Urban designers are increasingly being tasked with an emergent ‘design challenge’ for public spaces: how best to deliver anti-terror infrastructure while generating a pleasant urban environment. By allowing themselves to be drawn into this challenge, and by dutifully working to respond with creative and constructive solutions, they are inadvertently helping to normalize a creeping ‘fortification’ of our cities that in turn contributes to a wider process of ‘bordering’ across the world. — Failed Architecture
Urbanist Alice Sweitzer and Failed Architecture editor Charlie Clemoes share their thoughts on a booming new design task, "making an increasingly aggressive urban situation more palatable to an ever more anxious citizenry." View full entry
The Statue of Liberty is a universally recognized structure and symbol. But do most people know the story of its creation? Opening this Thursday, the new Statue of Liberty Museum aims to educate visitors about the history and legacy of the statue through immersive gallery spaces and artifacts. During a press preview last week, 6sqft toured the 26,000-square-foot museum and its landscaped roof, located on Liberty Island across from Lady Liberty herself. — 6sqft
All photos by James and Karla Murray exclusively for 6sqft.All photos by James and Karla Murray exclusively for 6sqft.All photos by James and Karla Murray exclusively for 6sqft.All photos by James and Karla Murray exclusively for 6sqft. View full entry
Los Angeles is a cornucopia of sites and experiences. However, beyond the city's experiential characteristics it's also home to an elaborate collection of historical landmarks and structures. This week the Los Angeles Conservancy announced its 2019 Preservation Award Recipients. The selected... View full entry
When bad things happen, we look around for someone to blame. And when it comes to gentrification, which is loosely defined as somebody not like you moving into your neighborhood, there’s no shortage of things to blame. — City Observatory
Depending on where you live it isn't difficult to notice specific changes happening within your neighborhood. From trendy housing developments, boutique shops, and independent cafes gentrification affects more than a neighborhood's curb appeal. A buzzword many have become familiar with these... View full entry
Two recently released video games are updating the SimCity model to better incorporate the complex relationship humans and cities have to nature and its precious resources. The first, Islanders, has users generate a city on an island with a limited amount of resources. Users are given a set... View full entry
Shade is often understood as a luxury amenity, lending calm to courtyards and tree-lined boulevards, cooling and obscuring jewel boxes and glass cubes. But as deadly, hundred-degree heatwaves become commonplace, we have to learn to see shade as a civic resource that is shared by all. In the shade, overheated bodies return to equilibrium. [...] Shade is thus an index of inequality, a requirement for public health, and a mandate for urban planners and designers. — Places Journal
In this longform piece, writer Sam Bloch delves into the history of how shade has served as an index of inequality in the urban design of Los Angeles, and how the city (and perhaps other locations) should learn to consider shade as an important public health requirement. “People living in poor... View full entry
Hudson Yards may appear to be a made-in-NYC development, but in actual fact, it took its blueprint from a similar neighborhood in Tokyo known as Roppongi Hills, which broke ground in the 1990s and opened in 2003. While there are a few notable differences—you won’t find any rice paddies on the roofs of Hudson Yards’ buildings, for one—the similarities are striking. But in many respects, this is no surprise—architectural firm KPF played a hand in the design of both developments. — 6sqft
Faced with the threat of rising sea levels said to jeopardize 90% of the world's largest cities by 2050, UN Habitat convened its first roundtable to discuss potential adaptation strategies. In particular, the dozens of experts, investors, scientists, and officials, were there to explore new... View full entry
The crowded field of competitors who’ve proposed solutions for the ailing Brooklyn-Queens Expressway has gotten another entrant: Bjarke Ingels Group, which has unveiled a proposal that it calls “BQP.”
The “P” stands for park, and in BIG’s plan, green space takes center stage. [...] the vehicles that use the BQE would be moved to a roadway that would be covered and topped with as much as 10 acres of new parkland.
— Curbed NY
"Though a cost and time estimate for BIG’s plan has not yet been made public, the firm claims it will be less expensive, and less time-consuming, than what the DOT has proposed," reports Curbed NY (click here for their detailed explainer of what the massive Brooklyn-Queens... View full entry
Bill Heine, who famously put a 25 foot fiberglass shark by the sculptor John Buckley on top his house, has passed away. A BBC radio broadcaster, Mr. Heine spent a good sum of his time protecting what he saw as a fight for creativity. Placed without planning permission in 1986, the unusual home... View full entry
More than a decade after New York came close to enacting the country’s first-ever congestion pricing program, it’s finally becoming a reality.
A tolling structure for Manhattan’s central business district (CBD)—roughly defined as the area below 60th Street in the borough—passed as part of the FY2020 budget, as both a means for reducing the traffic that clogs city streets, and introducing a new stream of revenue for the perpetually cash-strapped MTA.
— Curbed NY
"New York’s congestion pricing move may also lead other cities to implement their own traffic surcharges—Boston, Los Angeles, and Seattle are among the municipalities that have been considering it," writes Curbed. View full entry
'Mirror Mirror', a public installation designed by SOFTlab, opened over the weekend alongside Alexandria, Virginia's revamped Waterfront Park. The 8-foot-tall, interactive piece is the inaugural project for the city's public art series which is a key part of efforts to enrich the experience of the... View full entry
“Paris changes! But nothing in my melancholy
Has changed. New palaces, scaffolding, blocks of stone,
Old neighbourhoods, all turn to allegory
And memories weigh more than stone.” - from The Swan by Charles Baudelaire
— Kunstkritikk / Nordic Art Review
A tragicomic cultural and architectural critique of consumer modernities by Will Bradley. "Every architect in Europe (and beyond) is hustling for a piece of the future Oslo. Their visions are wildly, overtly, perhaps clinically at odds with reality." A must read, h/t Ron Linden via Peter... View full entry
Last month, Amazon announced that it was canceling its controversial plan to build a second North American headquarters in New York City's Long Island City neighborhood. For residents and activists concerned about gentrification and overcrowding, the decision to abandon the plan was seen as a... View full entry
This year’s parking crater tournament has us feeling something past contests never did: Hopeful.
We asked readers for the best examples of surface parking lots turned dynamic urban places around the country. We got a great response, with some really exciting transformations.
We had to eliminate a few contestants to whittle it down to the Sweet 16.
— Streetsblog USA
If you've enjoyed the America’s Sorriest Bus Stop contest, organized annually by Streetsblog, and are looking for an alternative 'Madness'-themed tournament this March, then this is for you: Parking Madness 2019 kicked off just a few days ago and pits 16 successful surface parking lot... View full entry