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TerraViva Competitions Announces the Results of Tactical Urbanism Now! #2021

2022-04-26T19:49:00-04:00

This post is sponsored by TerraViva Competitions

TerraViva Competitions has officially released the complete list of awarded projects of the design contest “Tactical Urbanism Now! #2021.” The challenge of this competition was to reinterpret what is commonly known as traditional public spaces, such as parks, streets, playgrounds and squares, with a strategical vision capable of providing them with new features of multi-functionality and flexibility.

The awarded proposals were able to experiment with new scenarios within the city, understanding public space as an opportunity to design common areas capable of reflecting the diversity of the infinite categories of potential users and encouraging citizens to “Live Together”.

Organized by TerraViva, the competition was open to students, architects, designers, artists, makers, activists and anyone interested in the transformation of the contemporary urban space.

The winners were selected by an international jury panel composed by: Arturo ...

Transform public space by participating in Terraviva Competitions' TACTICAL URBANISM NOW! 2021 competition

2022-02-14T19:30:00-05:00

This post is brought to you by TerraViva Competitions

Terraviva Competitions launches TACTICAL URBANISM NOW! 2021, a new edition of the architecture competition that puts the focus on the transformation of public space all over the world. Prizes up to 7.000 € will be awarded to the winners selected by an international jury panel composed by, among others, Arturo Mc Clean (Miralles Tagliabue EMBT), Liz Wreford (Public City), Francesco Garofalo (Openfabric), Hannah Klug (Intuy Lab).

*Important Dates*

Standard Registration Ends = March 4, 2022
Late Registration Ends = March 18, 2022
Submission Deadline = March 18, 2022

Brief

Over the last decade, cities all around the world have experimented with a wide range of urban transformations through colourful, flexible and light interventions. Nowadays, it has become more and more common to come across these type of projects in both, small towns and metropolises.

Tactical Urbanism proposes an innovative design approach that aims to achieve long-...

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...

COVID-19-inspired open streets take root in American cities

2020-04-14T17:50:00-04:00

Around the country, as the COVID-19 shut down enters its second month, cities have demonstrated a variety of responses with regards to access to open space as shelter-in-place initiatives have taken hold.

Some cities, like Los Angeles, have opted to shut down parks and hiking trails for fear of facilitating large groups of people gathering in a single place. Others, like Denver, Minneapolis, and Oakland, have embraced the crisis as an opportunity to make more of the city available to pedestrians. With chronically under-sized sidewalks existing as a norm in many cities, some municipalities are moving to close existing vehicle lanes and entire streets to most vehicle use.

Shot of one of the streets in Oakland that is being temporarily closed to cars. Image courtesy of Oakland Department of Transportation.

In Denver, for example, more than 16 miles of city streets have been optimized for pedestrian use, Denverite reports. In Minneapolis, the figure runs upward of 18 miles of formerly ...

Megacities and the Future of Warfare

2017-05-15T00:14:00-04:00

The conclusions of the SSG research are clear: megacities are unavoidable, they are potentially the most challenging environment the Army has ever faced, and the Army is unprepared to operate in them...by 2030 there will be 662 cities around the world with at least one million inhabitants (compared to 512 today) and 60 percent of the world’s population will live in cities. The potential for operations in dense urban areas will rise correspondingly, presenting a challenge the Army cannot ignore.

Back in February, Maj. John Spencer made the case for why It's Time to Create a Megacities Combat Unit. A few days ago, he fleshed out the concept, by detailing "What would such a unit look like?"

Interesting to note, that rather than the more au courant image of a generic middle eastern/Arab city, the Major used a photo of Ho Chi Minh/Saigon for the essay published in Feb. Though the more recent essay, did use a photo of the rooftops in Cairo. Future mil-tech referenced includes; hover bikes, enhanced counter–unmanned aircraft systems (C-UAS) and soldiers skilled at Cyber Electromagnetic Activities (CEMA).

If you are interested in further U.S. Army Futures Ideation, check out SciTech Futures, where past exercises have explored everything from; Defending – and hacking – “Intelligent” buildings and Autonomous Infrastructure Destruction/Maintenance bots, to the simpler Crowd sourcing (of) innovation.

Architecture Won’t Save the World: “Tactical Urbanisms” at MoMA (...or will it?)

2014-11-26T14:18:00-05:00

“Uneven Growth: Tactical Urbanisms for Expanding Megacities” is, at least nominally, about urbanism and architecture. [...] The problems, not the solutions, presented in “Uneven Growth” are very real. Before Gadanho and his teams of architects, planners, and researchers can suggest productive solutions, they would do well to acknowledge that their fellow practitioners hold responsibility for the very state of urban affairs they seek to remedy.

Previously: MoMA's “Uneven Growth” case studies conclude with exhibition this month

MoMA's “Uneven Growth” case studies conclude with exhibition this month

2014-11-13T13:03:00-05:00

MoMA began its "Uneven Growth: Tactical Urbanisms for Expanding Megacities" initiative last year aiming to advance international discussion on disproportionate urban development and its potential consequences. To address this issue, six interdisciplinary teams spent 14 months in workshops designing proposals that investigate new architectural possibilities for six metropolises. Each case study will be exhibited to the public at MoMA starting on November 22.

But the discussion doesn't end there. MoMA also created a user-generated Tumblr that collects examples of emerging modes of tactical urbanism taking place in the six cities.

Here's a glimpse:

LAGOS
By NLÉ (Lagos, Nigeria and Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Zoohaus/Inteligencias Colectivas (Madrid, Spain)

HONG KONG
By MAP Office (Hong Kong, China)
Network Architecture Lab (Columbia University, New York, U.S.)

ISTANBUL
By Superpool (Istanbul, Turkey)
Atelier d’Architecture Autogérée (Paris, France)

MUMBAI
By URBZ: user-generated cities (Mumbai, India)
Ensamble Studio/MIT-POPlab (Madrid, Spain and Cambridge, U.S.)

RIO DE JANEIRO
By RUA Arquitetos (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)
MAS Urban Design at ETH (Zurich, Switzerland)

NEW YORK
By SITU Studio (New York, U.S.)
Cohabitation Strategies (CohStra) (Rotterdam, Netherlands AND New York, U.S.)

For further details and images from each case study, head over to Bustler.

A Motor City Missionary

2013-04-26T17:38:00-04:00

According to academics like Brent D. Ryan, author of “Design After Decline: How America Rebuilds Shrinking Cities," it is one of the most ambitious privately financed urban reclamation projects in American history.

Earlier this month David Segal traveled to Detroit to look into the efforts/urban boosterim of Dan Gilbert, chairman of Quicken Loans. Using his real estate company, Bedrock Real Estate Services, Mr. Segal is renovating properties, building apartments and wooing corporate tenants. The goal is to remake Detroit (or at least some of it's downtown) into a high-tech hub, full of the 'creative class', high culture and young entrepreneurs. Mr. Segal also explored the context and cause for the current crisis and interviewed some locals who worry about the creation of "two Detroits".

Strategic urbanism does seem to me a useful frame…

2012-10-03T19:04:00-04:00

The problem is, that I think the rise of tactical urbanism actually reflects the paralysis of city-wide and systems-focused efforts...Tactical urbanism is cool; but the enthusiasm with which we’ve all embraced it is a tell for what we don’t talk about, which is fundamentally broken city governance.

With the recent focus on all things tactical, urban and interventionist, Alex Steffen has been thinking about what it all means. Prompted (at least in part by Adam Greenfield’s extremely interesting notes on Ed Glaser’s Triumph of the City) he has begun to wonder how one could go beyond an incremental, task focused approach to urbanism. Because what is really needed is a long-term strategy for addressing "fundamentally broken city governance" not just some useful tactics for dealing with the lack of results.

Creating the Post-Hipster City

2012-05-22T22:23:00-04:00

we want to experiment in making better public spaces. Cities are built in a very formal and classist fashion, which is at odds with the good that rapid production and public participation can do for urban development.

Tidda Tippapart recently talked to Aurash Khawarzad ( founder of Change Administration + co-founder of the Brooklyn-based interdisciplinary collective DoTank) about the challenge of creating the post-Hipster city, gentrification, and what it means to (re)build New York City from the ground up.

The Interventionist's Toolkit: Project, Map, Occupy

2012-03-27T13:53:00-04:00

With Nuit Blanche New York absorbed — even if temporarily — into the rebranding of the Lower East Side, it's instructive to recall an earlier era and another light projection. I'm thinking of the November 1984 projection by artist Krzysztof Wodiczko of Ronald Reagan’s hand onto the elevation of the AT&T Long Lines Building just before the election that made Reagan a two-term president. This past November Wodiczko's act of spectacle and protest would inspire Occupy Wall Street's "Bat Signal."

In the latest installment of her ongoing series on Places, Mimi Zeiger surveys some of the events and exhibitions organized in New York City last year and inspired by Occupy Wall Street. Along the way she analyzes the unfolding dynamic between the grassroots tactics of activist artists and designers and the institutional strategies of the city's cultural leaders.

Editor's Picks #226

2011-08-28T18:46:16-04:00

Leagues and Legions (aka LGNLGN, a think tank at the intersection of architecture and publishing) and the Institute for Urban Design (IfUD) are asking critics, practitioners, academics, community organizers, and the general public to weigh in on one of four questions dealing with issues of tactical urbanism. Each question will tackle a particular theme: the public, professional practice, evaluation, and failure. The City Sessions questions will posted online in the weeks leading up to Urban Design Week and culminate in a live discussion of the crowdsourced responses on September 18 at Parsons School of Design from 5-7 p.m.

Archinector's Quilian Riano is curating question #3 on tactics and the design professions and will be guiding that conversation over the next few weeks.

For your information tactical urbanism: "uses the city as a site of experimentation, deploying pop-up parks, vacant retail reuse, or unsanctioned street furniture as way to reprogram the urban realm. The pra...