Four finalist entries have been unveiled in the Christchurch, New Zealand urban design competition, Breathe - The New Urban Village Project. The brief called for innovative medium-density housing development designs from collaborative groups containing a designer and a property developer. — bustler.net
UPDATE: Winner of the Christchurch “Breathe - The New Urban Village Project” competition View full entry
The Lagos state commissioner for housing, Adedeji Olatubosun Jeje, provided a different version of events.
“It’s a regeneration of a slum,” he said. “We gave enough notification. The government intends to develop 1,008 housing units. What we removed was just shanties.
— NYT
Adam Nossiter covers recent slum clearance efforts led by the governor of Lagos, Babatunde Fashola. As Lagos aims to become a premier business center, the city’s poor and homeless are becoming the government’s enemy. Last week, parts of Badia East (with perhaps... View full entry
In recent years developers putting up a forest of residential towers have been accused of turning the Brooklyn and Queens waterfront into Miami-on-the-East-River. With his new plan for the 11-acre Domino Sugar refinery in Williamsburg officially unveiled on Sunday, Jed Walentas has crafted something that might better be described as Dubai-on-the-East-River. — Crain's
Audacious new waterfront development designed by SHoP unveiled in Brooklyn. Transforms derelict Domino Sugar refinery into 24/7 community with designs the likes of which New York has never seen. View full entry
Facebook recently got a big blue thumbs up from the Menlo Park Planning Commission to build its sprawling Frank Gehry-designed headquarters. Along with the requisite rezoning for the design, the commission approved the project’s environmental impact report, an official statement concluding that the new development would have more positive than negative effects on the area, and a cartographical change that will create a private road in front of the property called “Facebook Way.” — blogs.artinfo.com
It is in empty spaces like [under Hong Kong's overpasses] that a group is campaigning for the government to build youth hostels, arts performance venues, offices for small- to mid-sized businesses and, most intriguingly, temporary housing. The group sees this unused land as an opportunity to alleviate Hong Kong’s problem of young people not being able to afford to rent in the world’s most expensive property market. — smartplanet.com
The MAS report, “East Midtown: A Bold Vision for the Future,” provides a plan for how to develop a stronger and more vibrant neighborhood in response to Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proposed major zoning changes, announced last summer, to spur the modernization of East Midtown. MAS fears that in the absence of a careful and comprehensive vision, the City’s proposal will fall short. — mas.org
View/download the document here. View full entry
The urban planning proposal "Down by the River," designed by Mandaworks and Hosper Sweden, has won the architectural competition for the future city center of Floda, a small community near Gothenburg, Sweden. — bustler.net
The British company that built the Shard skyscraper in London will manage the construction of the Kingdom tower in Saudi Arabia, which will be the world's tallest building when completed.
The Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal unveiled the plans, by American firm Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, 18 months ago as part of a new £13bn Kingdom City development on the Red Sea coast to the north of Jeddah.
— guardian.co.uk
Technology being used in urban communities around the world hints at how we may live in the cities of the future — BBC News
Jane Wakefield reviews recent efforts by large technology firms such as IBM and Cisco, as well as more grass root projects, to harness the power of technology to build the "cities of the future now". The list of projects includes Songdo in South Korea, Masdar in Abu... View full entry
South Brisbane’s renewal is well underway and the suburb could soon become home to a landmark $50 million twin tower development known as Arena.
The contemporary 12-floor twin tower apartment buildings is slated for 9 Edmonstone Street and has been designed to allow pedestrian access to Browning Street via a dedicated cross block link.
— DesignBuild Source
There is only so far the gap between the migrant workers and the local Shanghainese they serve can grow before the foundations of the city buckle — and only so many well-educated, English-speaking, computer-literate, world-traveling young people the city can welcome before they demand change. Modernity is about more than fast trains and tall buildings. Despite the authorities’ strict controls, some among Shanghai’s millions have surely figured this out. — Places Journal
In just two decades Shanghai has been transformed from "mothballed relic" of Maoism to one of the world's largest and most dynamic cities, complete with the fastest train on earth and more high-rise buildings than Manhattan. In an excerpt on Places from the new book A History of Future Cities... View full entry
Community activism that simply nibbles at the edges is not enough. Small-scale rebellions can raise consciousness and help bring needed improvements to cities, but what we really need is a revolution. — Dissent
In the Winter 2013 issue of Dissent (the quarterly magazine of politics and ideas), Alex Ulam follows a thread From the Gold Coast of New York to the Venice Biennale. He argues Spontaneous Interventions "was not an outlier at the Biennale" but indicative of a general movement in... View full entry
As formerly boho environs of Brooklyn become unattainable due to creeping Manhattanization and seven-figure real estate prices, creative professionals of child-rearing age — the type of alt-culture-allegiant urbanites who once considered themselves too cool to ever leave the city — are starting to ponder the unthinkable: a move to the suburbs. — New York Times
Billionaire businessman, James Packer has shortlisted four of the world’s best architects (Adrian Smith + Gill Architecture, Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, Renzo Piano and Wilkinson Eyre Architects) to bid to design and build the urban masterpiece that will be Crown Sydney.
The proposed $1 billion six-star Crown Sydney resort will be a dramatic addition to Sydney’s skyline and be built across a giant 6,000 square metre site in Barangaroo.
— DesignBuild Source
Another way to phrase it is that hard decisions need to be made to cope with rising waters and severe weather. Notwithstanding the obvious difference between a group of farmers on a Dutch polder and communities in the Rockaways or Coney Island, good government makes those decisions while giving affected residents adequate knowledge and agency: the ability to make choices, and the responsibility to live by them. — New York Times