Re-inventing ordinary street dividers and concrete balls, Liesbet Bussche creates larger-than-life jewelry pieces for the streets of Amsterdam. The Belgian designer makes small interventions to the street scape, a charm to a chain or earring backs to a concrete ball. However, altogether the jewelry can easily make any passer-by smile upon finding a serendipitous change in the uniform vocabulary of the urban landscape.
San Francisco’s Bay Bridge is currently undergoing a massive renovation as an aging section of the East Bay span is replaced with a new one, and the old conduit has fired up architects’ imaginations for new ways to use the soon-to-be abandoned space. Inspired by the success of New York’s recently opened High Line Park, Rael San Fratello Architects haver proposed a hanging neighborhood and sky park complete with 1.92 miles of bicycle paths, climbing walls, gardens, and meadows.
For those New Yorkers who look forward to the first Thursday of each month for the DUMBO Gallery Walk, now there is even more reason to head that direction: the DUMBO archway renovation is complete! Although the archway has been open since the fall of 2008, the DUMBO Improvement District and NYC Department of Transportation recently invited pedestrians in to view the structure’s upgraded interior. Designed by Rogers Marvel Architects and Jim Conti Lighting Design, the “beautification” project introduces wooden benches, lighting, and street improvements.
For most people, bicycles represent a means of transportation, a fun activity, or even objects of affection. For David Byrne they’re much more – they offer a unique opportunity to experience the culture, history, and vitality contained within our built environment. Due for release today, Bicycle Diaries is a freewheeling travelogue that finds Byrne pedaling through the cities of the world as he expounds upon architecture, infrastructure, and life within the world’s great cities.
Heads up all engineers, architects, and designers in NYC! The urbanSHED design competition is looking for a better sidewalk shed, and they’re giving away $25,000 in prizes plus the chance to construct the winning design! Anyone who’s every visited a dense city is likely to be familiar with these unsightly scaffolded spaces – sure, they may protect your head from falling construction debris, but they tend to be plastered with posters, …
This week the Architecture + The City Festival took us to Treasure Island for an upclose view of the proposed sustainable development plan and a not so shabby panoramic view of the whole San Francisco Bay Area. We found that the entire place is steeped in future plans and the island is a keystone in what will become a center for green living in the Bay.
This past spring, New York City’s Architecture for Humanity chapter (AFHny) partnered with Parsons School of Continuing Education in the spirit of volunteerism to offer a design studio for high school students. Under the tutelage of Parsons teacher, Nick Brinen, and several AFHny volunteers, the students developed concepts for two park shelters located at the entrances of the soon-to-be-reopened High Bridge. Having gained real-world experience and an appreciation for public service, we weren’t surprised to hear that several of the participating students earned scholarships for various design majors at Parsons, FIT, and Pratt. Read on to learn more about their designs!
On Monday, July 13, 2009, Diana Balmori and her NYC-based landscape and urban design firm hosted a forum that was part-academic discussion, part-social media experiment. The forum, called Making Public Places, was hosted in the Meatpacking District (MPD) while it streamed live online via Twitter and Ustream. The design firm was joined by 40 landscape architecture and urban design students from the Netherlands. Photos and tweets were updated throughout the event and yours truly was there to see it in action and provide you with highlights. But for more in-depth information, you can check out Balmori Associates‘ recently launched blog focused on public places.
The Deadline to enter the REBURBIA Design Contest is FRIDAY – July 31st!
If you’ve been reading Inhabitat this summer, by now hopefully you have heard about our REBURBIA contest. If you are interested in entering the design contest for a chance to win fortune and fame – the deadline is TOMORROW!
Anyone who has been watching the subprime mortgage meltdown take over sprawling suburban communities while greenhouse gas emissions continue to accelerate would say that the future of suburbia looks bleak. That’s why we want to remind you about our REBURBIA contest to re-imagine the suburbs, and encourage you to GET YOUR ENTRIES IN TODAY!
How does urban space become a public place? How does design impact a space’s civic liveliness? On Monday, July 13, 2009, from 10 am to 1 pm, Diana Balmori and her NYC-based landscape and urban design firm Balmori Associates, will be unpacking these questions and other issues that surround place-making. 40 landscape architecture and architecture students will join Diana Balmori and …
It seems virtually everyone—from Wall Street bankers to small business owners—has been affected by the economic downturn. Now, the recession’s latest victims may be American cities. The Obama administration is reportedly considering plans to raze sections of 50 economically depressed US cities, condensing these towns’ shrinking populations and city services to smaller areas. The plan, dubbed “shrink to survive,” may seem kooky, but it could be big news for environmentalists: In many cases, bulldozed districts would be returned to nature via forests or meadows.
If you live in a city, you know that the apartments are tiny and there isn’t a lot of green. That means you have to rely on the public, open spaces for a little breathing room. We <3 public space because it means we are sharing space, which means we are building a community that cares about its neighborhood. This week, we are looking back on some pretty cool initiatives, and looking forward to something immensely exciting — the OPENING …
This past Thursday, April 23, four teams made up of third-year Master’s of Architecture students from Columbia GSAPP, Parsons The New School, Pratt Institute, and City College of New York (CCNY) competed against each other in an hour-long design competition to propose a sustainable design solution for the DUMBO archway. After several years of being used as a storage facility, the archway has re-opened for public use. The competition challenged the students to create a link between the archway and the adjacent lot in light of its re-birth as a public space. The event took place in Raumlabor’s Spacebuster, an inflatable and mobile dome which has been hosting events around New York City this past week. Read on for more about the eco-design competition and for the winners!
Located in Rijeka, Croatia, this urban design incorporates public indoor and outdoor spaces into a modern example of a multi-functional city center. Designed by architecture team 3LHD, the project is characterized by ribbon-like linear strips that stretch north-south over the site. Linear green roofs are located on alternating strips alongside a large, hard-scaped plaza, and a central community center will be used primarily for sports events, but will also offers the visitors a library, fitness area, and retail locations.
New parks will be popping up all over the country today, thanks to Park(ing) Day, an annual event that turns paved parking spaces into temporary green gardens. The event was started in 2005 by ReBar, an art collective based in San Francisco, and is meant to challenge urbanites to think about what our public spaces would be like if they were designed for the pedestrian, rather than the car.
LOTS MORE GREAT GREEN DESIGN STORIES HERE... KEEP READING!
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