Our friends at eVolo have sent us a copy of their limited edition book, EVOLO SKYSCRAPERS, and boy, it's a festival for eyes and biceps. At 1224 pages, the book measures 9″ x 11.5″ x 2.5″ and calls for extra sturdy coffee tables.EVOLO SKYSCRAPERS celebrates six years of the internationally... View full entry
Was it monotonous? Yes. But New York’s grid had its virtues. For one thing, it proved flexible enough to adapt when the city’s orientation did shift north-south, flexible enough to accommodate Olmsted’s Central Park, the genius of which lies in the contrast between its own irregularity and the regularity of the grid. — NYT
As Michael Kimmelman elaborates that Jane Jacobs identified its sociability and Rem Koolhaas celebrated its density, Manhattan's grid system's efficiency is ecologically sustainable. View full entry
NYC mayor says money dispute will keep 9/11 museum from opening on time. — Washington Post
Since its opening on 9/12 this year, 1 million tourists visited the site. Stakes are really high.. It is all about money now. The Port Authority, which owned the trade center and is building the museum, claims that the foundation owes it $300 million. The foundation claims that the authority... View full entry
The YUL-MTL : Moving landscapes international ideas competition on the Autoroute 20 gateway corridor linking the Montreal-Trudeau Airport to downtown Montreal recently announced three equal winners. The competition [...] aimed to develop strategic visions for the development of the 17 km corridor mainly composed of transport infrastructures, residential and industrials areas and brownfields in dire need of revitalization. — bustler.net
Putting aside the legal and constitutional issues that have been the focus of the Zuccotti debate, design really can help balance the competing imperatives of openness and order. And in fact Zuccotti Park’s particular design manages this relatively well—it certainly can’t be faulted for having made the recent situation any worse. — The New York Observer
In light of the recent attention paid to the concept of POPS and the struggle over the usage rights of public space, Thomas Balsley (one of the foremost landscape architects in NYC, who happens to have designed more Privately Owned Public Spaces, than anyone else) shared his thoughts on the... View full entry
Just last week, we published the outstanding winners of the 2011 Regional Holcim Awards for the Asia Pacific Region [...]. Taking the top prize in the program's “Next Generation” category was MIT student August Liau for a project to increase bicycle commuting in Beijing, China. The project advocates pedal power as a dynamic alternative for urban transit and recalls its well-proven potential in the world’s former cycling capital. — bustler.net
IKEA has proposed to build a complete neighborhood in East London. The Swedish furniture giant tries to implement its ideas and concepts in new fields of knowledge and urbanism. After its injection of each single family’s interior with cheap design furniture and the introduction of the IKEA standard house by daughter company BoKlok, it seems to be time for a complete IKEA neighborhood... — popupcity.net
Renowned architect Rem Koolhaas is viewed as one of the most important theoreticians of his trade. In an interview with SPIEGEL, he discusses soulless cities, the failings of Europe's largest urban redevelopment project in Hamburg and the problems with SPIEGEL's brand-new headquarters. — spiegel.de
Snøhetta has released a virtual tour exploring their proposed expansion/redesign for SFMOMA. SUVERK noted that he spends a lot of time walking through that hood and argues "the new Snohetta design is very stealthy...The surrounding towers St. Regis(SOM) and the W Hotel(Hornberger and Worstell) dominate the skyline to the point that one would not right away notice the SFMOMA expansion- (which is the same size as Botta's).- It will sneak up on you and then you will be curious -WTF is that?
Archinect’s most recent ShowCase feature highlights VLP Chapel in Grand-Bigard, by tcct, a firm based in Bruges, Belgium. News Portuguese collective DOSE sent us images and a fascinating time-lapse video of their project BLUETUBE BAR, a temporary bar to operate at the annual... View full entry
The winners for the EUROPAN 11 challenge for Vienna, Austria were announced just last night, and the first prize, by unanimous vote, went to the urban design proposal of Dreiecksplatz (Triangle Square) by an international team comprising Artur Borejszo (PL, Architect), Leena Cho (US, Landscape Architect), Jason Hilgefort (US, Architect & Urbanist), and Andreas Karavanas (GR, Architect & Urbanist). — bustler.net
This 1959 film, "Community Growth, Crisis and Challenge," warns citizens, developers, and city officials of the dangers of urban sprawl. This historical artifact, co-sponsored by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and the Urban Land Institute ULI) provides alternative approaches to land development. The film was produced by the NAHB. — ULI
The Urban Land Institute is clebrating their 75th birthday this year. To join in the celebration, enjoy this classic film warning of the perils of urban sprawl sponsered by them and the National Association of Home Builders. You can see their other videos on YouTube by going... View full entry
The best way to harness a city's potential for creativity and innovation is to jack people into the network and get out of the way — scientificamerican.com
The winner of the 2012 TED Prize has just been announced, and being awarded is not a single person, but - for the first time in the history of the prize - a collaborative idea: the City 2.0.
TED Prize Director Amy Novogratz: "This year, we’re challenging everyone in the TED Community to embrace radical collaboration on one of the most pressing issues we face: how to build sustainable, vibrant, working cities."
— bustler.net
Speaking at the V&A last week, the former Foreign Office Architects partner said that she was "dubious" about volunteers who see working in these places as an "easy option". — Architectural Record
Moussavi, who teaches at Harvard and runs her own practice in London, said: "It's quite telling that Harvard students, when they want to be activists, have to go to these areas of the world. It's tougher to be an activist in America. View full entry
The source of the disconnect between San Francisco's transit-first heart and its car-centric hand is an arcane engineering measure called "level of service," or LOS. In brief, LOS suggests that whenever the city wants to change some element of a street — say by adding a bike lane or even just painting a crosswalk — it should calculate the effect that change will have on car traffic. — Eric Jaffe
Changing a city from being car-centric isn't just a matter of building better bike lanes and drawing up better bus routes. Sometimes, developers have to go up against restrictions which won't let them build at all if it interrupts too much car traffic. View full entry
