Archinect - News

Considering the Quayside failure as proof futuristic Smart Cities may be a thing of the past

2022-06-30T18:16:00-04:00

Smart city technology should do things like shorten commute times, speed the construction of affordable housing, improve the efficiency of public transit, and reduce carbon emissions by making building technology more efficient and providing less polluting transportation alternatives to the car. But often its proponents focus on what it can do rather than what it should. If Sidewalk’s Quayside failure taught us anything, it’s that these technologies need to respond better to human needs.

The MIT Technology Review took a dive into the abandoned pre-pandemic conversion of Toronto’s 12-acre Quayside waterfront plot into an elaborate “Smart City” development by the hands of Sidewalk Labs. The revitalization was recently repackaged as a mixed-use green corridor concept to be overseen by Adjaye Associates, Henning Larsen, and Alison Brooks Architects. Sidewalk Labs has said it was planning to redevelop the vacant brownfield site “from the internet up.”

Previously on Archinect: Sidewalk Labs' Quayside project in Toronto is cancelled

Author Karrie Jacobs considers the history of urban planning concepts such as the 15-Minute City and Ville Radieuse in relation to the rebuked concept, which has dominated the past two decades of planning, and will be felled, she predicts, by an “emphasis on the optimization of everything” and the contradictory desire to “eradicate the very thing that makes cities wonderful.”

The CBDX: Cities for All competition recognizes how architects and designers 'might address underrepresented and marginalized voices'

2021-02-15T13:38:00-05:00

A design competition hosted by the School of Architecture, Planning, and Landscape (SAPL) at the University of Calgary asked participants, "how might matters of equity and activism, ecology and environment, and health and wellness converge, and unfold, within our future cities?" Launched in October 2020, the CBDX: CITIES FOR ALL competition is an initiative led by the school to tackle larger issues within the design community and foster innovative changes for the future of city building.

Assistant professor Alberto de Salvatierra, inaugural faculty lead and jury chair explained, "Cities—which often ossify systemic inequities through the built environment — have become the fulcrum upon which movements for equity and justice have found increasing leverage. Solutions must come from, and be for, everyone. This competition provides a platform to highlight how architects and designers might address underrepresented and marginalized voices."

The result of the competition led to 145 design...

An aesthetically diverse plan takes shape for Rotterdam's Zomerhofkwartier district

2020-06-26T13:05:00-04:00

Rotterdam-based Orange Architects along with Echo urban design, Moederscheim Moonen, More Architecture, and Studio Nauta, has been commissioned by Rotterdam developers Leyten and Stebru to design the new Zomerhofkwartier (ZOHO) in Rotterdam.

ZOHO is a kind of "city within a city" in the Zomerhofkwartier district located between the city center and the Agniese district in Rotterdam. As a place that has been home to many creative residents and entrepreneurs over the past decade, the area has transformed into a bustling district filled with innovative workspaces.

In the brief for this project, the city of Rotterdam expressed its desire to increase the density of the area by turning it into a mixed-use district while hanging on to its existing creative identity. The goal is to create a district that encourages growth and development that is also a place where it is affordable to live and work.

The core design concept consists of three living environments stacked on top of one another: t...

The city of London is hit with color thanks to designer Yinka Ilori

2019-07-30T19:00:00-04:00

This past June, London celebrated its annual London Festival of Architecture. The festival showcases exhibitions, installations, workshops, and other events highlighting architecture and design in the city.

This year, London-based designer Yinka Ilori created two projects that filled the city streets with life through color. First is the multicolored pavilion, "The Colour Palace," built in collaboration with London-based architecture firm Pricegore. Located outside the Dulwich Picture Gallery, the design was inspired by the markets of Balogun in Lagos, Nigeria. Illori used the colorful African textiles found hanging throughout the markets as inspiration for the pavilion.

The Colour Palace. Image © Edward Bishop

The relationship between the pavilion and the Dulwich Picture Gallery may seem distant. However, according to the design team, the pavilion drew reference from the gallery through its geometry. Alex Gore, co-founder of Pricegore, expl...

What if we don't want smart cities?

2019-07-25T12:21:00-04:00

Smart cities make two fundamental promises: lots of data, and automated decision making based on that data. The ultimate smart city will require a raft of existing and to-be-invented technologies, from sensors to robots to artificial intelligence. For many this promises a more efficient, equitable city; for others, it raises questions about privacy and algorithmic bias.

Promises for a better, smarter city have flooded media headlines, but if these so-called "smart cities" are said to be the answer, can the general public adapt to these infrastructure dreams? In a recent piece by Shoshanna Saxe for the New York Times, the experienced civil and mineral engineer at the University of Toronto shares her perspectives on the matter.

In her op-ed piece "Im an Engineer, and I'm Not Buying into 'Smart' Cities", Saxe sheds a detailed response to smart city dreams. For one thing, "they will be exceedingly complex to manage, with all sorts of unpredictable vulnerabilities. There will always be a place for new technology in our urban infrastructure, but we may find that often, “dumb” cities will do better than smart ones."

Saxe continues to add that with the rapid rate of technology turnover and disruption, could city residents deal with these types of technical disruptions when it comes to water and power services?

"City infrastructure, especially in high-i...

Watching Hong Kong grow up. Reflecting on China's land of skyscrapers

2019-04-05T12:57:00-04:00

If there is any place in the world where the skyscraper reins supreme, it is Hong Kong. From a distance, these tall, towering structures fill Hong Kong's skyline with forms that touch the clouds. Hundreds of these towers reflect off of Victoria Harbor creating a sense of hyperrealism as people look to these enormous structures. However, why does Hong Kong have so many skyscrapers and what makes the display of these large corporate and residential buildings a sight to see?

International Conmmerce Centre (L), The Harbourside (M), and The Arch (L) Image © Jim Bowen

Jardine House's porthole windows. The circular shaped windows are quite popular and favored in feng shui. Image © Steve Webel

In a recent New York Times piece, writer Sam Lubell shares his perspectives of the city. When discussing the variation of structure type and building materials, he explains the beauty of Hong Kong's structural variation. "Many (despite an infamous exception or two) incorporate ancient principles of feng...

New report presents staggering amount of parking in US cities

2018-07-16T15:13:00-04:00

Groundbreaking research presents credible estimates of the total parking supply in several American cities, and it's not pretty. Parking spaces are everywhere, but for some reason the perception persists that there’s “not enough parking.” And so cities require parking in new buildings and lavishly subsidize parking garages, without ever measuring how much parking exists or how much it’s used.

A new report from Eric Scharnhorst at the Research Institute for Housing America, an arm of the Mortgage Bankers Association, estimates the total parking supply in five US cities. Looking at satellite imagery and tax record data, Scharnhorst tallied on-street parking, surface parking, and garage parking in New York, Seattle, Philadelphia, Des Moines, and Jackson, Wyoming. The results show staggeringly high amounts of land use dedicated to parking with low use percentages.

Harvard GSD "Future of the American City" initiative begins in Miami with $1 million support from Knight Foundation

2018-03-20T15:20:00-04:00

The "Future of the American City" initiative led by Harvard Graduate University School of Design will begin in Miami with $1 million in support from the Knight Foundation. The project will engage Miami residents in creating new approaches to address pressing urban issues including affordable housing, transportation, and sea level rise.

With this funding Harvard GSD will send urban researchers to Miami and Miami Beach to understand the city's strengths and challenges as part of a 3-year study towards building solutions. The initiative aims to help cities tackle sustainability and resiliency challenges beginning this spring.

Building on the school’s multi-disciplinary model, the effort will use architecture, landscape architecture, and urban planning and design to come up with efficient solutions that take into account community needs. This research can also be shared with cities across the nation facing similar challenges.

Harvard GSD’s upcoming Miami research will be phase one in...

UNStudio's new tech start up, UNSense, launches with smart city and solar brick innovations

2018-03-14T19:50:00-04:00

UNSense, a new arch tech startup based in Amsterdam, is being launched by UNStudio. Operating as an independent sister company to UNStudio, the company will explore and develop new integrated tech solutions specifically designed for the built environment.

UNSense explores new technologies related to the built environment. Image: UNSense.

The new tech innovation boasts a wide range of collaboration with data analysts, algorithmists, neuroscientists, policy makers, students, municipalities, sociologists, economists, data architects, business case modellers, financial specialists, architects and more.

CitySense will collect data through sensory digital infrastructure. Image: UNSense.

Initial technology solutions include CitySense and Solar Brick. CitySense collects data through sensory digital infrastructure in order to design experiences improving life in the city. Trials are currently running in South East Amsterdam and a number of other Dutch cities.

Solar Brick allows for massive ...

Christopher Hawthorne leaves LA Times to become Chief Design Officer for the City of Los Angeles

2018-03-12T14:15:00-04:00

After 14 years as the Los Angeles Times' resident architecture critic, Christopher Hawthorne is moving on to become chief design officer for the city of Los Angeles. Announced this morning, Hawthorne explained that "beginning next month, [he'll] be working in the mayor's office to raise the quality of public architecture and urban design across the city—and the level of civic conversation about those subjects." His position will be housed in the city's Office of Economic Development.

Created by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, the position has been something he has openly proposed over the years as he's discussed the future of the city. In a story for the New York Times last year, Garcetti described the role as "a guru who can marshal the forces of the city and look at every bus stop, curb, utility box, every facade, every subway portal.” Beyond bus stops and subway portals, Hawthorne will collaborate on a wide range of public projects, oversee design competitions, and enlist talent...

Los Angeles' urban core is full (unlike most other major U.S. cities)

2016-08-25T13:39:00-04:00

This isn't your grandfather's urbanization: population figures in major U.S. cities, which on the whole are on the uptick after declining in the 1960s, are adding residents not to their already built urban cores but rather in the form greenfield sprawl, which makes use of farmland and lightly developed suburban housing tracts. The big exception? Los Angeles, whose urban core Slate pronounces full. Here's more detail from the piece:

A new and illuminating analysis by Yonah Freemark, a project manager at Chicago’s Metropolitan Planning Council and the author of the Transport Politic blog—well worth reading in full—reveals some important trends in the past half-century of city-building...

“The average of the 100 largest cities grew by 48 percent overall,” Freemark notes. “Yet the average city also lost 28 percent of its residents within its neighborhoods that were built up in 1960.” That’s not just true in Youngstown and Detroit, post-industrial Rust Belt cities that have struggled with...

Google's Sidewalk Labs contemplates building an entire city

2016-04-06T12:49:00-04:00

The Information notes that building a city could allow Sidewalk Labs to “rethink government, social policy, and data-driven management.” [CEO Dan] Doctoroff explained that “thinking about a city from the Internet up is really compelling,” while also noting that “cities are hard. You have people with vested interest, politics, physical space…But the technology ultimately cannot be stopped.”

Alphabet's Sidewalk Labs joins the rarefied stable of companies potentially looking to expand from an initial service (in this case, improved WiFi access and traffic flow in cities) into a fully-fledged social experimentation machine. Will they build 21st century company towns or create a genuinely new, technology-based approach to living?

Here's a round-up of other mass-scale experimental projects:

Interdependent city design video game Block'hood launches Thursday

2016-03-09T20:03:00-05:00

The complexities of designing at the scale of a city could take years to enumerate, but with Block'hood, a game where players design neighborhoods in various modes of complexity with over 80 pre-set blocks, it takes only minutes to start encountering these challenges first hand. Developed and designed by Jose Sanchez and Gentaro Makinoda, Block'hood's players are encouraged to think "ecologically," which is to say, designing an environment that not only sustains itself but can work interdependently with other neighborhood designs. If a design does not have enough resources, it can become victim to decay.

The perpetually evolving game, which has its public launch March 10th, has five modes: "Sandbox," which allows players to build a resources-constrained neighborhood without any particular goal in mind, "Challenge" which limits the number of blocks and resources a player can use to construct a neighborhood, "Education" which focuses on real-world city problems, "Research" which incor...