I’m not saying America’s cities are turning into dystopian technocapitalist hellscapes in which corporations operate every essential service and pull every civic string.
But let’s take a tour of recent news from the metropolises.
— New York Times
Farhad Manjoo unpacks the extreme impact big tech companies have on US city construction citing cases from Amazon, Elon Musk's Boring Company, and Bird's electric scooters. Are these innovations simply breaking through the red tape of local government or are they dominating with no input from the... View full entry
The Austrian branch of Penda reveals a residential high-rise for Tel Aviv defined by arches and cascading terraces. The design responds to the broad display of the city’s Bauhaus era and responds to the city's climate challenges rather than opting for another glass tower. Tel Aviv Arcades... View full entry
Urban settlements and technology around the world are co-evolving as flows of population, finance, and politics are reshaping the very identity of cities and nations. Rapid and profound changes are driven by pervasive sensing, the growth and availability of continuous data streams, advanced analytics, interactive communications and social networks, and distributed intelligence. At MIT, urban planners and computer scientists are embracing these exciting new developments. — MIT News
Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty recently voted to have its existing urban planning and computer science programs join forces and create a new undergraduate degree, the bachelor of science in urban science and planning with computer science. "The rise of autonomous vehicles... View full entry
Lower Manhattan could be the first to test out an innovative system that is being proposed as a way to protect cities from rising sea levels and future storms. Called “Humanhattan 2050,” a visionary idea from Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) that’s on view in the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale, the project not only proposes new infrastructure to safeguard the waterfront for the next hundred years, it will also make these spaces more accessible and enjoyable. — Observer
Image via @BIGstertweets/Twitter.Avid Archinect readers will remember the "Humanhattan 2050" scheme from its initial iteration, BIG's 2014 Rebuild by Design competition-winning proposal "The BIG U" in response to the most devastating storm ever to hit New York, Hurricane Sandy, and the need for... View full entry
With more options that ever for getting around cities, and finite space, the question of how we use this infrastructure, and who controls it, is more important than ever. By regulating how these new transportation options evolve, cities can potentially bring about a more sustainable, multimodal, and less car-centric transit future. — curbed.com
Our city curbs are transportation battles for space in the flow of traffic. While private tech startups are producing popular transportation solutions, such as Bird's electric scooters, the city is the one paying to build and maintain these public spaces. An upswing in dockless vehicles has far... View full entry
Bombardier Rail Technologies, ACS Infrastructure Development, Balfour Beatty, Fluor Enterprises and HOCHTIEF PPP Solutions North America have all been chosen to deliver a $4.9bn project to design, build and install an automated people mover system at Los Angeles International Airport. [...]
The system will run on a 3.6km elevated dual-lane guideway and will serve six newly-built stations, creating connections between the airport, public and private transportation, and a new car rental facility.
— Construction Global
New York’s nightscape is as iconic [...] as it is taken for granted. A city without streetlights is impossible to imagine, but New York’s 396,572 street-side luminaires are as unremarkable as the streets’ paving — invisible until something changes. An initiative to replace sodium and halogen bulbs with energy- and cost-efficient LEDs has thrown the nightscape suddenly into question, as some city residents bemoan the loss of romance (and sleep). — Urban Omnibus
In her piece for Urban Omnibus, landscape and urban designer Emily Schlickman takes a fascinating closer look at the history of New York City's system of street-side luminaires (the largest in the nation), and how the recent transition to LED technology is affecting the city and its... View full entry
Architecture isn’t normal. We take for a given that architecture has to operate the way it already does — but it doesn’t. What appears as natural is in fact constructed, and has mutated dramatically through time. “Architecture,” that is, refers not just to the practice of building but... View full entry
Tallinn, known for its digital government and successful tech startups, is often referred to as Europe’s innovation capital. Now celebrating five years of free public transport for all citizens, the government is planning to make Estonia the first free public transport nation. — Pop-Up City
Pop-Up City's Regina Schröter interviews the Head of the Tallinn European Union Office, Allan Alaküla, about Estonia's plans to expand the successful fare-free public transport model from the capital to the entire country on July 1: "Before introducing free public transport, the city center was... View full entry
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM) together with Zyscovich Architects and Rockwell Group, have completed three new stations for Brightline, Florida's new public transit rail service. Designed by SOM in association with Zyscovich Architects. Image © Smilodon CGThe largest private... View full entry
A dramatic shift is underway on the Williamsburg waterfront: The ruins of the former Domino Sugar Refinery, a neighborhood landmark since the 19th century, are in the process of being transformed into an 11-acre megaproject. Four new buildings are on the way, as is a renovation of the massive factory building [...]
Domino Park, a six-acre green space that hugs the edge of the development, opens on June 10.
— Curbed NY
Curbed New York documents the transformation of the former Domino Sugar Factory where one piece of the massive revitalization—the James Corner Field Operations-designed Domino Park—will open to the public this Sunday. (Prepare for spectacular views of the Manhattan skyline.) View full entry
The Latvian Pavilion during the 16th International Architecture Exhibition Biennale Architettura 2018, titled Together and Apart, looks at apartment buildings in relation to architecture’s role in organizing society. It examines how this architectural typology generates ways of living together... View full entry
If an owner fails to make a claim within the 30-day period or the claim fails, the property reverts to the province, town, or city of the redevelopment zone and the owner is not compensated. There is no right to appeal. — Human Rights Watch
"The Syrian government is poised to confiscate and redevelop residents’ property without due process or compensation under a new property law, Law No. 10 of 2018. The law, which the government is promoting as an urban planning measure, will create a major obstacle to returning home for... View full entry
Initially Sidewalk's deal with the organisation will cover a 12-acre site but it is believed it wishes to expand this to the whole area - which at 325 acres will represent a huge land-grab....As part of the planning process of bidding to develop the waterside location, the firm looked at 150 examples of smart cities, including those built from the ground up such as Masdar, in Abu Dhabi and Songdo in South Korea. — BBC News
Jane Wakefield chatted with both critics and proponents of a, Sidewalk Labs, proposed project on Toronto's Eastern waterfront. View full entry
The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Architecture & Urban Planning faculty have elected Lingqian Hu as the new Department of Urban Planning chair. Hu received her Bachelor of Planning degree from Nanjing University in China and a Master of Planning and doctorate in Policy... View full entry