In our last post, we published Henning Larsen Architects' winning competition entry for the city center redevelopment in Klaksvík, the second-largest city in the Faroe Islands. This post now features the urban design submission of Swiss practice Kubota & Bachmann Architects. — bustler.net

We are interested in connecting architecture with the social — The Architectural League

In the future the wisest zone entrepreneurs will question this central feature and ask: Why enclave? What types of incentivized urbanism will actually benefit from physically segregated infrastructure—from being separate and even distant from the dense and dynamic central spaces of existing cities? Given that the zone is now generating its own urban programs — aspiring to be a city—what economic and technical benefits can result from constructing what is in effect a double or shadow of the city? — Places Journal

David Harvey, theorist and author of Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution, says that postwar capitalism can be understood with reference to the history of urbanisation and suburbanisation. Urban investment gets you out of a crisis but defines what the next crisis is going to look like, he argues. The emerging powers of the east are now in the midst of a massive urbanisation project and could fall victim to the same outcome. — guardian.co.uk

The original is a centuries-old village of 900 and a UNESCO heritage site that survives on tourism. The copycat is a housing estate that thrives on China's new rich. In a China famous for pirated products, the replica Hallstatt sets a new standard. — news24.com

“If you go into the hardcore urban or the hardcore rural, it is quite simple to define it, but that is not so relevant. It is more significant to talk about the condition in between. And this condition is extremely difficult to define.” – Urban planner Kees Christiaanse in conversation with Bernd Upmeyer and Beatriz Ramo on behalf of MONU Magazine — Free Association Design

Copenhagen's Henning Larsen Architects has won the competition for developing a 150,000 m2 (1.6M sq ft) area in the second-largest city in the Faroe Islands, Klaksvík. The area will comprise a cultural house, a museum, residences, offices and shops. [...]

On the basis of the winning proposal, the Municipality of Klaksvík will prepare a new district plan for the development of the city. The plan is expected to be ready during 2012. — bustler.net

the canopy covers 11,000 square feet of an easement in Battery Park City; effectively, North End Way is a north-south passageway or alley, lined with shops and restaurants. Part of what makes this a notable public space is the quality of construction... But it’s the canopy, which Goldman also commissioned, that formally elevates what is really just a gap between two buildings into something almost as inspired as the nave of a great Gothic cathedral. — New York Times

A bunch of bees is inspiring what seems to escape so many people in Buffalo: waterfront development.

With the help of a group of University at Buffalo architecture students, a local entrepreneur hopes to build on a giant bee hive he discovered in an abandoned office and turn a portion of Buffalo's historic waterfront into a design campus where manufacturers, architects and others will collaborate and mastermind new ways to use locally made materials — Buffalo News

For years city planners have looked at ways to revitalize downtown, now some University of Arizona architecture students may have the answer.

For the past couple of years the grad students have been working on a project called "The New Old Pueblo". "We did a lot of research on successful strategies used in other cities," UA Grad Student Julia Roberts says.

Roberts is one of 17 students who worked with Architecture Professor Mark Frederickson to design the plan. — kvoa.com

“It was not typically a type of project we normally do,” says Dukho Yeon, the firm’s associate partner-in-charge on Teachers Village. “This was part of basically everybody including the investors giving back to the city of Newark.” — Fast Company

Neft Dashlari, an artificial settlement off the coast of Azerbaijan, was constructed by the Soviets after World War II, when the state was facing a major oil shortage. (Image by Jon Björgvinsson) — Der Spiegel

The city is deep in debt; it's got a state-appointed board managing its finances, so it's gotta cut services it can't afford. Services that it can't afford in part because it's a city built for two million people that's now home to just over 713,000.

So street lights could be a luxury Detroit can't completely afford. — marketplace.org

we want to experiment in making better public spaces. Cities are built in a very formal and classist fashion, which is at odds with the good that rapid production and public participation can do for urban development. — Huffington Post

Behold the Subway Terminal Building, hidden in plain sight in the middle of downtown LA, where at one point during the 1940′s over 65,000 riders were shuffling down into the depths of Los Angeles to board a train which traveled beneath the busy streets. And, fittingly, it’s just a block from where you might board the Red Line subway today. — gelatobaby.com