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Scooped by
Lauren Moss
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BIG with additional team members Tess, Transsolar, Base, Transitec and Michel Forgue is chosen to design an 80 Hectare cultural and commercial destination, EuropaCity in France.
The new urban center EuropaCity is located between Paris and Roissy in France’s most populated region Île-de-France, and will offer a mixture of retail, culture and leisure on an unprecedented scale around the theme of the European urban experience, diversity and culture. BIG’s proposal is an urban form combining dense city with open landscape and will become a cultural and commercial gathering point for the surrounding cities of the Triangle de Gonesse. Like a city that is carved into the landscape, the entire facility is covered in an accessible green roof with recreational areas, hiking paths and urban farming. EuropaCity will be directly linked to the coming Grand Paris Express Metro to Charles de Gaule airport.
“EuropaCity will be an experimental hybrid between urbanism and landscape design: Center and periphery overlapped in the simultaneous coexistence of a recreational open landscape of rolling hills superimposed on an urban neighborhood of walkable streets, plazas and parks. We find that Paris these years is taking on a holistic effort to ensure that the urban periphery is given equal opportunity to be as lively and inhabitable as its historic center. EuropaCity will be an important step in this agenda.” –Bjarke Ingels, Founding Partner, BIG.
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Lauren Moss
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Zaha Hadid Architects has designed a swirling complex of apartments, offices and leisure facilities on the abandoned site of an old textile factory in Belgrade, Serbia. Covering an area of 94,000 square metres, the Beko complex will give the historic quarter a new destination on a site that is just 500 metres from the city but is currently unused and inaccessible.
Zaha Hadid Architects took influence from the twentieth century Modernist architecture typical in the capital and combined it with the studio’s signature parametric style to design a cluster of buildings (including a hotel, a congress center, galleries and shops) that flow into one another.
“The masterplan follows the region’s strong Modernist traditions and has applied new concepts and methods that examine and organize the programs of the site; defining a composition of buildings with the elegance of coherence that addresses the complexity of twenty-first century living patterns,” said Zaha Hadid.
“It is absolutely critical to invest in these public spaces that engage with the city. They are a vital component of a rich urban life and cityscape, uniting the city and tying the urban fabric together,” she added...
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Lauren Moss
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Reform—of transportation, food systems, and so many aspects of the way we live—is no longer about adding bike lanes or buying veggies from a local farmer; the time has come to re-focus on large-scale culture change. Advocates from different movements are reaching across aisles to form broader coalitions. While we all fight for different causes that stir our individual passions, many change agents are recognizing that it is the common ground we share—both physically and philosophically—that brings us together, reinforces the basic truths of our human rights, and engenders the sense of belonging and community that leads to true solidarity. Even when we disagree with our neighbors, we still share at least one thing with them: place. Our public spaces—from our parks to our markets to our streets—are where we learn about each other, and take part in the interactions, exchanges, and rituals that together comprise local culture.
Read the complete article for more on the ideas and strategies that positively contribute to our public spaces and enhance interpersonal connections, economic opportunity and placemaking.
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Lauren Moss
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When it is done well - with inclusion, affordability, environmental and cultural sensitivity, and attention to great placemaking - few things are as good for our communities as reinvestment in aging neighborhoods. It’s the ultimate win-win-win: improving environmental quality and people habitat while absorbing new development without sprawl. I am pleased to report that I have found another fantastic-looking example to add to my list of favorites. I suppose I should no longer be surprised when great, environmentally sensitive community-building comes out of the Pacific Northwest, but I can still be impressed. If you’re looking for exemplary revitalization with new, first-class green infrastructure, community facilities and mixed-income housing, take a look at what’s happening in the Sunset district of Renton, Washington, a city of about 90,000 people south of Seattle...
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Lauren Moss
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If you’ve ever been to Manhattan and gazed at the magnificent skyline, you may have noticed that most of the buildings are topped with huge wooden water tanks. I lived there for 2 years before they were pointed out to me on a boat cruise around the island. It turns out that they aren’t ancient relics from the past, but are actually still used today on all buildings over six stories throughout the 5 boroughs. They use gravity to provide water pressure. Just as these crucial devices have gone unnoticed by many, so has the water crisis that we are facing today.
A non-profit, Word Above the Street has taken on a project to bring awareness to our Earth’s most precious resource: fresh water. The Water Tank Project will reshape the city’s skyline as artists and public school children decorate the tanks with original water-conservation themed artwork. The wrapped tanks will be up for 3 months in the Spring of 2013 for the world to see, hopefully inspiring other major cities to do the same...
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Lauren Moss
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Chicago revising cultural and economic development strategy. Mayor Rahm Emanuel has long been a vocal supporter of the arts. Now City Hall is coordinating an extensive outreach effort to check Chicago’s creative pulse, seeking comment on the city’s first new cultural plan in more than 25 years. After his election in February 2011, Emanuel directed the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) to revamp the Chicago Cultural Plan, which was created in 1986 under Mayor Harold Washington. DCASE launched a website in January to coordinate its efforts. They are expected to produce a draft plan by early summer. “The arts are political,” said attorney Michael Dorf, who directed the process that created Mayor Washington’s plan. “They enrich us, they enrage us, they move us to action. And anything that does that is political.” Formerly special counsel to Sidney R. Yates, chairman of the congressional appropriations committee, Dorf wanted to democratize cultural planning with the 1986 planning process. Instead of press conferences and backrooms, he said, the city should borrow from the basics of grassroots organizing. It’s an approach Chicago’s current cultural commissioner, Michelle Boone, has revived for the 2012 plan. With the help of social media, Boone said her department is taking stock of the city’s existing cultural assets, identifying opportunities for “cultural hubs.”
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Lauren Moss
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A small island in the Parisian suburbs, once home to Renault car factories, is being converted into a cultural hub with a focus on sustainable development and a quality living environment. The renewal of the site was first proposed in 1997, five years after Renault closed shop. The island and the adjacent mainland cover 74 hectares in the city of Boulogne-Bilancourt. The idea is to develop the empty industrial space into a thriving urban center, with 500,000m⊃2; of housing (one third of it for low-income residents), 250,000m⊃2; of office space and 250,000m⊃2; for shops and public space. The project will focus equally on sustainable development and creating a quality living environment. The socially diverse "eco-neighborhood" will focus on public transportation over individual cars (an ironic turn for an old automobile plant) and feature large public spaces, filled with plant life and pedestrian walkways...
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Lauren Moss
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Put the village on hold. For the time being, it’s gonna take a parent, a councilman and a developer to raise a child.
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Lauren Moss
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Is there any more potent a symbol of our civilization’s shift away from oil dependency and sprawl than a mobile devices company growing larger..? As young people turn away from cars — a phenomenon so powerful that it has had the marketing departments of car companies running scared for years — they are left with no other option than mass transit, and that means increased density, urbanism, walkability and everything else required to bring our way of life in line with planetary boundaries. Millennials aren’t just fleeing the automobile; they’re also explicitly fleeing McMansions and the suburbs. As S. Mitra Kalita and Robbie Whelan reported in the Wall Street Journal: Gen Y housing preferences are the subject of at least two panels at this week’s convention. A key finding: They want to walk everywhere. Surveys show that 13% carpool to work, while 7% walk, said Melina Duggal, a principal with Orlando-based real estate adviser RCLCO. A whopping 88% want to be in an urban setting, but since cities themselves can be so expensive, places with shopping, dining and transit such as Bethesda and Arlington in the Washington suburbs will do just fine. The ascension of Apple, a company in the vanguard of firms that make devices you don’t need until you have one and become hopelessly addicted, literally represents a wealth transfer from the old economy — cars, oil, long commutes — to a new one built on a desire to capitalize on virtual connectivity by recapitulating it in the real world. The mechanism of this wealth transfer are consumers themselves, who are making decisions every day to buy an iPad instead of a new car, or to move closer to work so that they don’t have to drive at all.
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Lauren Moss
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As Jane Jacobs has said, it is in the mix of the streets where cities get their unique character and retain their independence. Authenticity comes from living in the city, rather than above it.
The more alike our cities and neighborhoods become, the harder we try to seek out spaces, food, and clothes that affirm a sense of realness and rootedness. The more alike we become, the thirstier we are for perceived individuality. And in crowded cities, being an individual means being rooted in modern notions of authenticity...
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Lauren Moss
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City engineers have turned our downtowns into places that are easy to get to but not worth arriving at.
In Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time (public library), city planner Jeff Speck, who spent four years leading the design division of the National Endowment for the Arts working directly with a couple hundred mayors to help solve their greatest city-planning challenges, turns a perceptive eye towards what makes a great city and how we might be able to harness the power of a conceptually simple, practically complex, immeasurably far-reaching solution in improving the fabric and experience of urban life.
Speck outlines a “General Theory of Walkability,” focusing on the four key factors of making a city attractive to pedestrians: 'it must be useful, safe, comfortable, and interesting. Each of these qualities is essential an none alone is sufficient...'
Learn more about urban livability, how to create the conditions that enable pedestrian-oriented development, and the benefits of this approach to urban spaces to the economic, environmental, and cultural health of a city at the article link...
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Lauren Moss
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Designed for the [AMSTERDAM] Iconic Pedestrian Bridge Competition, the project offers more than just a possibility of crossing the Amstel river. Branching into several pedestrian trajectories, the bridge prioritizes on being an extension of the public space in front of the Hermitage Museum. In order to prolong the experience of water, the bridge comprises several routes to create a public promenade. The iconic nature of the project is seen by the design team as an emergent feature resulting from both the geometry of the bridge as well as the socially enabled functional potential. 'We see Amsterdam as a city of differences at a small scale which emphasize its local realm. Houseboats represent a specific way of living which could better highlight the local and embed a fruitful cultural echange between the visitors and Amsterdam’s way of living...'
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Lauren Moss
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Rem Koolhaas is a leading urban theorist and a Pritzker Prize–winning architect engaged in building projects around the world. He co-founded the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), which is receiving international attention for its recent completion of an enigmatic new headquarters for China Central Television (CCTV) in Beijing. Here, Koolhaas discusses how the economic and cultural changes of the 21st century are transforming world cities as well as the practice of architecture.
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Scooped by
Lauren Moss
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Where we live dictates an awful lot about the type of work available to us. Farm vs. factory, bucolic green fields vs. densely packed streets: from Green Acres to The Simple Life, America's urban-rural divide has been an enduring axis of the nation's culture. Today, with less than one percent of people employed on farms, what is the underlying source of that divide? A new Federal Reserve Bank of New York Staff Report by my Martin Prosperity Institute colleague Kevin Stolarick, Fed economist Jaison Abel, and Todd Gabe of the University of Maine, sheds new light on the underlying economic differences between urban and rural areas. It provides a detailed examination of the geographic distribution of jobs, skills, and earnings across the United States, from densely populated city centers to isolated and sparsely populated rural areas.
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Lauren Moss
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The rewards of a vibrant small business sector go beyond economics: Research shows places that rely on large retailers have more problems. Sociologists are divided on how small businesses affect public health. Some say that mom-and-pop operations symbolize a greater investment in the community so proprietors may value the well-being of their employees, customers, and other local citizens more. Others, however, argue that large companies may be better at providing pension plans and health insurance...
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Scooped by
Lauren Moss
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In Accra, Ghana’s capital, a local non-profit is taking two acres of undeveloped land and transforming it into a child-centric, play-friendly public centre where the entire community can re-imagine 21st century urban living.
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Lauren Moss
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Mapping higher education as a potent force of development across the city, now and in the future. Essay by Mitchell Moss.
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Lauren Moss
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We recently had the opportunity to think about what makes a streetscape feel or be urban. As part of the exercise, several people from our office collected images of what they thought were landscape characteristics of a vibrant urban street and we started developing an ever evolving list: bold horticulture that stands up to the architecture, busy sidewalk in front of a skyscraper; density; not always clean and orderly; vibrant colors; places to spend money; illuminated wildly at night; trees; water; somewhere to watch people; shade; irregularity from one street/storefront to the next.
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