Archinect - News

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.

A Conversation with Alex Baca on City Engagement

2018-11-26T19:14:00-05:00

On this episode of Archinect Sessions we're joined with Alex Baca, a Washington DC-based journalist focused on smart cities, planning, bike advocacy and urban mobility devices. Recent news, and related controversy, surrounding Amazon’s newly announced move into New York City and Washington DC is what initially motivated us to bring Alex onto this show.

Listen to episode 133 of Archinect Sessions, “A Conversation with Alex Baca on City Engagement”.

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Austin Mayor Steve Adler on the city's growing pains

2016-03-29T13:44:00-04:00

We’re growing faster than any other metropolitan area in the country, and we have been for the last five years...And the challenges are, with all the growth that we’re having, we’re going to stop being the city that we imagine that we are, that we remember being. We have to grow to be the city that we still recognize. So those challenges are not optional challenges for us to deal with, they’re the challenges for us to deal with.

As Austin rapidly becomes an "it" city, how will the city keep its character? Metropolis talks with Austin Mayor Steve Adler about the multiple challenges ahead.

China hopes to improve its cities with newly released urban planning vision

2015-12-28T14:54:00-05:00

China has detailed its urban planning vision, which has been designed to make its sprawling cities more inclusive, safer and better places to live. [...] policymakers pledged to transform urban development patterns and improve city management. The last time China held such a high-level meeting was in 1978, when only 18 percent of the population lived in cities. By the end of 2011, in excess of 50 percent of the population called the city their home.

See 2,000 Years of Urban Growth Around the World With This Interactive Map

2015-12-22T19:20:00-05:00

Back in 1 A.D., ancient civilizations like the Mayans experienced “urban booms” of their own. This mind-boggling interactive map made by Esri puts thousands of years of global population growth into perspective, ultimately showing us that NYC is kind of just a blip on the radar—or in this case, the 2,000-year timeline of life.

Beijing's challenges to become the center of Jing-Jin-Ji — a supercity of 130 million people

2015-07-21T08:00:00-04:00

For decades, China’s government has tried to limit the size of Beijing, the capital, through draconian residency permits. Now, the government has embarked on an ambitious plan to make Beijing the center of a new supercity of 130 million people. The planned megalopolis, a metropolitan area that would be about six times the size of New York’s, is meant to revamp northern China’s economy and become a laboratory for modern urban growth.

Astrophysicists show how cities on Earth evolve in the same way as galaxies in space

2015-01-19T12:47:00-05:00

Henry Lin and Abraham Loeb at the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics have used models for showing how galaxies evolve based on matter density to propose a unifying theory for scaling laws of human populations. [...] All of which suggests that the underlying laws that govern some fairly complex human behaviours are the same as those that determined the formation of the very galaxy we live in.

MoMA’s “Uneven Growth: Tactical Urbanisms for Expanding Megacities” to launch Oct. 26

2013-10-24T20:23:00-04:00

MoMA will launch the first workshop for "Uneven Growth: Tactical Urbanisms for Expanding Megacities" starting Saturday, Oct. 26 at MoMA PS1 in New York City.

In this workshop series, six interdisciplinary teams will propose innovative ways of how to perceive urban growth as a response to the disproportional expansion and its potential consequences in six of the world's metropolises. The workshops will also open these pressing issues to public discussion.

The proposals will then be exhibited at the MoMA PS1 in November 2014, the second phase of the Uneven Growth initiative.

More details from the MoMA press release:

"The Museum of Modern Art announces a 14-month initiative to examine new architectural possibilities that address the rapid and uneven growth of six global metropolises: New York, Rio de Janeiro, Mumbai, Lagos, Hong Kong, and Istanbul. Organized by Pedro Gadanho, Curator, Department of Architecture and Design, Uneven Growth: Tactical Urbanisms for Expanding Megac...