Archinect - News

The Brooklyn Bridge’s infrastructure improvements are kickstarting a renaissance for bicycling

2022-03-25T13:18:00-04:00

The Brooklyn Bridge finally caught up with the COVID-19-era rise in cycling last year after the city opened a dedicated bike path on the iconic span’s roadway. It was one of the signature initiatives in the final year of the Mayor Bill de Blasio administration, and advocates lauded the addition, which was also the first reconfiguration of the bridge since old trolley tracks were permanently removed in 1950.

Bicycle traffic on the bridge increased by more than a quarter from 2020 to last year. The jump is indicative of an overall city-wide trend, which has seen New Yorkers’ biking habits increase at a rate of 33%. The numbers likely correlate to the pandemic-era decrease in subway ridership caused by fears of viral contagion and an increase in violent incidents.

New York inaugurated 30 additional miles of dedicated bike paths in the past months, leading to a marked increase in traffic on the Manhattan and Queensboro Bridges (although DOT noted a minor decline in the use of the Williamsburg Bridge). The (almost) 139-year-old structure had previously only allowed for very uncomfortable biking on its crowded pedestrian walkway before construction was completed in the fall, after which the AMNY recorded a whopping 88% increase from the same months in 2020.

Architects and designers are helping cities fight back against AI surveillance

2022-03-08T10:31:00-05:00

Cities are being overwhelmed by a top-down, algorithmically-enabled attempt to make them legible, quantifiable and replicable. Can a project of nonsense-making disrupt the seemingly inexorable march of "progress"?

Anti-digital mapping and other seriously stylish interventions have taken cues from protest groups like the Umbrella Movement. Many now see them as key areas in which architects can play a role alongside other designers and urbanists to halt the encroachment of certain proptech entities with software that can learn “the concept of gentrification itself."

Knott eventually tied anti-gentrification pushback against high tech real estate to the long-standing tradition of intervention into urban planning endeavors, saying that, in the end, it is up to communities of people who can utilize the notion in an all-out effort to prevent the wholesale creation of what he called the “algorithmic city.”

“Design alone won’t save neighbourhoods from the gentrifying tendencies of urbanism tech...

The nature of place: Petra Kempf on architecture, virtual media our shifting urban terrains

2021-12-01T12:13:00-05:00

Pink umbrellas tumble on hidden winds. IP addresses cross like city streets. Bright islands of community float like balloons tethered to gray infrastructural networks.

In her wall-sized drawing “Confronting Urbanization: The Interactive Tissue of Urban Life Pro[log]ue,” Petra Kempf, assistant professor of architecture and urban design in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis, combines copious data and mischievous symbolism to explore how smartphones, online commerce, and global connectivity are reshaping the urban terrain.

Hires scan of Petra Kempf’s “Confronting Urbanization: The Interactive Tissue of Urban Life Pro[log]ue.” The full drawing, which measures roughly four meters in length, is featured in the 2021 Venice Architecture Biennale. (Photo: Courtesy Petra Kempf)

Some two years in the making, “Confronting Urbanization” is featured in the 2021 Venice Architecture Biennale, one of the world’s premier architectural showcases, as part o...

Students from six universities take the top prize at the 2020 CTBUH International Student Tall Building Design Competition

2020-11-24T13:50:00-05:00

In its 9th iteration, the annual CTBUH International Student Tall Building Design Competition highlights the best student work that explores the future of sustainable vertical urbanism.

The competition aims to invite students to submit their best project ideas as they explore a "new light on the meaning and value of tall buildings in modern society." The CTBUH asked participants to find new ways to engage with tall buildings and their relationship to urban settings in addition to exploring the cultural, physical, and environmental variables of the site.

Out of 250 entries, five finalists were selected. View the winning projects below.

1st Place: A Critical Approach to Vertical Graveyards
By: Nikita Klimenko, Yale University & Nikita Shpakov, Belarusian State University of Informatics and Radioelectronics

A Critical Approach to Vertical Graveyards By: Nikita Klimenko, Yale University & Nikita Shpakov, Belarusian State University of Informatics and Radioelectronics. Image courtesy of...

Henning Larsen unveils masterplan for new city district in Wolfsburg, Germany

2020-11-04T16:01:00-05:00

Henning Larsen has unveiled designs for Wolfburg's Nordkopf district, called Wolfsburg Connect. The 13.6 hectare masterplan creates a prototype for "small-scale urbanism."

"We are designing an inclusive city on human terms – an approach that means putting emphasis on social life and accessibility," said Louis Becker, Henning Larsen Design Principal in a statement. "Together with Volkswagen, there is the opportunity to create a city that is the testing ground for the most cutting edge mobility technology in the world – but what underpins the design is the goal to create a place that people want to be in and stay in."

The new masterplan will be located in the center of Wolfsburg on long triangular site which includes Wolfsburg Hauptbanhof and an existing bus station, both of which will be expanded. This will become a mobility hub that links people within the city and across the region through various options including bus, taxi, city bicycles, and walking paths.

The plan incorporates...

Tactical Urbanism Now! Call for Students, Architects & Designers

2020-09-07T08:00:00-04:00

This post is brought to you by TerraViva Competitions

TerraViva Competitions launches TACTICAL URBANISM NOW!, a new architecture and design competition focused on the transformation of contemporary public spaces. Prizes up to 4.000 € will be awarded to the winners selected by an international jury panel composed by, among others, Paloma H. Hermakova (Stefano Boeri Architetti), Héctor Esrawe (ESRAWE), Patrizia Di Monte (GravalosDiMonte Arquitectos), Helena Barthel (Rural Studio)

Pop-Up Park. Image © Hello Wood.

BRIEF

Today, the citizen's relationship with the urban context is moving towards the spreading of new practices for the re-appropriation of public spaces all over the world. It is becoming clearer nowadays, that only the city that improves the quality of life of its inhabitants is truly smart, putting the human element at the centre of every urban project.

Whether you live in a metropolis or a small town, you have likely seen it for yourself. Cities around the world are impleme...

Rethinking the global urbanism studio

2020-07-28T20:15:00-04:00

The city has changed. The city is always changing, but COVID-19 has accelerated the process. From New York and Hong Kong to Brisbane, Manaus and Copenhagen, the pandemic is reshaping the ways we think about urban space.

“In a matter of just two or three months, people have completely transformed how they negotiate the city,” said Jonathan Stitelman, visiting assistant professor of urban design in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis. “COVID-19 has impacted everything from restaurants and storefronts to expectations around homes, offices and entrepreneurship.”

This summer, Stitelman is leading the Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design’s annual Global Urbanism Studio, a 13-week program that allows Master of Urban Design students to study and work in major cities around the world. Stitelman, who has taught the studio with John Hoal and other faculty since 2016, had spent months organizing a partnership with Uganda Martyrs University...

Tactical Urbanism Now! The reappropriation of public space

2020-06-22T12:00:00-04:00

This post is brought to you by TerraViva Competitions

TerraViva Competitions launches TACTICAL URBANISM NOW!, a new architecture and design competition focused on the transformation of contemporary public spaces. Prizes up to 4.000 € will be awarded to the winners selected by an international jury panel composed by, among others, Paloma H. Ermakova (Stefano Boeri Architetti), Héctor Esrawe (ESRAWE), Patrizia Di Monte (GravalosDiMonte Arquitectos), Elena Barthel (Rural Studio).

Image © Rahul Palagani - Level Up

Whether you live in a metropolis or a small town, you have likely seen it for yourself. Cities around the world are implementing flexible, creative and light interventions to catalyze profound changes within the urban context.

Tactical Urbanism proposes an alternative method to achieve urban regeneration that works mainly at the small scale of a street, a block or a building. Similar to the way acupuncture inserts needles into one part of the body to boost the well-being of the...

Allison Arieff on the upsides of the new, car-free cities

2020-04-08T20:13:00-04:00

We can see our cities for the first time without the choking traffic, dirty air and honking horns that have so often made them intolerable. Throughout the world, the coronavirus has forced extreme changes in our behavior in just days. And we’re already seeing the impact of those changes: On Monday, for example, Los Angeles had the cleanest air of any major city in the world.

In today's NYT Opinion piece, Allison Arieff attempts to look at the benefits of the global social distancing experiment, from the cleaner city air through unprecedented street access for pedestrians and cyclists to potentially lasting design interventions in the public urban space.

"Covid-19 presents a wholly different challenge," Arieff writes, "how to think about bringing people together while also needing to keep them apart."

Don't miss out on latest developments with Archinect's continuously updated COVID-19 Guide for Architects & Designers.

Michael Kimmelman on appreciating urban life during a pandemic

2020-03-17T16:58:00-04:00

Pandemics [...] are anti-urban. They exploit our impulse to congregate. And our response so far — social distancing — not only runs up against our fundamental desires to interact, but also against the way we have built our cities and plazas, subways and skyscrapers. They are all designed to be occupied and animated collectively. For many urban systems to work properly, density is the goal, not the enemy.

Michael Kimmelman, architecture critic for The New York Times, waxes wistfully over the inherent collectivity of urban life as the COVID-19 pandemic shuts down cities around the globe.

Describing the current state of affairs, Kimmelman writes, “Today’s threat is altogether another sort of challenge to solidarity and our way of life. It is not a heat wave or a blitz. It can’t be mitigated by going to concerts or museums. It requires isolation. We will need to figure out a different approach, together.”

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.

This is New York City's new and improved urban trash can

2019-12-10T12:22:00-05:00

The NYC has announced that Group Project is the winner of the BetterBin Competition, which called for designers to reimagine New York City's classic green, wire mesh waste basket. The two finalist each produced 12 prototypes that were tested in three NYC neighborhoods over a 90 day period. Based on the performance of those prototypes together with public response and feedback from Sanitation workers, a winner was chosen.

The new bin is designed to be lightweight, making it easier for workers to handle, and nests inside a durable stand. Group Project will continue to work with the Department of Sanitation to further develop the design and move towards mass production.

Understanding the difference between cities proper and the metro areas that surround them

2019-08-27T16:30:00-04:00

When tracking the performance of cities across the United States, various factors come into play. Growth in population and employment are often the first to be researched and analyzed. However, not all cities are seen and discussed in the same light. CityLab co-founder and editor-at-large, Richard Florida, writes a new series that dives into understanding contemporary urbanism by researching cities and their economic performance.

In the first installment of this four-part series, Florida explains the importance of making this distinction between cities proper and metropolitan areas through population and job growth. "The reality is that most studies that purport to talk about cities are really talking about the performance of broader metropolitan areas, which are made of up core or principal cities and their surrounding suburbs and exurbs. Looking at cities by themselves is important and useful for several reasons."

He continues to point out, "there is lots of talk these days abou...

Deborah Marton will lead the Van Alen Institute

2019-06-15T15:52:00-04:00

Deborah brings extensive experience to Van Alen in successfully mobilizing professionals across various sectors —architecture, urban design, ecology, public health--—to take an interdisciplinary approach that effects positive change, particularly among underserved communities.

Deborah Marton has been selected to lead the New York City-based Van Alen Institute as the group's new executive director. Marton will replace David van der Leer, who announced plans to step down in October 2018.

Marton is currently the executive director of the New York Restoration Project (NYRP), an environmental and social justice initiative founded by actress Bette Midler. Under Marton's tenure, NYRP completed its MillionTressNYC Program and secured the necessary resources to renovate all of its 52 community gardens, among other accomplishments.

In a press release announcing Marton's selection, Jared Della Valle, board chair of Van Alen, said, "[Marton] has clearly shown an ability to build on Van Alen’s multiple roles as instigator, convener, thought partner and catalyst, and communicated a strong desire to ensure we create demonstrable outcomes that will usher in our next 125 years.”

The Van Alen institute is currently celebrating its 125th anniversary. Marton is due to assum...

'How do you survive here?': James Rojas on Latino Urbanism

2019-06-10T13:48:00-04:00

These are all elements of what planner James Rojas calls “Latino Urbanism,” an informal reordering of public and private space that reflects traditions from Spanish colonialism or even going back to indigenous Central and South American culture. Rojas, who coined the term “Latino Urbanism,” has been researching and writing about it for 30 years. His Los Angeles-based planning firm is called Place It!

Streetsblog interviews MIT-trained, LA-based urban planner James Rojas. When asked if and how principles of Latino Urbanism are being applied to traditional, tactical urbanism, Rojas says: "A lot of it is based on values. As a Latino planner, our whole value towards place is, 'How do you survive here?' I think more planners grew up more in places of perfection. If you grow up in communities of color, there is no wrong or right, there’s just how to get by."

To hear more from James Rojas, listen to Archinect Session's 2016 podcast conversation with him and designer S. Surface about the use of space by the Latinx and queer community following the Pulse nightclub mass shooting.

Alison Hirsch appointed as USC's director of Masters of Landscape Architecture + Urbanism program

2019-05-15T11:08:00-04:00

University of Southern California School of Architecture appointed associate professor Alison Hirsch as the new director of the Master of Landscape Architecture + Urbanism program, effective August 2019.

As a landscape theorist, designer, and historian, Hirsch’s work focuses on how the interpretation of sociocultural practices and marginalized histories and memories can contribute to the design of meaningful urban places. Her research areas include: cultural landscapes; spatial politics of landscape architecture; contested urban landscapes; activist design methods; practices of representation; and landscape's intersections with performance and choreography.

Last month, Hirsch won her second Graham Foundation grant for Landscape and “the Working Country”: Food Justice and Landscape Ethics in California’s Central Valley, focusing on the confluence of land, labor, transcultural settlement, mobility, and agriculture in the lower San Joaquin Valley. Her 2013 grant, resulted in City Cho...

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.

Minneapolis, Tackling Housing Crisis and Inequity, Votes to End Single-Family Zoning

2018-12-14T00:36:00-05:00

In a bold move to address its affordable-housing crisis and confront a history of racist housing practices, Minneapolis has decided to eliminate single-family zoning, a classification that has long perpetuated segregation.

By no means a comprehensive description of the city of the future

2018-10-16T11:50:00-04:00

More speculation on the always-relevant subject of "Old People in Big Cities Afraid of the Sky." #futurism #urbanism #demographics #climatecrisis #Mid21C

Joe Frem, Vineet Rajadhyaksha and Jonathan Woetzel report on four major forces (the competition for talent, an increasingly connected world, the Anthropocene age, and technology’s ever-expanding role) shaping today’s cities and offer a 14-point vision for thriving cities of the future.

h/t @Bruce Sterling

MONU #29 ON NARRATIVE URBANISM RELEASED

2018-10-15T14:56:00-04:00

To create a better general culture of understanding around architecture, urban design and urban development issues, we need to use all of the narrative tools that we have at our disposal, claims Cassim Shepard in the interview we did with him entitled "Understanding Urban Narratives: What Cannot be Measured" for this new issue of MONU, "Narrative Urbanism".

“To create a better general culture of understanding around architecture, urban design and urban development issues, we need to use all of the narrative tools that we have at our disposal, claimsCassim Shepardin the interview we did with him entitled“Understanding Urban Narratives: What Cannot be Measured”for this new issue ofMONU,“Narrative Urbanism”.Being a filmmaker, he points out that moving images in this day and age are particularly effective forms of communication as they have the capacity to make people want to engage. For him, filmmaking is a very useful process that taught him how to talk to people, how to listen to people, how to observe spaces critically and with an open mind, in order to understand the unique urban dynamics that make every space special and worthy of care. Without that extra attention many things in our cities can simply be forgotten.

With his contribution“Les Grands Ensembles”– a video still of a film depicting model replicas of two modernist high rise...

Activating vacant land: a conversation about Detroit's potential and challenges

2018-07-13T15:34:00-04:00

Maurice Cox grew up in Brooklyn, a borough whose name has since become a global shorthand for gentrification. An urban designer, architectural educator, and former mayor of the City of Charlottesville, VA, in 2015 Cox became head of the planning department of Detroit, where he hopes to prevent the forces that have reshaped his childhood home from taking over the Motor City. [...] Cox is using design to catalyze growth that’s incremental and closely in line with the city’s strong sense of self.

Urban Omnibus presents an insightful conversation between Maurice Cox, Director of Planning and Development for the City of Detroit, and Marc Norman, founder of the consulting firm “Ideas and Action” and Associate Professor of Practice at UMich's Taubman School of Architecture and Urban Planning. Discussed issues range from tactical preservation, vacant land as asset, smooth growth, gentrification, and preserving Black spaces:

Detroit still has capacity for a population of 1.8 million, and we’re at less than 700,000. So part of our challenge is, how to prevent buildings turning into blight, to the point of having to demolish them?

On the other hand, if it does make sense to tear some things down, what do we put in their place? The architect’s mindset is often that the only thing that can replace a structure is another structure. But in Detroit, that makes no sense financially; it makes no sense in terms of the population. So we have to turn to other disciplines for an answer.

That’s...

The Death of a Once Great City: The fall of New York and the urban crisis of affluence

2018-07-03T13:50:00-04:00

As New York enters the third decade of the twenty-first century, it is in imminent danger of becoming something it has never been before: unremarkable. It is approaching a state where it is no longer a significant cultural entity but the world’s largest gated community, with a few cupcake shops here and there. For the first time in its history, New York is, well, boring.

The story keeps going. "This is not some new phenomenon but a cancer that’s been metastasizing on the city for decades now. And what’s happening to New York now—what’s already happened to most of Manhattan, its core—is happening in every affluent American city. San Francisco is overrun by tech conjurers who are rapidly annihilating its remarkable diversity; they swarm in and out of the metropolis in specially chartered buses to work in Silicon Valley, using the city itself as a gigantic bed-and-breakfast. Boston, which used to be a city of a thousand nooks and crannies, back-alley restaurants and shops, dive bars and ice cream parlors hidden under its elevated, is now one long, monotonous wall of modern skyscraper. In Washington, an army of cranes has transformed the city in recent years, smoothing out all that was real and organic into a town of mausoleums for the Trump crowd to revel in."

New Call for Submissions for MONU #29 - Narrative Urbanism

2018-05-02T13:21:00-04:00

One important outcome of our last MONU issue #28 on "Client-shaped Urbanism" was the realization that in order to create better cities, we need to improve the communication among everybody involved in the creation of cities, whether they are clients, developers, municipalities, architects, urban designers, or the users of cities, to name just a few. Especially for architects and urban designers, one way to make themselves understood better, is to use the power of "narratives", helping them to connect not only to experts and intellectuals in the field, but to everybody else too. To find out what such urban and architectural narratives might look like today - and what they were like in the past - how they can be crafted, where they may be used and how narratives can help improving our cities in general is one of the main aims of the upcoming issue of MONU that we call "Narrative Urbanism".

In the history of human civilisation, narratives and storytelling have always been an importa...

The fantastic, cardboard city models of Bodys Isek Kingelez on display in MoMA's first retrospective of the Congolese artist

2018-05-01T14:26:00-04:00

In its first-ever solo show of a Black African artist, New York's Museum of Modern Art will put the work of visionary Congolese artist Bodys Isek Kingelez on full display. On view from May 26, 2018 through January 1, 2019, City Dreams will span the sculptor's three-decade career from his early single-building sculptures, to his spectacular sprawling cities and futuristic late works.

Bodys Isek Kingelez (Congolese, 1948-2015). Paris Nouvel. 1989. Paper, paperboard, and other various materials, 33 7/16 × 24 × 27 9/16″ (85 × 61 × 70 cm). Long-term loan from the Centre national des arts plastiques, France to the Château d’Oiron, France, FNAC 981003. © Cnap (France) / droits résérves; photograph by Frédéric Pignoux, Studio Lud

The self-trained artist, who passed in 2015, was known for his "extreme maquettes" in which he transformed paper, commercial packaging, and other everyday materials into dazzling, intricate sculptures. From fanciful models of civic buildings and public monuments, t...

MONU #28 on "Client-Shaped Urbanism" released

2018-04-16T12:47:00-04:00

"Are architects at risk of losing their relevance to the client?" asks Beatriz Ramo in her contribution "Sympathy for the Devil" for MONU's issue #28 that we devote to the topic of "Client-shaped Urbanism". (Bernd Upmeyer, Editor-in-Chief, April 2018)

“Are architects at risk of losing their relevance to the client?” asks Beatriz Ramo in her contribution “Sympathy for the Devil” for MONU’s issue #28 that we devote to the topic of "Client-shaped Urbanism". We consider “clients” to be crucial participants in the shaping and creating of urban spaces. We intend to find out how to improve things, such as the collaboration between client and architect or urban designer, for a more satisfying outcome for everybody involved and above all for the users and inhabitants of cities. For Alejandro Zaera-Polo architects today have not only lost the trust of clients, but also the trust of society to deliver anything culturally significant, because they have been fooling around with idiotic, self-involved ideas for too long and are now viewed with some level of distrust, as he claims in our interview entitled “Project Managers and the End of the Dominatrix Architect”. But he partly blames the clients too for this situation. On the one hand, client...

Gamespace Urbanism: understanding reality through simulation

2017-12-29T12:18:00-05:00

The following examples show how gamespace can become the stage for a social, political and ethical critique: from a nondescript city under the effect of gentrification, to a barren luxury estate and a set of playful and absurd buildings for London. These examples suggest that, rather than allowing architects to indulge Piranesi’s power-hungry ideal, games could work as a means of showing how dysfunctional reality really is.

In her essay Gamespace Urbanism: City-Building Games and Radical Simulations for Failed Architecture, Federica Buzzi looks at a new crop of indie city-planning computer games that promise fresh potential for simulation and exploration of radical urban scenarios — and subsequent social, political, and ethical critique: "Beyond critique and virtual entertainment, the question they open up is whether games can be used as reliable systems to study and solve actual and theoretical conflicts."

Participating artist arrested at Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture for tribute to Chinese dissident

2017-12-21T13:45:00-05:00

The artist Hu Jiamin and his wife, who said they were French nationals, were seen being taken away by plain clothes police on Friday night from the event, Hong Kong newspaper Ming Pao reported. It was not known if the couple were still under detention.

The Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture opened over the weekend. Organized in two parts, half the biennale takes place on the Hong Kong side and is organized by the Hong Kong Institute of Architects while the other, taking place in Shenzhen, is put on by the city government. While the local government's involvement has helped turn this portion of the biennale into a big-budget affair with imaginative proposals and large venues much to the embarrassment of the considerably smaller Hong Kong side, it is now being seen to also undermine the possibility of open debate at the biennale.

HU JIAMIN‘s mural Timed Discrepancy (2017). Courtesy Cao Yuxue.

The French-Chinese artist Jiamin Hu and his wife, Marine Brossard, were asked to present a mural on the outside wall of a historic temple as part of the biennale's 'Art Making City' program, in which artists from around the world were invited to explore the notions of the street, home, public space, social production and more. As part o...

7th edition of the Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture opens tomorrow in Nantou Old Town

2017-12-14T12:52:00-05:00

Currently the only biennial exhibition in the world to be based exclusively on the set themes of Urbanism and Urbanization, the Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture in Shenzhen will open for its 7th edition tomorrow, Dec 15th. Initiated in 2005 by the Shenzhen Municipal Government and joined by neighboring Hong-Kong in 2007, the co-organized biennale addresses both the material aspects of urban development as well as the many social aspects of city living in the context of rapid growth.

Curated by Hou Hanrou and the founding partners of URBANUS, Liu Xiaodu and Meng Yan, the exhibition's theme this year is “Cities, Grow in Difference." With more than 200 exhibitors including MVRDV, the French artist Pierre Huyghes, the Dutch artist Rob Voerman and the Chinese architect John Lin, participants will explore the urban concept of “coexistence” and its role in the future development of urban villages and their place among the swiftly developing cities of China.

Held in Nantou Old To...

MONU #27 on "Small Urbanism" released

2017-10-16T12:39:00-04:00

“… And Though She be but Little, She is Fierce!”, the title of Liz Teston’s contribution using a quote from Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, captures the content of this MONU issue on “Small Urbanism” very well. For when it comes to urbanism, small things seem to matter, whether they are actions, small physical elements, information and communications technology, or small-scale interventions. With regard to actions, Teston shows how transient micro-urbanisms of protest architecture can have a significant impact on our cities. During such actions, human bodies can alter public spaces through practices that challenge the arrangement of urban power and convert it into a channel of opposition, as Ana Medina argues in her piece “Dissident Micro-occupations”. In her explorations of dissident architectural practices, she reveals that spaces for protests are in fact not designed, but taken over by the dissidents to transform the architectural urban landscape. However, t...

Scientists discover "Octlantis", an underwater city engineered by octopuses

2017-09-20T15:02:00-04:00

The octopuses didn’t just drift toward the same secure-looking outcroppings, though. Once there, they built piles out of shells from scallops, clams, and other animals they ate, then sculpted the piles into dens, “making these octopuses true environmental engineers,”

Scientists have found a new example of animal architecture, this time a city made by usually solitary octopuses. Named Octlantis, this underwater city is engineered by a group of 15 octopuses. Octopuses are known to be builders of their own habitat but, until now, had not be discovered to live in groups. Researchers observed the animals "congregating, communicating, dwelling together, and even evicting each other from dens."