Archinect - News

As Milan's San Siro stadium goes, so goes the city

2022-05-23T14:56:00-04:00

AC Milan’s Serie A championship title over the weekend brought out the missives on placemaking and memory concerning the club’s future in the 96-year-old stadium adored by the Milanese as their seconda casa.

The facilities, last upgraded in 1990 and renovated throughout the 2000s by the local firm Ragazzi and Partners, are set to be replaced by a new “cathedral” designed by American sport heavyweight Populous for the year 2027. Many feel it is the last victim of a changed European Soccer landscape dominated by Russian oligarchs and other monied interests from abroad after the late-1990s to early-2000s.

Previously on Archinect: Populous tapped to lead design of new combined Inter & AC Milan stadium

Alternatives, including its reuse as a massive Covid memorial, have been proposed by the faithful, who also claim a demolition effort of such size would be harmful to the environment. A final approval is still on the horizon for later this year. The architects of the new stadium say their...

Archinect's Virtual Event Guide for the week of March 17-24, 2021

2021-03-17T16:39:00-04:00

This week's featured virtual event happenings, from Archinect's Virtual Event Guide, are highlighted by Exhibit Columbus' Design Presentations kicking off this Friday. Other events to tune into address topics such as decolonization, surveillance, automation, public and domestic placemaking, healthy communities, and design experience.

Are you hosting a virtual lecture? Presentation? Tour? Interview? Happy Hour? Submit it for consideration by clicking here.

Are you an expert in an arena that's especially important right now? Let us know if you would like to work with Archinect to host an online event.

Sharon E. Sutton: Decolonizing the City-Making Professions: Learning from the Dreams and Defeats of the 1960s
Wednesday, March 17, 2021 | 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM EDT
Dr. Sharon Egretta Sutton, FAIA is a distinguished visiting professor of architecture at Parsons School of Design and has also served on the faculties of Columbia University, Pratt Institute, the University of Cincinnati, the Univer...

"From plates to parks," Julie Smith-Clementi and Frank Clementi launch new design office

2020-01-08T09:00:00-05:00

Los Angeles-based architects Julie Smith-Clementi and Frank Clementi, former founding partners at multidisciplinary architecture office Rios Clementi Hale Studios (RCH Studios), have launched a new comprehensive design practice offering "the full spectrum of place-based design."

Exterior of the Austin City Limits complex. Image courtesy of Smith-Clementi.

The new firm, Smith-Clementi, will work in many of the same arenas that the two principals have engaged with over the decades, including educational projects, public space design, and re-programmed commercial and retail spaces. In addition, Smith-Clementi will continue a focus on residential projects and "artful product designs for the home.”

The two designers left RCH Studios in late 2019 and launched their new practice, according to an announcement, "to more directly work with clients and end users on broader place-based design."

View of the revamped Hollywood Bowl artist spaces (top) and public concession areas (bottom). Image co...

Print Your City launches its first Zero Waste Lab in Greece

2019-01-17T15:18:00-05:00

Since 2016, the Rotterdam-based research and design studio The New Raw has been experimenting with using plastic waste to create public furniture. Through the 'Print Your City' project—which just launched its first Zero Waste Lab in Thessaloniki, Greece—the firm turns public waste into raw material that is then 3D printed into benches and other street furniture meant to enrich a place.

Zero Waste Lab. Photo by Stefanos Tsakiris.

Equipped with a robotic arm and recycling facilities, residents can bring their plastic waste and design custom urban furniture, shaping the designs and uses of each unique object according to their needs. Residents can pick out the shape and the color for their piece as well as things like which public space to place it in or whether or not it might feature a bike rack or a tree pot.

After settling on a design, Print Your City provides information on the quantity of plastic that will need recycling in order to generate enough raw material. Their initial pro...

Miami begins construction on the Underline, a 10-mile urban path under the city's Metrorail

2018-11-16T15:03:00-05:00

Since opening, the High Line has become the proverbial example of how cities can transform their underutilized nooks and crannies into vibrant public spaces. Now attracting more than six million visitors a year, the railway-turned-park has inspired a host of similar projects all across the world from Seoul to London.

Whereas the High Line focused on the reuse of a historic rail line, a new project in Miami, which broke ground earlier this month, is applying the same concept to the space underneath. Designed by James Corner Field Operations, Miami's forthcoming Underline will create a 10-mile linear park beneath the city's Metrorail.

The project was first inspired when Meg Daly, who came to found the non-profit Friends of the Underline, got into a bicycling accident. Unable to drive, Daly started taking the Miami Metrorail and using the space u...

Francisco Pardo Arquitecto designs urban parks to revitalize neglected suburban neighborhoods in Mexico

2018-08-30T15:18:00-04:00

In Mexico City, a set of urban parks have been built on the city's outskirts to revitalize the neglected suburban neighborhoods in which they reside.

Designed by Francisco Pardo Arquitecto, the Mexico City-based firm has replaced a once contaminated water stream and paved lots with basketball courts, skate ramps, pavilions for public events, children’s playgrounds, and spots for a more general meditation.

Parque Héroes. Photo by Jaime Navarro.

Parque Colinas del Sol. Photo by Jaime Navarro.

"It is important to change not only the physical condition but also the perception of the space" said Francisco Pardo, who leads the eponymous firm behind the transformations. "As a designer, I believe that supporting local communities to achieve better public spaces for their families helps the greater community."

Parque Colinas del Sol. Photo by Jaime Navarro.

Using low-cost materials such as concrete, steel and cement blocks, the architects have created flexible space layouts that foster sponta...

Camden Highline gets backing from London Mayor

2017-07-28T02:36:00-04:00

Another day, another city, another high line—this time in London. While in America, we use crowdfunding to help supplement health care costs or to actualize an invention, in England, Spacehive is using this form of alternative financing to help back projects that make local places better. Think kickstarter, but for place-making. Projects range from a 90m temporary water slide in Bristol to a Library of Things in Southeast London where one can rent a violin or camping gear alongside their books. Among such proposals, is a 0.8km garden walk on a disused elevated railway line. Its project title—Camden Highline.

The project plans to transform the obsolete tracks into a new type of green infrastructure for walking and cycling. They are currently seeking £37,412 in order to cary out a feasibility study, including site appraisals and surveys. Thus far, the project has raised 93% of its funding goal to the thanks of 249 backers, including Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan. Khan spoke of the pro...

These Nka Foundation-winning ideas will be built in Ghana's Abetenim Arts Village

2017-05-11T19:47:00-04:00

The Nka Foundation recently revealed the winners of the 2017 Land Art Competition for Ghana...architects, landscape architects, engineers, and students alike were invited to submit their most inventive ideas for large-scale and site-specific public art installations in rural Ghana. Entrants had to emphasize creating a unique arts village experience and how their design functions as a place.

Here's a glimpse of the prize-winning entries:

1st place: Earth Archive Project by Yusuke Suzuki and Léo Allègre of Yusuke Suzuki Design Office in Japan

2nd place: Nonnegligible Village by the Urban Active Space Research Studio at Dalian Polytechnic University in China
Team: Ruixuan Li, Jiazi Zhang, Qiuming Dong, Rui Xu, Ying Zheng, Xiaoming Wang, Ziyi Zhao, Yanying Zhao, Yuxiang Zhang, Na Li, Henan Wang, Pengzhe He

3rd place: Ashanti Domino by Sara Arfaian, Junko Yamamoto and Jenny Zhan in USA

Images courtesy of Nka Foundation Land Art Competition.

Find more of the top-winning entries on Bustler.

"Making Cities Together," a sustainable urban future conference, to be held in Kenya

2017-04-04T18:43:00-04:00

What's the most efficient, ethical, and sustainable way to remake public spaces? If you're in Nariobi, Kenya this May 3-4th, you'll have the opportunity to answer that question by attending the "Making Cities Together - The City We Need through Safe, Inclusive and Accessible Public Spaces" conference as put on by The Urban Thinkers Campus in collaboration with Project for Public Spaces, UN-Habitat and Placemakers, KUWA - Urban Spaces by People, and Architects Without Borders. Keynote speakers include PK Das, Bulelwa Makalima-Ngewana and Michelle Provoost. Here are the full details, courtesy of the original press release:

The Urban Thinkers Campus (UTC) model is an initiative of UN-Habitat’s World Urban Campaign, conceived in 2014 as an open space for critical exchange, promoting sustainable urbanization across the globe. In order to implement the New Urban Agenda after Habitat III in Quito in 2016, the UTC 2.0 will be action-oriented by focusing on developing action plans and implem...

A closer look at the often complicated relationship between placemaking and gentrification

2015-11-12T13:27:00-05:00

Rather than watching passively as non-local or private developers consume neighborhood public spaces, we can use Placemaking to enable citizens to create their own public spaces, to highlight the unique strengths of their neighborhoods, and to address its specific challenges. While gentrification can divide communities and build upon exclusivity, Placemaking is about inclusion and shared community ownership. It is about increasing “quality of life,” not removing public life.

Related on Archinect:

MIT's "Placelet" sensors technologize old-fashioned observation methods for placemaking

2015-08-18T19:49:00-04:00

With a $35,000 grant from the Knight Prototype Fund, [MITs Elizabeth Christoforetti] and her team are working on a project called Placelet, which will track how pedestrians move through a particular space. They’re developing a network of sensors that will track the scale and speed of pedestrians [and vehicles] over long periods of time. The sensors, [currently being tested in downtown Boston], will also track the 'sensory experience' by recording the noise level and air quality of that space.

Downtown Portland says hello to new student-designed public parklet

2015-07-09T15:01:00-04:00

The first public parklet in downtown Portland, the installation is intended to help revitalize this stretch of SW Fourth Avenue in the heart of the SoMa EcoDistrict (for “South of Market Street”), giving students, faculty, and workers from surrounding offices a place to sit and enjoy their food-cart lunches in the sunshine, rather than racing back to their desks to eat.

Downtown Portland is no stranger to green public spaces, but the recently opened Fourth Avenue Parklet has that ideal recipe for a do-good-feel-good collaborative project. Twenty-six architecture students from Portland State University spent 18 months to design and construct the parklet, which also crowdsourced $15,640 in cash and in-kind donations from the local community.

The new parklet flaunts 3,475 pounds of steel, 250 feet of repurposed escalator handrail, 768 linear feet of sustainably harvested juniper, and drought-resistant native plants. It was built as a complementary hangout spot for people to relax and enjoy their grub from the nearby diners and food-cart pod along SW Fourth Avenue in Portland's SoMa EcoDistrict.

Keep doing you, Portland.

Image via.

Heart of the Community program selects six new cities to receive placemaking grants

2015-04-22T13:11:00-04:00

This morning, Southwest Airlines announced that non-profit organizations in six U.S. cities will receive Placemaking grants to help them reimagine and reactivate important but underutilized public spaces in their city. [...] Albuquerque, New Mexico: Civic Plaza Ft. Myers, Florida: Lee County Regional Library Jacksonville, Florida: Hemming Park Milwaukee, Wisconsin: 4th & Wisconsin Area Portland, Maine: Congress Square Park St. Louis, Missouri: Strauss Park

Pittsburgh’s Place in the Placemaking Movement

2014-08-28T14:09:00-04:00

Pittsburgh has done it again! After being named “America’s Most Livable City” by Forbes in 2010 and one of the “Best All-American Vacations” earlier this year by The Travel Channel, it was recently named as the second “most livable city” in the United States by the Economist Intelligence Unit’s 2014 livability survey [...]. Pittsburgh is ripe for Placemaking [...], making it the perfect host city for this seminal gathering of Placemaking leaders and walking and bicycling professionals.

Latino Placemaking: How the Civil Rights Movement Reshaped East LA

2014-03-25T15:08:00-04:00

Latino Placemaking goes beyond creating great public spaces. It also includes cultural identity, which is shaped by needs, desires, and imagination. The Latino quest for cultural identity parallels the African-American Civil Rights Movement of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, which has its genesis in protests – many of which were carried out in public spaces.

MIT research reveals the power of placemaking

2013-10-28T15:09:00-04:00

The MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning released new research that examines the evolution of urban planning and its effects on communities. The report defines placemaking as “an innovative approach to transforming communities by creating and revitalizing open, public spaces around the needs and desires of the community.”

Too narrowly focused on placemaking...

2012-02-29T14:11:00-05:00

You can’t just focus on housing and transit in the core of a city, you need to focus on the physical needs of manufacturing, development and the needs that go along with them. That will clearly have a huge effect not only on the city but regional level.

Jason Kambitsis recently interviewed Bruce Katz, the founding director of the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program. The two spoke about Katz's belief that optimizing economic structure, not urban form, is the key to revitalizing depressed cities and strengthening thriving ones.