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Architectural historian Diane Favro of [UCLA], has employed advanced modeling software to reconstruct the city of Rome in its entirety over the period of the rule of Augustus Caesar, from 44 B.C. to A.D. 14. According to legend, Augustus boasted, “I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble”... She found that only a small proportion of the buildings in Augustan Rome were converted from brick to marble, and that they would have been difficult to see from ground level. — archaeology.org
Favro explains that while much of Rome was left untouched by Augustus' urban project, the traffic caused by bringing the large quantities of Carrera marble through the city likely created the illusion "that Rome had been transformed into marble." View full entry
“This corridor of shame that I call Van Ness and Market is just a spectacular example of failed urban planning.” [...]
“In the built environment, as one writer puts it, all our warts and our glories are there,” says Paul Groth, an architectural historian at UC Berkeley. “You can tell how we’re treating our fellow humans in the built environment. It really is an autobiography.”
So, what does Groth think our current architecture says?
“Greed.”
— KQED
Related: San Francisco is quick to poke fun of Snøhetta's new One Van Ness tower design View full entry
Al describes CityCenter as the product of “the Bilbao effect: the notion that buildings designed by celebrity architects bring in tourists, and in particular a higher-end type of visitor”. MGM’s version was to bring in name-brand architects such as Daniel Libeskind, Helmut Jahn and Norman Foster [...].
“It goes against the casino design convention,” Al says, “by having towers that let in natural light and meet the street the way buildings do in other cities” – with retail spaces, not gaming.
— theguardian.com
In 1969 Reyner Banham in his book The Architecture of the Well-tempered Environment marked the shift between the concept of interior to that of an artificial environment. Technology and new human needs in fact had become an integral part of architecture, defining a new paradigm to describe indoor... View full entry
Big, brash, and full of energy, Moscow is a city that knows how to make an impression. But for all its attractions — world-class museums, clubs and rapidly transforming food scene, to name a few — its downsides are impossible to ignore. [...]
This week, The Calvert Journal considers Moscow’s prospects, consulting experts at the Moscow Urban Forum, looking in detail at two projects in the pipeline — VDNKh and Zaryadye Park — and checking out some neighbourhoods that are already going places.
— calvertjournal.com
This map shows the difference in living costs around the world using figures from the world's largest database of user contributed data about cities and countries worldwide. The Consumer Price Index, used to determine the difference in the living costs between countries takes into account the prices of groceries, transportation, restaurants and utilities.
The CPI in the infographic is a relative indicator of a country's living costs compared to New York.
— MoveHub
The top five cheapest countries are: India, Nepal, Pakistan, Tunisia, and Algeria.The most expensive countries are: Switzerland, Norway, Venezuela, Iceland, and Denmark. View full entry
In the past two years, Yale’s Journal of Industrial Ecology has published a special issue devoted to “urban metabolism for the urban century” and a paper on “an urban metabolism approach to Los Angeles.”
Clearly, certain precincts of academia are abuzz about this concept. And if still another recent paper — “Mainstreaming Urban Metabolism” — has any sway, the term could become as familiar in urban circles as “resilience” and “Vision Zero.” But what exactly does it mean?
— nextcity.org
Got an appetite for more architectural buzzwords and the industry's bizarre lingo? Get your fix with the ongoing Archinect's Lexicon series. View full entry
“Uneven Growth: Tactical Urbanisms for Expanding Megacities” is, at least nominally, about urbanism and architecture. [...]
The problems, not the solutions, presented in “Uneven Growth” are very real. Before Gadanho and his teams of architects, planners, and researchers can suggest productive solutions, they would do well to acknowledge that their fellow practitioners hold responsibility for the very state of urban affairs they seek to remedy.
— blouinartinfo.com
Previously: MoMA's “Uneven Growth” case studies conclude with exhibition this month View full entry
MoMA began its "Uneven Growth: Tactical Urbanisms for Expanding Megacities" initiative last year aiming to advance international discussion on disproportionate urban development and its potential consequences. To address this issue, six interdisciplinary teams spent 14 months in workshops designing proposals that investigate new architectural possibilities for six metropolises. Each case study will be exhibited to the public at MoMA starting on November 22. — bustler.net
But the discussion doesn't end there. MoMA also created a user-generated Tumblr that collects examples of emerging modes of tactical urbanism taking place in the six cities.Here's a glimpse:LAGOSBy NLÉ (Lagos, Nigeria and Amsterdam, Netherlands)Zoohaus/Inteligencias Colectivas (Madrid, Spain)HONG... View full entry
Calling the cost of housing one of Los Angeles’ biggest challenges, Mayor Eric Garcetti on Wednesday announced a goal for 100,000 new homes in the city by 2021.
In a speech to business leaders at UCLA, the mayor outlined a plan to increase funding for affordable housing, subsidize development around transit stations and cut the red tape that many developers say drives up the cost of building in the city.
— LA Times
The weeks and months of billable hours and protracted talks can translate to an economic lift for a host city catering to out-of-town investors and their lawyers and support staff, making municipalities worldwide eager to woo bickering parties [...] International locales like London and Paris traditionally have been favored — as well as centers of commerce like Hong Kong and Singapore for Asian disputes — but parties can agree to settle matters elsewhere. — NY Times
The American Community Survey is a massive annual effort by the Census Bureau to measure various aspects of American life. Among many other things, respondents are asked if they speak a language other than English at home, and if so, what language is spoken. Using this data, as explained in more detail at the bottom of this post, Business Insider was able to map out New York City's most popular non-English languages. — Business Insider
Business Insider also made a map of New York's most common languages not including English or Spanish: View full entry
China’s visible impact on urban development in Africa is substantial. One need only take a virtual bird’s-eye tour on Google Earth to catch a glimpse of some of the most impressive changes brought to Africa by Chinese constructors, developers and designers. Not far from the Angolan capital of Luanda lies arguably one of the most impressive examples: Kilamba New City. A massive housing development designed to accommodate 500,000 people [...]. — gowestproject.com
Flooded with politicos and political junkies, Washington, D.C. often comes off as a city steeped in raw ambition. But the nation’s capital deserves to be known for something else: coolness. While “cool” might not be the first word that comes to mind when contemplating the latest standoff in Congress, D.C. nonetheless has a lot to offer those who call it home. — Forbes
Today, Forbes released its most recent ranking of American cities, this time based on the vague, unscientific, and seemingly ridiculous category of "coolness." What, you may ask, are the determining factors of coolness?Pay attention high school students:Entertainment optionsBars and restaurants... View full entry
In the past decade, some data scientists have looked to science to understand history, borrowing tools from disciplines such as ecology and statistics to answer questions like when (and how) Rome ceded its throne as Europe's cultural capital to Paris. The new study is part of this trend: It offers an extremely detailed look at the cultural movements of the past 2,000 years, pointing to a new data-driven way to conduct historical research and map the migration of people over time. — National Geographic
The study utilized historical figures, chiefly because records of the poor simply weren't taken in the past. It includes several interesting finds. In particular, the more intelligent individuals in rural areas have consistently migrated to cities and stayed there. In other words, it is no... View full entry