Archinect - News

Stefano Boeri joins curatorial team for Shanghai Urban Space Art Season 2017

2017-05-09T14:48:00-04:00

Stefano Boeri — known for designing the Vertical Forest typology — was recently appointed as a curator for the 2017 Shanghai Urban Space Art Season, deemed as Shanghai's most relevant architecture, city planning, and public art event. Boeri will work alongside Dr. Li Xiangning, professor and dean’s assistant of Tongji University of Architecture and Urbanism, and international artist, art critic, and curator Fang Zhenning.

Image via stefanoboeriarchitetti.net

Opening this September at the Huangpu River waterfront, SUSAS' 2017 “Metropolitan Game” theme will focus on “practices of connection and disconnection” in response to the prominence of digital communication and the resulting “metropolitan loneliness” caused by lack of human contact in real life. Stefano Boeri Architetti will design a thematic central installation that will feature a “sequence” of public spaces for visitors to interact.

SUSAS will host various workshops, performances, and exhibitions showcasing design and research p...

How urban cities continue to veer toward new forms of mobility

2015-04-30T09:32:00-04:00

Gilles Vesco calls it the 'new mobility'. It’s a vision of cities in which residents no longer rely on their cars but on public transport, shared cars and bikes and, above all, on real-time data on their smartphones...'Multi-modal' and 'interconnectivity' are now the words on every urban planner’s lips...This model of denser, less car-dependent cities is becoming the accepted wisdom across the developed world.

Writer Stephen Moss talks to urban planners and transportation authorities around Europe to get a glimpse into how cities worldwide continue to wean themselves off car dependency and explore new forms of mobility, all while city density increases.

Luftwerk's FLOW/Im Fluss to illuminate Chicago's Couch Place alley with screens made of water

2014-09-11T17:06:00-04:00

Crafty space manipulator Luftwerk will showcase FLOW/Im Fluss, a nightly light and water installation at Chicago's Couch Place alley on September 17-20 from 5 p.m. to midnight. Luftwerk, the Chicago-based collaborative established by Petra Bachmaier and Sean Gallero, is best known for their signature medium of site-specific light and projected video installations.

Presented by the Chicago Loop Alliance, the Goethe-Institute Chicago, and the Natural Resources Defense Council, Luftwerk's FLOW/Im Fluss celebrates the 20th Anniversary of Sister Cities Chicago and Hamburg. As a nod to each city's river locations, the installation visualizes the characteristics of the Chicago River and Hamburg's River Elbe through video compositions that will be projected on "screens" made of water.

Having lived in both cities, Luftwerk is based on the encompassing, connective nature of water in FLOW as people gather to get a closer look at the flow of data readings collected from both rivers. Adding sound ...

How Helsinki mashed up “open data” with regionalism

2014-04-29T15:27:00-04:00

For more than a century, [Helsinki] has funded its own statistics bureaus to keep data on the population, businesses, building permits, and most other things you can think of. [...] Helsinki and three of its neighboring cities are now banding together... Through an entity called Helsinki Region Infoshare, they are bringing together their data so that a fuller picture of the metro area can come into view.

As city governments become stronger drivers of infrastructural change, and the idea of a "connected city" becomes imminent, cities must learn how to manage and wield the vast amount of data collected. Parallel developments in city demographics, creating stronger links between cities within a larger region, means that more people are contributing to and relying on that data. Making it comprehensive and accessible to all is the obvious (and necessary) next step.

To access data for both Helsinki and its greater regional area, check out City of Helsinki Urban Facts and the Helsinki Region Infoshare (both websites in English).

Related: A survey released earlier this month ranks U.S. cities on how accessible their data is, whether or not they have an open data policy. Perhaps not surprisingly, San Francisco is ranked as #1.