy destinations like Venice, Amsterdam, and Barcelona has birthed a term—overtourism—to describe the harried state of a city besieged by too many visitors. A recent report by the World Travel and Tourism Council, Destination 2030, looked at cities’ readiness for tourism growth and concluded that Vancouver, [...] had “visitor volumes and activities with potential to cause strain on the city.”

Tourism is one proven way cities can boost their economy in addition to promoting cultural awareness. However, how much strain is tourism putting on these cities? According to recent CityLab coverage by Molly McCluskey, "overtourism" is a term city development and tourism councils are using more frequently. Take Vancouver for example. McCluskey shares that the city will reach its 95% tourism capacity by the end of the summer. What does this mean exactly, and what steps can be taken to manage overcrowding?

According to Gwendal Castellan, manager of Sustainable Destination Development at Tourism Vancouver, he and his colleagues think, perhaps they should "just stop promoting the city?" Castellan continues, "We've been watching this happen all over the world. We haven't hit those edges [of oversaturation] yet, but we're not far off." Cities strained from "overtourism" must not only react to visitor demand but respond to residents and local officials. From overcrowded parking lots, busy...

Aecom wins project management contract for Saudi Arabia's Neom Bay

2019-07-02T19:15:00-04:00

U.S. engineering firm Aecom will manage the development of Neom Bay, part of a $500 billion mega city on Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast [...] The kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund, is spearheading plans to develop Neom, a futuristic city being built from scratch, as part of the government’s plans to cut its reliance on oil and attract foreign investment.

Intentions for the planned Neom megacity were first announced by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in 2017, but Saudi Arabia's suspected involvement in the death of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi a year later caused international outrage and prominent international figures on the Neom advisory board, including Norman Foster, to suspend their activity.

Activists turned planners: How citizens of Berlin helped tackle affordable housing and a massive redevelopment project

2019-06-13T15:33:00-04:00

The Berlin activists who staged a protest at a vacant government building didn’t imagine they’d end up leading a €140 million redevelopment project.

During the 1960s, the Haus der Statistik was built for the national statistics office for East Germany. The massive complex spreads over eight blocks at half a million square feet, comprising three connected mid-rises and some smaller buildings. As years passed, the Haus der Statistik's history and political involvement soon became a thing of the past after it closed down in 2008. Laying dormant and abandoned, local Berlin artists and activists decided to intervene once word of the building was said to be torn down and replaced with private apartments and offices.

Banner drop at the Haus der Statistik, 2015. The one-story building later converted to a planning workshop is seen at the right edge of the frame. Image © Allianz bedrohter Berliner Atelierhäuser

Upset with the lack of affordable housing, these artists worked together to save the building and use its massive size and structural potential to transform it into something the community needs...

San Francisco releases new proposed budget to tackle city housing and homelessness

2019-06-04T20:46:00-04:00

Mayor London Breed’s proposed budget for the coming fiscal year will soar by $1.2 billion — making it the largest in city history — and boost investment in tackling the city’s most urgent problems: housing and homelessness.

The housing and homelessness crisis in major cities, especially in San Francisco, has been an ongoing issue. Mayor London Breed met with city officials and San Francisco residents to address new plans to address solutions towards the increased initiative towards housing and homelessness. With an increase in this coming fiscal budget, the Mayor and Board of Supervisors have decided to spend it on replacing the older dilapidated public housing units in the city as well as add 1,000 affordable and market-rate homes to the area. During her public proposal Breed stressed the new spending plan would focus on "equity and accountability for all" especially those in overlooked communities like Sunnydale.

"It's all about housing," Breed said at the Sunnydale event. "We all know the cost of housing is too high. We all know the problem did not happen overnight and will not be solved overnight." With this increased budget, there will be challenges. However, this has not slowed Breed's focus on i...

“Sunlight was weaponized”: How shade has been an index of inequality in LA's urban design

2019-04-24T11:30:00-04:00

Shade is often understood as a luxury amenity, lending calm to courtyards and tree-lined boulevards, cooling and obscuring jewel boxes and glass cubes. But as deadly, hundred-degree heatwaves become commonplace, we have to learn to see shade as a civic resource that is shared by all. In the shade, overheated bodies return to equilibrium. [...] Shade is thus an index of inequality, a requirement for public health, and a mandate for urban planners and designers.

In this longform piece, writer Sam Bloch delves into the history of how shade has served as an index of inequality in the urban design of Los Angeles, and how the city (and perhaps other locations) should learn to consider shade as an important public health requirement.

“People living in poor neighborhoods, many of them black and brown, are exposed not only to higher levels of air pollution, soil toxins, contaminated water, and flood risk, but also to higher temperatures on unprotected streets. [...] Maybe we ought to start talking about shade deserts, just as we talk about neighborhoods without grocery stores as food deserts,” Bloch writes.

“Look at what happened to Pershing Square, where sunlight was weaponized to clear out the ‘deviates and criminals,’” Bloch adds.

2018's best urban planning memes you didn't know you needed

2018-12-28T14:24:00-05:00

In dire need of urban planning memes on this last Friday of the year? Have we got a link for you: Planning Peeps has compiled 2018's gems trending among city planners and urbanism disciples.

Check out some of our favorites below and visit Parts 1 and 2 of the full list.

All images via Planning Peeps.

Win a copy of “Reprogramming the City”, a book that explores new possibilities in existing city design

2018-12-14T13:00:00-05:00

Time for a book giveaway! Archinect readers have a chance to win a copy of “Reprogramming the City”. Authored by writer and urban strategist Scott Burnham and designed by Samantha Altieri, this new book presents a collection of real-world examples of how existing urban elements can be redesigned to perform alternate functions or even take on completely new roles in the city.

Chapter 2: Shelter + Housing. Photo credit: Reprogramming the City.

Chapter 4: Energy + Ecology. Photo credit: Reprogramming the City.

The 214-page book features over 40 projects based in numerous cities across 17 countries — from billboards in Lima that were repurposed to generate clean drinking water, to bus shelters in Umeå, Sweden that swapped their advertising lights for light-therapy tubes to give commuters a mood boost during the dark winter months. Projects are thematically organized into five chapters: Food and Water; Shelter and Housing; Health and Wellbeing; Energy and Ecology; and Renewal and Recovery....

NY City Planning Commission approves Brooklyn's 80 Flatbush Ave skyscraper

2018-08-23T14:55:00-04:00

... the project will create 900 apartments, some of which will be located within a 986-foot skyscraper, which would become the borough’s second-tallest tower if built; it would also have cultural space, two schools, and retail. The development has divided locals and elected officials; some tout the fact that the development will bring two schools to the neighborhood along with 200 permanently affordable apartments, but others [...] feel the project is too out of scale with the neighborhood.