“As a housing commissioner we feel like we’re trying to plug a lot of leaks in the dike,” said Nick Fish, a Portland city commissioner in charge of the housing bureau and parks and recreation. And the city’s budget has still not recovered from the downturn. Habitat, especially in east Portland, he said, is filling the gap. — NYT
Kirk Johnson examines how a depressed real estate market on Portland along with a recent gift by local businessman John Gray, has enabled Habitat, the nonprofit housing group, to think big. The organization has been buying up property on the city’s struggling east side in the process... View full entry
Economist Paul Romer believes he can create and launch a new city in much the same way tech companies create and launch startups. Looking to Hong Kong and China’s Shenzen for inspiration, Romer’s theory is that the rules and organizational structures of prosperous nations can be grafted onto poorer nations, or areas within those nations, to become highly functioning states-within-a-state. Though so far untested, the theory has gotten the attention of multinational companies... — americancity.org
Even tougher, Ms. Yamamoto said, would be the labor involved in grafting the system onto the city’s existing archaic reservation network or building a new one from scratch.
Jake Levitas, research director at the Gray Area Foundation for the Arts, the San Francisco digital arts nonprofit that conceived Creative Currency, believes that such obstacles are best surmounted by applying the hacker mind-set to community issues.
— The Associated Press
Recently a “hackathon,” Creative Currency put together by GAFFTA, the Hub, American Express, and the City and County of San Francisco, brought together 150 people to figure out how technology could help those in the Tenderloin and Mid-Market areas of the city who do not have... View full entry
The concept of building or imagining a new City is actually more than just a concept, and has been delivered in recent times for political, economic, social or other reasons. Abuja, Nigeria is one of the more recent, purpose built in the 1980s and now Nigeria’s Capital City since 1991. — thisbigcity.net
What might happen at Seattle Center when Memorial Stadium goes away? Are there imaginative and unique uses for a large urban park? What is the Jelly Bean and why is it floating next to the Space Needle?
Join us Friday, May 11, for presentations by the finalists of a design competition, Urban Intervention, that explores the future of Seattle Center and public space. The lecture is free and open to the public, but tickets should be reserved in advance.
— AIA Seattle
If you're in the area, head out to see the finalist presentations on May 11th. In the meantime, you can see the preview videos from the finalists here. View full entry
Designed primarily by Roland Genick, chief architect for rail and transit systems at Parsons, the huge Pasadena-based construction conglomerate, the new stations are topped by undulating light-blue canopies of perforated metal panels that are not only dated — bringing a public-art project from the early 1990s to mind — but provide almost no shade or rain protection. Or solar power, for that matter, though from certain angles the stations look a bit like they're covered with photovoltaic panels. — latimes.com
As contemporary governments and citizens increasingly demand that reclaimed landfills be many things to many people — energy producers, social nodes, memorials — and also that they interface with local infrastructure, we would do well to study the historical precedent of Monte Testaccio... [whose] longevity and vitality make it an ideal model of what a landfill can become: an agent of civic engagement and an urban catalyst. This is the promise of landfill reclamation. — Places Journal
The reuse of waste and remediation of landfills have inspired some of the most innovative contemporary landscape and urban design projects. On Places, Michael Ezban looks back two millennia and explores Monte Testaccio, the great garbage dump of imperial Rome. In this enduring landform — "a... View full entry
International architectural practice 10 Design has shared with us their concept of a headquarter park for pharmaceutical company Yabao in Shenzhen, China. Construction of this massive project already commenced last October and is well underway. — bustler.net
Archinect had the opportunity to speak with Tadao Ando. Check out the Interview: 20 Minutes with a Master. b3tadine[sutures] was so inspired that he posted three times and archaalto wrote "I sometimes imagine that millions of years from now when another intelligent species excavates the earth they find the ruins of Louis Kahn's and Tadao Ando's buildings, and maybe they'll think we had some grace and weren't just accidents waiting to happen.."
Archinect (including Orhan, Alex, Kaori and Paul) had the opportunity to speak with Tadao Ando during Ando's brief visit to Los Angeles to collect his 2012 Richard Neutra Award. Check out the Interview: 20 Minutes with a Master. I especially liked the final exchange wherein Ando revealed "As... View full entry
The Jury of the European Prize for Urban Public Space 2012, chaired by Spanish architect Josep Llinàs, has announced two joint First Prize winners [...].
The European Prize for Urban Public Space is an award created by the CCCB in 2000 to acknowledge and encourage the creation and recovery of public spaces in European cities, and to highlight urbanistic interventions that promote the public dimension of urban space and its role in social integration.
— bustler.net
Ayyüce also says that with governments such as Los Angeles now less financially able to maintain parks and other such amenities, big business set about increasingly co-opting -- or, picking up the slack for -- the creation and safeguarding of a bastardized brand of community commons.
"You go to The Americana, you go to The Grove, you got to the Santa Monica [Third Street Promenade], these are places that thousands of people visit," Ayyüce says. "But this is not really public space."
— kcet.org
KCET's Jeremy Rosenberg talks to Archinect's own Orhan Ayyüce about Proposition 13. View full entry
When the hotel workers released a short film a few months later that vividly made the connection between poverty and the uprising, there was a memorable freak-out in the Convention Bureau and City Hall. Instead of a comprehensive investigation that documented events, took public testimony and probed underlying causes, the Christopher Commission was coaxed to finish its superficial report on reforming the LAPD. No one wanted to hear the voices from our own intifada. — Los Angeles Review of Books
Mike Davis reflects on 1992 Rodney King "uprising" deceivingly known as L.A. Riots. He refers it as "our own intifada." I agree with him since witnessing first hand the black smoke covering the city few hours after the events start to unfold. It was the most socially important event I... View full entry
Over the past ten years a lot has been researched, analyzed, written and said about cities in the largest developing countries and emerging economies such as Brazil, Russia, India, and China. (Bernd Upmeyer, Editor-in-Chief of MONU Magazine, April 2012) — http://www.monu-magazine.com/
Over the past ten years a lot has been researched, analyzed, written and said about cities in the largest developing countries and emerging economies such as Brazil, Russia, India, and China. Let us call it "BRIC Urbanism" as BRIC is the acronym that refers to these countries. Recently, however... View full entry
Ben van Berkel of UNStudio, along with Jonathan Cohn of EE&K a Perkins Eastman company, presented their 'Vision Board' - a conceptual rendering in the year 2050, showing Los Angeles Union Station as a multi-modal transit hub with a mix of uses, new development and outdoor spaces. The intent of the Vision Board was to explore visionary possibilities for Union Station and surrounding areas. — bustler.net
See also: Six visions for LA's Union Station in the year 2050 View full entry
A public forum today at Union Station provided the public with their first look at conceptual visions for Union Station and the surrounding area by six architectural firms bidding to prepare a master plan for the facility.
Metro Executive Planning Director Martha Welborne told the several hundred people in attendance that the point of the vision boards was to energize the teams submitting bids to prepare the master plan, and energize the public that uses — or will someday use Union Station.
— thesource.metro.net