As the central theme of the London Festival of Architecture (LFA) in its 2015 edition, “Work in Progress” welcomes a discussion on the changing nature of the workplace and its impact on the city. The Festival, which opened on June 1st, hosts a series of events in both cultural and academic... View full entry
The ideals of Novye Cheryomushki may have died, but its methods and techniques remain — having managed to make some people very wealthy. Moscow suburbia is not so much the remnants of a great experiment, perhaps, but suburbia like any other suburbia — a place of dreams and boredom, great ideas being implemented and then slowly crushed. — calvertjournal.com
Collectively, the encyclical affirms how important it is to make the moral case for city design. Too often, developers, urban planners and city leaders seem to think that it is obvious or implied why the decisions they make are in the best interest of the public. But there is no shortcut to articulating why our planning choices speak to the fundamental human dignity of the communities we’re working in. — nextcity.org
"Given the interrelationship between living space and human behaviour, those who design buildings, neighbourhoods, public spaces and cities, ought to draw on the various disciplines which help us to understand people’s thought processes, symbolic language and ways of acting. It is not enough to... View full entry
A new typology of XL-architecture is emerging in Istanbul, negating the urban context. These ‘Citadels-on-Steroids’ rapidly encroach on the city’s urban fabric. [...]
This might very well be the future of all cities. As city walls and state boundaries erode under late capitalism, the walls are only rebuilt at a smaller scale to maintain immunity from the chaos outside.
— failedarchitecture.com
Just north of Newark, New Jersey, the Pulaski Skyway became the country’s first so-called “superhighway” — a 3.5-mile raised roadway running over the top of some of the most heavily industrialized property in the country. [...]
In infrastructure terms, the Pulaski is what’s called “functionally obsolete,” meaning it doesn’t meet modern design standards —and the money being spent to fix it up won’t change that.
— marketplace.org
The California Supreme Court decided unanimously Monday that cities and counties may require developers to provide below-market-rate housing as a condition of a building permit.
The decision is expected to make it easier for Los Angeles and other cities with housing shortages to force developers to build or pay for affordable housing.
— LA Times
The Society of Architectural Historians’ prestigious H. Allen Brooks Travelling Fellowship will be offered for 2015 and will allow a recent graduate or emerging scholar to study by travel for one year. The fellowship is not for the purpose of doing research for an advanced academic degree... View full entry
Right now, Amsterdam’s Center Island (Centrumeiland in Dutch) doesn’t look like much [...] The island, in use for the first time this summer as a campsite-cum-art installation, is in fact an entirely artificial creation, lying at the heart of what could currently be Europe’s boldest engineering and housing program. [...]
The archipelago will eventually be home to up to 45,000 people in 18,000 homes, 30 percent of which will be earmarked for affordable rent.
— citylab.com
Amid the seemingly endless barrage of new writings about the imminent arrival of the technologically mediated “smart city,” a slim volume published by the University of Minnesota Press suggests that so-called intelligent urbanism might not be so new after all. In Deep Mapping the Media City... View full entry
Completely stable on the water, the base of the island is built to last for far over 100 years and will create a new underwater habitat for sea life, the company states, adding, it is building similar islands in Maldives and in Miami in the US. — emirates247.com
Dubai's "The World", a man-made archipelago of islands arranged like a world map, is now spawning private floating homes. The "luxury floating private islands" will be designed to specific client wishes, and reportedly will all come with a pool. Developed by Amillarah Private Islands, these aren't... View full entry
So will Apple’s version of street-based imagery simply be a direct copy of Street View? Possibly not. A patent filed back in 2013 mentions “3D Position Tracking for Panoramic Imagery Navigation,” and the filing is disparaging of existing imaging software, calling it a “tedious experience,” though it doesn’t mention Google Street View by name. — venturebeat.com
Chicago's highly anticipated elevated trail and park system known as The 606, otherwise referred to as the Bloomingdale Trail or the "Chicago High Line", finally celebrated its grand opening this past Saturday on the appropriate date of June 6 (6/06). The centerpiece of the $95 million... View full entry
Each year, the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) bestows its Walter Gellhorn Innovation Award to a federal agency with the best model practice that can be adopted government-wide. Today, ACUS announced that the 2015 Walter Gellhorn Innovation Award is being presented to U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Rebuild by Design Competition. — US Department of Housing and Development
There's something of a mise-en-abyme quality to a competition winning an award, but it's a good occasion to remember the Rebuild by Design was, after all, not quite your regular competition. Organized in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy and funded primarily by the US Department of Housing and... View full entry
The plan was to create a new type of city that answered the needs of Moscow’s creative middle classes. But did the exit of Sergei Kapkov, the culture minister who ushered in these changes, also signal the end of the city’s urban revival? [...]
“Kapkov’s reforms provided a whole generation of young creative types with a sense – perhaps somewhat illusory – that they could do things on a small scale; that there was a real fabric of life in a public city,” said Tsentsiper.
— theguardian.com
Related: The Calvert Journal asks experts: How to fix Moscow? View full entry
The L.A.-Waze partnership is, at least in theory, an initial step toward allowing the city’s planners and engineers to regain a healthier role in mediating the kinds of longstanding cross-town conflicts that Waze has renewed and amplified. Whether the deal will help to resolve fundamental long-term issues related to the city’s growth and inadequate infrastructure is another matter. — newyorker.com
