Tokyo-based Dynamic Map Planning will undertake the task of mapping out roadways in the highest detail to date (featuring such useful insights as curb location, lane height, and limits on turning), intended to be 20 times as precise as current maps [...]
The company will also lead the effort to equip Tokyo with digital infrastructure that will allow self-driving vehicles to pick up on factors that can change or appear in their surroundings as often as every few minutes or even seconds
— forbes.com
More autonomous driving news from around the world:Airbus promises autonomous flying taxis in the (very) near futureTesla Model S driver suffers fatal crash while using autopilot, in first known death involving an autonomous vehicleWould self-driving cars be useful to people living outside urban... View full entry
Despite introducing what seemed like excellent legislation to help increase the number of affordable housing units in developer-backed housing projects, California governor Jerry Brown's proposal caused so much multi-faceted angst it became political poison, primarily because it gently... View full entry
Researchers from the Urban Displacement project, a joint UCLA and UC Berkeley effort, recently released a gentrification map of Los Angeles.
They examined the city from 1990 to 2000 and up to 2015, focusing on neighborhoods near transit stops. The goal was to see if these areas saw higher rents and more displacement than other areas.
The answer? Yes — with some exceptions.
— scpr.org
Some of the UCLA researchers' key findings for Los Angeles Country (via the project's website, urbandisplacement.org):Our analysis found that areas around transit stations are changing and that many of the changes are in direction of neighborhood upscaling and gentrification.Examining the changes... View full entry
After stalling for years, the $243 million World Trade Center Performing Arts Center started to make headway in recent months, and now Silverstein Properties have revealed the official renderings. With the help of billionaire businessman Ronald O. Perelman's $75 million gift, the 90,000-square-foot marble cube designed by REX will both stand out as an impressive piece of cultural architecture and co-exists with the other structures on the WTC complex. — 6sqft
The deluge will begin slowly, and irregularly, and so it will confound human perceptions of change. Areas that never had flash floods will start to experience them, in part because global warming will also increase precipitation. High tides will spill over old bulkheads when there is a full moon. People will start carrying galoshes to work. All the commercial skyscrapers, housing, cultural institutions that currently sit near the waterline will be forced to contend with routine inundation — New York Magazine
Andrew Rice on why even locals who believe climate change is real, have a hard time grasping that their city will almost certainly be flooded beyond recognition. View full entry
When Condé Nast moved its 3,400 employees moved into One World Trade Center, Port Authority hoped it would attract more tenants. Now two years later, the tower is still one third empty. In fact, it only brought in $13 million in revenue last year– a mere 0.35 percent return on its investment. Now the cash-strapped Port Authority has made plans to sell One World Trade Center for as much as $5 billion, making it the highest price ever paid for an office building in the country. — 6sqft.com
The project, which is being designed by UM SoA’s Responsive Architecture and Design Lab (RAD-UM Lab), will be built next to the Yucatán Science and Technology Park (YSTP), established by the National Autonomous University of Mexico. RAD-UM Lab specializes in technology-based designing and the “internet of things,” everyday objects that can collect data and connect to modern tech. — The Miami Hurricane
The University of Miami School of Architecture continues to experiment in the realm of responsive architecture, this time at an urban scale. Zenciti is a proposed "smart city" to be located in the Yucatan Peninsula where the gathering of data will play a prominent role. Information technology... View full entry
The South Sea Pearl Eco-Island development is funded by HNA Group and will include houses, hotels, a cruise ship port, yacht harbour, spa and theme park. [...]
The jury said the “singular and clear” design would “create a beautiful, iconic form rising naturally out the landscape, recalling the volcanic caldera of the area, and shape the island into a continuous structure that would be an extremely efficient compaction of resort, retail, and housing."
— globalconstructionreview.com
The "eco" stands for... well, it depends. To HNA Group: “This proposal is one for a truly a human-made island that celebrates all that makes such water-bound places so attractive and beautiful, while contributing to our understanding of deep, intrinsic ecology.” To the Permanent Court of... View full entry
Modern architecture, during its heyday, was deeply concerned with its civic function; its mission to reform housing and improve the city was a moral imperative. But the failure of this utopian vision has served to...[give] rise to a profession in which its practice is defined increasingly by individual “star” architects and “architecture for architecture’s sake”... — AEI.org
In a piece on the civic benefits of music, literature, and architecture to the public sphere, Rebecca Burgess finds architecture to be somewhat lacking, based on the writings of Michael J. Lewis. Is this a complaint about the good old days in the vein of Prince Charles, or a meaningful critique in... View full entry
Once known as the city of single family homes, Los Angeles is now developing high-density housing complexes, not only in downtown, but according to this Urban Land article, on the traditionally reluctant-to-develop West Side.The developments mark a shift in how Los Angeles conceptualizes living... View full entry
How much would you be willing to pay to shave a minute off your commute? For New Yorkers, the answer appears to be around $56 per month. That’s how much more New Yorkers pay in rent, on average, for a one-bedroom apartment that’s a minute closer by subway to Manhattan’s main business districts.
That finding...puts an approximate value on the old real estate adage about the importance of location, location, location.
— Five Thirty Eight
More data collectin' and crunchin':Chicago installs "urban Fitbits" to track air quality, noise levels, and trafficInvestigations into the threat of air pollution have failed to account for people's movementTracing the physical infrastructure supporting the internet View full entry
“By accident, we’ve created the perfect habitat there. People don’t think about that because they think that this part of the river is ugly and concrete, but it’s a critically important habitat for these shorebirds.” [...]
As the city makes its decisions about the river’s future, it is called upon to be sensitive to all life that has managed to grow around it, despite its not-so-green surroundings.
— kcet.org
For more on the LA River's redevelopment:Will Gehry's L.A. River plan result in water savings?Gruen Associates, Mia Lehrer, Oyler Wu appointed to design L.A. River Greenway in San Fernando ValleyWhat's happening with Frank Gehry's masterplan for the LA River?Before the masterplan gets underway... View full entry
What would "Lost in Translation" be without Tokyo, or "In Bruges" without, well, Bruges? This engrossing Taste of Cinema piece selects 20 films released from the 1930s up to the cinematic present in which the city and its surrounds play a vital role in the narrative. The piece then delves into... View full entry
When a group of Burners describing themselves as the Black Rock City Ministry of Urban Planning announced a design competition last fall for a new urban plan for Burning Man, Phil Walker had never given the matter much thought.
“I’m actually not a Burner. I’ve never done it,” says Walker, the senior associate vice president for CallisonRTKL, an architecture firm and design consultancy. “Maybe a bit of vicarious living for a middle-aged suburban dad is what appealed to me.”
— citylab.com
"So Walker didn’t set about to change the orientation of Black Rock City [...] instead, he built out a “kit of parts” for simple streetscape interventions that he says can have a dramatic impact on urban flow and cultural space."Related Burning Man stories in the Archinect news:Rod Garrett... View full entry
Most Londoners think tall buildings should only be built in areas like the City and Canary Wharf, and that there should be limits on how high they can be, according to a survey for the Skyline Campaign published today. The findings come after Westminster Council controversially gave the green light for a 30 storey tower to be built in Paddington, and show stark differences in the views of Londoners in the inner and outer boroughs... — Ipsos Mori
While 49% of those living in inner London think that the 270 proposed, planned, or under construction towers set to go up in London is too many, only 34% of people from the outer boroughs agree. Additionally, the study found that Londoners are, by and large, skeptical that tall buildings will... View full entry
