Via Urban Re:Vision: Urban Re:Vision and the Central Dallas Community Development Corporation announced that “Forwarding Dallas” has been selected as the winning design from Re:Vision Dallas, an international design competition. The challenge, to transform a vacant inner-city block behind City Hall into a carbon-neutral community, drew hundreds of entries from top architecture firms and city planners in 14 countries worldwide. “Forwarding Dallas” is the product of a collaboration between Portuguese-based architectural firms Atelier Data and Moov, and will run “off the grid,” acting as a working model of sustainability for cities around the globe. Ground breaking is scheduled for early 2011.
Continue reading ‘forwarding dallas’
I stumbled across this un-dated photo of Adelaide St and City Hall, and it makes me marvel at how cities change over time. This week, at a Brisbane Institute panel discussion on building successful cities, I watched as James Tuma from Urbis had to defend their new King George Square design to a rather unimpressed gentleman. Love it or hate it - I certainly do like that it is enticing some public debate about the quality, use and function of our public spaces. Even critics would have to agree it’s better than it’s former state as a car park.
Stormwater systems in cities are typically designed to get rid of rain water, but with increasingly violent rainstorms and aging infrastructure systems, low lying cities are more vulnerable to flooding. This has lead the Dutch office ‘DE URBANISTEN’ to came up with a new solution for this growing worldwide problem. Created for the City of Rotterdam, Waterpleinen (Watersquare) seeks to catch the rain and create playful public features while preserving the water quality in the canals. Continue reading ‘Waterpleinen’
This Friday, September 18, is PARK(ing) Day. It is an international day of action that was started in 2005 by the arts collective Rebar to raise awareness about the lack of parks and green spaces in San Francisco’s downtown. They transformed an on-street car park into a ‘people park’ by temporarily providing turf, seating and shade. It is based on the idea that paying for a parking meter is like ‘renting’ a public space, and that you don’t technically need to put a vehicle there. Since the original PARK, the idea has been creatively adapted by hundreds of people around the world and in over 50 major cities. In 2008, Brisbane was the 3rd largest city worldwide with over 40 PARKs and it’s back and bigger this year. Continue reading ‘park(ing) day 2009′
The lower Bay TTC subway station in Toronto was transformed into an interactive installation and party venue last week by local artist Justin Broadbent. Absolut vodka commissioned Broadbent, 28, to interpret the phrase, “In an Absolut world, opportunities always pop up.” The platform and each parked subway car had it’s own theme. There was a red one with chandeliers, a green one that was a literal jungle of plants, and one with a “Love Is…” love note vending machine (pictured). My love note read “yesterday I talked to the universe and it told me that you were “really important”. I said “but they are so small” and the universe replied “small is my favourite thing. xox”. OK, so maybe it was all just some shameless marketing for Absolut, but “Love Is…” (to my urban planner heart) a fun use of urban space that at least can make people rethink and see the untapped creativity and potential of places.
The Museum of Modern Art and P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in Long Island City, Queens, has an annual competition that gives emerging architects the opportunity to build projects for P.S.1’s courtyard. This years winner is “afterparty” by the architectural firm MOS. It is a temporary urban shelter and passive cooling station with chimney-like shapes created by a lightweight aluminum frame that is clad in a layer of mesh and palm fibers. The architectural installation creates the setting for the “Warm Up” events which are super fun dance parties that occur throughout the summer. Together, the music, architecture and exhibition program provide a unique multi-sensory experience for music fans, artists, and families alike. The Young Architects Program has been creating exciting spaces since 1998, and one of my favourites is last year’s “P.F.1: Public Farm One” by WORK Architecture Company.
The other day, Park Avenue in New York was eerily quiet without a car in sight. It was however full of vibrant community life with cyclists and pedestrians enjoying a rare freedom of a whole street to themselves. Summer Streets, is an annual event (in its 2nd year) that closes more than 10km from the Brooklyn Bridge to Central Park. It takes place for three Saturdays in August (August 8, 15, & 22). More than just a road closure, it has great free programming including free bike repairs, bike share rentals, digital camera share, music performances and even fitness classes on the street. The atmosphere was positive and fun and I couldn’t help but think all cities should have this.
Continue reading ‘Summer Streets’
The High Line in New York is a project that is transforming an old elevated rail structure and making it into a beautiful 2km park. Stage 1 opened in June and I just had the wonderful pleasure to live out a dream and see it in real life. I ran up the Gansevoort St stairs like an excited child, knowing there was going to be a magical treasure up there. When I reached the top, and strolled several blocks of the unique and themes spaces, I found out magic was indeed real.
Continue reading ‘the high line’
Designed by the Dutch firm West 8, the Simcoe St Wave Deck just recently opened at the Toronto Habourfront. This wooden deck mimics the graceful curves of water, and the shape naturally entices people to run, climb, sit and slide. It adds a fun flair to what otherwise could have been a normal footpath. Continue reading ‘wave deck’
Public transport is slightly different in almost every city, and most people pass through stops and stations without giving a second thought to these important pieces of urban infrastructure. “69 Stations” is a photo essay by David Topping, where he photographed all the subway stations in the Toronto system. He describes the subway as “still an obstacle between where we are and where we want to go”, but coming from a city without a subway, I think it works pretty well.
Continue reading ‘69 Stations’
This video “Brisbane in May” was shot over a weekend by Rhys Day. It captures a lot of the honest, everyday going-ons and familiar scenes you might experience and observe in the public spaces of the City and New Farm Park. It has kids playing, pauses at traffic lights, smokers taking a break and picnics in parks. As someone who spends a lot of my time wondering and writing about cities and the experience of urban places, I like that a film without words can say a whole lot more that I could ever really articulate in words.
“…and the ones who are, aren’t doing it very well ” (That is the end of the anonymous quote that’s missing from the photo). This is part of the “What Has Architecture Done For You Lately?” exhibition currently at the Toronto Design Exchange. The exhibition explores architecture through perceptions of success, equality, emotion, health, and the environment.
G.O.D. (Goods of Desire) is a lifestyle company on a quest to identify Hong Kong culture and promote and preserve it’s uniqueness. GOD is the phonetic sound of the Cantonese “to live better”, and the stores are filled with books, furniture, clothing and housewares. It creates and sells products that have a modern twist on traditional Chinese items, and some of their best products give the sense that the designers are sharing local “inside jokes” with you.
Continue reading ‘goods of desire’
Cities are a truly complex combination of many people, and we all see and want different things in the places in which we live. From the Mayor to an architect, from a lawyer to a musician, from a parent to a child - every point of view is valuable and listening to these views are critical to the formation of great urban places. The Institute without Boundaries exhibit at the Interior Design Show, Toronto (5th-9th February) celebrates this by highlighting diverse perspectives on how different people see streets and neighbourhoods. Views range from the perceptive “I notice how no one seems to know each other on my street,” to the funny “I see no hotdog vendors!”
Continue reading ‘how do you see the street?’
(Image via hulia) Since 2005, this hilarious Post No Bills stencil art has been spotted in Toronto as a clever comment on the regulation of public wall space. Signage, posters, street art, graffiti, and outdoor advertising are complex debates for city councils because it is about the cultural content and the visual look of cities. The idea of public space as advertising space is definitely shaping our cities in more than just visual ways, when you consider things like bus shelters and bike sharing are mostly being created by large advertising companies.
TRASH: anycoloryoulike is a vivid art intervention for urban beautification and environmental awareness. The project consists of select city blocks in which new artist-created bags transform standard piles of trash into vivid sculptures of color through the participation of local business owners and residents. Each TRASH bag is 100% biodegradable and naturally scented to repel insects and vermin. TRASH was developed by artist Adrian Kondratowicz in New York. Continue reading ‘trashy’
via Core77: Since May 2005, the Buchstabenmuseum (Museum of Letters) organization has been rescuing typographic icons of our time. Today, the Buchstabenmuseum preserves an immense collection of historical letters from all over Berlin and beyond. Enjoy a visit yourself (by appointment only) or enjoy our sneak preview right now.
Toronto Stories is a new movie comprising of four short stories that a nameless boy witnesses in the course of a single day on the city streets of Toronto - and how, in the end, each of those stories comes to be connected. Described to be in a similar vein to Paris, je t’aime, it is about different types of love and friendships. There’s a story about childhood friends, a story of awkward romance, a story of an escaped ex-con, and a story of a homeless man’s struggle. You certainly don’t actually need to know Toronto to understand the film, but for me it was kind of fun to see the familiar, and try to guess where places were. Continue reading ‘toronto stories’
It’s Thanksgiving weekend in the US, and what follows are big retail sales like Boxing Day sales are to Christmas. For many years, people have been protesting this consumerism in “Buy Nothing Day” which is today, November 29th. It’s a day where you challenge yourself to switch off from shopping and tune into life. The rules are simple, for 24 hours you will detox from consumerism and live without shopping. Anyone can take part provided they spend a day without spending.
Continue reading ‘buy nothing, do something’
While the effects of public policies can be widespread, the discussion and understanding of policies are usually not. The 
