Archinect - News

Parking Madness 2019: Which urban transformation will take home the trophy?

2019-03-25T18:19:00-04:00

This year’s parking crater tournament has us feeling something past contests never did: Hopeful. We asked readers for the best examples of surface parking lots turned dynamic urban places around the country. We got a great response, with some really exciting transformations. We had to eliminate a few contestants to whittle it down to the Sweet 16.

If you've enjoyed the America’s Sorriest Bus Stop contest, organized annually by Streetsblog, and are looking for an alternative 'Madness'-themed tournament this March, then this is for you: Parking Madness 2019 kicked off just a few days ago and pits 16 successful surface parking lot transformations in the U.S. and Canada against each other.

Image via Streetsblog USA

Fill in your brackets now with these hopeful contenders:

Kansas City
Minneapolis
Oakland
Atlanta
Houston
Boston
Pittsburgh
Portland
Providence
Austin
D.C. Pike
D.C. NoMa
Indianapolis
Toronto
Albuquerque
Tampa

Minneapolis' Downtown East development already crushed the Kansas City Power & Light District transformation in the first round, and Oakland's MacArthur BART Station is in the ring against Atlanta's Candler Park MARTA Station right now.

Which city is your bet to take home the coveted 'Most Improved Crater' award?

Tadao Ando to design a museum inside a former Paris stock exchange

2017-06-29T20:59:00-04:00

Mr. Ando plans to build a circular structure with three levels of galleries inside the round building, which is bound by strict historic preservation norms. It will have 32,000 square feet of exhibition space and an underground auditorium. The museum, which will only showcase contemporary art — including pieces from Mr. Pinault’s collection of more than 3,000 works — will be renovated and run by his family’s company...

Photo: © Artefactory Lab; Tadao Ando Architect & Associates; NeM / Niney & Marca Architects; Agency Pierre-Antoine Gatier / Courtesy of Collection Pinault

Is this the first time a former stock exchange has been transformed into a museum? Either way, the new design should be open to the public by 2019, as noted in this article:

Mr. Pinault, who is one of the world’s top collectors and also owns Christie’s, said the museum would open in early 2019 after a renovation of the Bourse de Commerce, a former grain exchange that was later used as a stock market, and more recently to house the Chamber of Commerce. The building is modeled on the Pantheon and situated between the Louvre and the Pompidou Center, France’s pre-eminent contemporary art museum.

Columbus, Ohio wins DOT's $50M Smart City Challenge

2016-06-23T13:48:00-04:00

Columbus, Ohio, has won a $50m prize for its plans to smarten up its transport system. The money is made up of a $40m Smart Cities grant from the Department of Transportation (DOT), a $90m fund put up by private sector partners and a further $10m from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s charity Vulcan, which will be used to finance electric vehicle infrastructure.

Columbus managed to beat six rival cities that were shortlisted by the DOT earlier this year:

Austin, Texas
Denver, Colorado
Kansas City, Missouri
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Portland, Oregon
San Francisco, California

The uncertain future of Moscow's urban renewal ambitions

2015-06-08T20:00:00-04:00

The plan was to create a new type of city that answered the needs of Moscow’s creative middle classes. But did the exit of Sergei Kapkov, the culture minister who ushered in these changes, also signal the end of the city’s urban revival? [...] “Kapkov’s reforms provided a whole generation of young creative types with a sense – perhaps somewhat illusory – that they could do things on a small scale; that there was a real fabric of life in a public city,” said Tsentsiper.

Ecumonopolis: City Without Limits

2014-01-23T14:55:00-05:00

Istanbul is still a very pretty city but that is not all. It is also a city in transformation under the impacts of neo-liberalism via the global age of unjust changes. Ekumonopolis looks at these conditions site specifically in Istanbul, called by George Brugmans as one of the oldest and, in the same time, the newest cities in Europe.

Please click the cc button on the bottom of the screen for the English subtitles.