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After winning the Municipality of Rome's invite-only competition in 2007, architects Maria Claudia Clemente and Francesco Isidori of Labics revitalized a former bus depot at the edge of town into a mixed-use complex called the Città del Sole, or “City of Sun”. Working with local public... View full entry
[...] the ever increasing mallification of our environment threatens to undermine the public common ground on which our societies were founded: public places should address an abstract, inclusive notion of the public, instead of a defined, limited, and exclusive (in the literal sense of the word) audience. Conversely, we should not confuse or conflate trite stores (even if they place trees inside and call themselves town squares) to be an ersatz public domain. — Failed Architecture
Janno Martens' essay for Failed Architecture explores the many deaths and resurrections of the shopping mall and highlights three phenomena of mallification — the creeping privatization of public spaces and replacement of the organically grown city with an imagineered 'experience' of what only... View full entry
Announced on Wednesday, the two-level glass-walled pavilion was unveiled with a promise from Apple that the planned project "increases public space and provides a daily program of activity to inspire and educate the community."
But it's this element of public space that has people a little concerned.
— Mashable
Residents of Melbourne are angered by Apple's plans to locate its new flagship store at Federation Square, a public center commonly used to house gatherings, protests, sports screening, concerts and Council-organized events. The site is also home to the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, the... View full entry
[...] hostile architecture -- a controversial type of urban design aimed at preventing people from using public spaces in undesirable ways. [...]
CNN invited architect James Furzer, whose designs try to combat hostile architecture, to debate this issue with Dean Harvey, co-founder of the Factory Furniture: a company that produces many of the offending benches.
— CNN
"Is it really a bad thing that you're encouraging people to hang around those spaces?," asks architect James Furzer in his CNN debate with Dean Harvey of Factory Furniture, maker of the controversial Camden bench. "Is that not what architecture and design are about? If we designed a building... View full entry
Otherwise known as POPS or POPOS, pseudo-public space is often offered up by developers in exchange for the city giving them permission to add more floors or density than the current zoning allows for. An incentive pioneered in NYC's 1961 zoning ordinance revision, today, there are more than... View full entry
Over 20 years after being commissioned, Richard Meier & Partners finally completed the new Cittadella Bridge in Alessandria, Italy. As the practice's first bridge (which they worked on with Dante O. Benini & Partners Architects), the 185-meter-long structure reconnects the city with an... View full entry
![<a href="[https://www.flickr.com/photos/mariaeklind/33806652861/in/photolist-TvnW6c-TAd5eY-VeQgk7-VinmRg-XzqBfY-Sqkgpu-V6Ekrr-TvnThg-SqkhN1-Sqke35-TsXiqQ-UH8o3m-TQarqR-TGSHSz-TAgwRQ-UH7e9b-VhJBPc-YA96BL-SAn7fH-U5sbZE-T4FfWc-TvnVsP-V6CSJk-VeQaQu-YRrGUD-N33PuE-N2LySp-VuidpP-SChADK-Vuh7Bi-V3Tjdh-V3UEyq-U1PgcY-NFeAZw-VhKJtT-VhJL4t-JZD8ER-Tf3gEm-L3tWLL-NrhgWF-U1Tuq3-UU8GpL-TQapip-Kby5AP-KYF3Bw-UH8m1A-UH84HL-VeLcrj-MKUkAA-VhKGXX]">[Maria Eklind/Flickr]</a>](https://archinect.gumlet.io/uploads/lm/lmne1q7uig5suy4u.jpg?fit=crop&auto=compress%2Cformat&enlarge=true&w=514 "<a href=\"[https://www.flickr.com/photos/mariaeklind/33806652861/in/photolist-TvnW6c-TAd5eY-VeQgk7-VinmRg-XzqBfY-Sqkgpu-V6Ekrr-TvnThg-SqkhN1-Sqke35-TsXiqQ-UH8o3m-TQarqR-TGSHSz-TAgwRQ-UH7e9b-VhJBPc-YA96BL-SAn7fH-U5sbZE-T4FfWc-TvnVsP-V6CSJk-VeQaQu-YRrGUD-N33PuE-N2LySp-VuidpP-SChADK-Vuh7Bi-V3Tjdh-V3UEyq-U1PgcY-NFeAZw-VhKJtT-VhJL4t-JZD8ER-Tf3gEm-L3tWLL-NrhgWF-U1Tuq3-UU8GpL-TQapip-Kby5AP-KYF3Bw-UH8m1A-UH84HL-VeLcrj-MKUkAA-VhKGXX]\">[Maria Eklind/Flickr]</a>")
There has never been a more important time in society to celebrate what unites us rather than divides us, and that can be through culture and, more simply, through the creation of public spaces where people can come together. — CNN Style
Amanda Levete reflects on the Brexit referendum and the election of Donald Trump. She argues for the responsibility of architects to create spaces of intersections and conversations across thresholds in the contemporary political climate. View full entry
Since 2005, when John Bela and his collaborators(Blaine Merker, and Matthew Passmore) installed the first Park(ing) intervention on a drab street in downtown San Francisco, the idea has gone on to enliven countless blocks around the world, and to enlighten countless urbanites, who get to enjoy spaces normally reserved for stationary cars. — CityLab
Parking Day advocates since 2005 for public access and alternative uses of parking space in cities. This now world wide event transforms parking spots into ephemeral public spaces every year on the third Friday of September. Projects include micro parks, installations by architects and artists... View full entry
In this article on the Huffington Post, Lance Hosey writes about the horror of watching white surpremacists marching in the Charlottesville Downtown Mall on August 11th and 12th of this year. The Mall, which was significantly redesigned in the 1970s, serves as a unavoidable visual reminder of the... View full entry
Brooks + Scarpa designed the Gateway Sculpture to welcome visitors to Pembroke Pines' new City Center in Florida. Painted in a bright, hard-to-miss yellow, the sculpture provides “way-finding and anchor[s] a sense of arrival.” The steel sculpture rises as tree columns that lead to perforated... View full entry
Pseudo-public spaces – large squares, parks and thoroughfares that appear to be public but are actually owned and controlled by developers and their private backers – are on the rise in London and many other British cities, as local authorities argue they cannot afford to create or maintain such spaces themselves. — The Guardian
The abundance of pseudo-public spaces, namely outdoor, open and publicly accessible locations owned and maintained by private companies in London is alarming. To this day it's largely unclear what regulations people passing through privately-owned 'public' land are subject to, and where members... View full entry
Peckham’s famous multi-storey car park has a new addition; a new viewing gallery created by Cooke Fawcett. The young practice, based in London’s creative Clerkenwell, was formed just two years ago, by directors Oliver Cooke and Francis Fawcett, after working on the Tate’s Switch House at... View full entry
The bold addition features the world's first all-porcelain public courtyard, paved with 11,000 handmade porcelain tiles in 15 different patterns. The tiles were manufactured by Koninklijke Tichelaar Makkum, the Netherlands' oldest registered company, established in 1572. — CNN
After six years of construction, the Exhibition Road Quarter, AL_A-designed courtyard space opened yesterday in London's Victoria and Albert Museum, adding 11,840 square feet of column-free flexible gallery space to the museum to help accommodate the V&A's headline exhibitions. Intended as a... View full entry
Now, Hammond has embarked on a new project: the High Line Network, an organization, which just launched a brand new website. Its aim? To help cities working on their industrial adaptive reuse projects learn from the High Line’s stumbles–and from each other. — Fast Company
In many ways, the High Line has been an undeniable success. Phenomenally popular, it has become one of the leading attractions in New York and has brought about a massive wave of development to the area. The flip side of this however, if not yet obvious, is that the project has also been lodged... View full entry
Today we finish off our series of conversations, or "Mini-Sessions", with architects and designers in LA and Detroit, sharing our conversation with Lorcan O'Herlihy. Lorcan is an Irish-American architect, with offices in Los Angeles and Detroit. His recently published book, Amplified Urbanism... View full entry
