Inhabitat

Green Roofs Are Changing the Way Architects Design Buildings

Al Johnson’s Swedish Restaurant & Butik, photo Luanne Lozier

Green roofs are wonderful things; like a thick blanket, they keep roofs cool in summer and warm in winter. They have been around for centuries in Scandinavia and Iceland, where they moderate the cold winters and sometimes very hot summers. They reduce the “heat island” effect, where the air above and around the old black roofs gets hotter, making them hot properties in cities. Some, like Toronto have made them mandatory; other cities like Chicago give financial assistance to promote them. The provide habitat for birds and insects, even goats.

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PREFAB FRIDAY: Parasitic Homes Take Root On Empty Walls

As more people filter into the city, open land to build on will become more and more scarce, and we may have to use every available bit of space we can, including empty bare walls, bridge pylons, and retaining walls. The Prefab Parasite, designed by Australia-based Lara Calder Architects, is such a structure — aiming to turn previously empty vertical surfaces into livable and attractive private space. Mimicking parasitic qualities, the home is designed for durability and adaptability, evident in its construction out of prefabricated panels so that the home can be affixed onto any wall or pylon large and strong enough to hold it.

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Guangzhou Revamped as New Sustainable Super City

It’s an exciting time right now for Asia, which is expanding so quickly that whole cities are being designed, and existing cities have to be redesigned to accommodate all of this new development! Guangzhou, China’s 3rd largest city, is now joining the ranks of these foward-looking cities, and is getting a revamp to allow for more growth and at the same time make it more livable and sustainable. Some of the upgrades include mixed-use amenities like parks, commercial space, and increased transportation facilities that will make the city more cohesive. San Francisco-based Heller Manus Architects is responsible for the master plan of this new Southern axis to the city, which will tie into the recently designed Northern axis, also designed by Heller Manus.

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DUMBO Archway Beautification Complete!

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.

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Bicycle Diaries: David Byrne Bikes the World’s Cities

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.

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urbanSHED: Design a Better Sidewalk Shed and Win $10,000!

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, …

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Skyburbs: Bringing the Burbs to the City

Some people like suburbia for the wide open spaces, yards, and the sense of privacy, but the ‘burbs are not nearly as efficient as urban centers are. What if there was a way to bring all of the positive qualities of exurbia into the city while keeping all of the efficiency of an urban core? What about stacking blocks of suburban space onto blocks of urban space, similar in theory to vertical farms, creating modular gardens, orchards, parks, playing fields, community centers and even homes? The concept is already out there. Dreamed up by two Sydney-based architects, Skyburbs introduces the qualities of the suburbs into denser urban environments.

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Treasure Island Reveals New Sustainable Development Plan

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.

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West Loop Park Infuses Chicago With Green Urban Space

As the construction process for Hudson Yards drags on in New York, we’re glad to see green urban design is alive and well in Chicago. The windy city is no stranger to sustainable building, and this urban park, located on the fringe of the city’s downtown, will certainly give Chicago even more green cred. Perkins + Will, the architects behind the design, developed the park to create more open space for the city, but the greenway also proves to be a pedestrian-friendly gateway that connects the existing downtown to any future development across the Kennedy Expressway.

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ANNOUNCING: The Winners of the ReBurbia Competition!

DRUMROLL PLEASE!
After much heated debate and a dramatic week of online voting, we’re thrilled to announce the winners of the Reburbia competition to redesign the suburbs! We received hundreds of incredible entries over the past month and it was quite a challenge to narrow them down to twenty finalists, and four winning entries.

…

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Sustainable Tower “Peels” the Costa Rican City Skyline

Driven by a progressive environmental strategy that will exploit sustainable energy design, Spanish-based firm Moho Arquitectura’s design for a mixed-use tower in San Jose will become a new benchmark for eco-friendly design in Costa Rica. In addition to its eco-conscious features, the unique “peeling” quality of the tower is sure to turn some heads!

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Telok Blangah Hill Park’s Flying Infrastructure in the Sky

If you enjoyed our coverage of New York City’s High Line raised park, we think Telok Blangah Hill Park’s dizzying infrastructure will “elevate” you to an ever higher level. Located in Singapore, the park’s fly-over style “walkways” are reminiscent of those ancient rope bridges you see suspended over caverns in movies, giving you the very rare experience of viewing towering treetops from a monkey’s perspective. The pathways and suspension bridges are anything but rickety though. In fact, many of them are elegant works of art and architectural precision. But at 120 feet above the forest floor at their highest points, they aren’t for the faint of heart!

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GREEN GLOBE: Plans for Israel’s New Eco-Hub Revealed

Israeli-based architect Zvika Tamari of TeaM Architects recently proposed a conceptual plan for the burgeoning city of Modiin in Israel that takes the form of an incredible grass-roofed eco-dome. Situated at the center of the city and surrounded by a series of green spaces, the Globe Ecological Hub functions as a museum and multi-use urban center that promotes sustainable living. The grass-crowned hub takes advantage of natural ventilation, daylighting, active solar systems, and a host of other green building strategies.

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Making Public Places: Forum on Placemaking in Cities

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.

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LAST CHANCE TO ENTER THE REBURBIA COMPETITION!

REBURBIA Design Contest Deadline at 11:59PM EST Tonight!
Suburbia is in trouble – but your entry can help save it! We’ve been sifting through some pretty incredible designs that have been submitted so far to our REBURBIA contest to re-imagine the suburbs, but there is still time to get your’s in before the 11:59 PM EST deadline TONIGHT. We are turning to designers, architects and forward-thinking idealists to look past the numerous …

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DEADLINE to enter ReBURBIA Competition is TOMORROW!

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!

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Floating Urban Beach Barge Sets Sail on the Danube River

Hungary-based design team Urban Landscape Group recently completed an extraordinary summer project that allows visitors to float down the Danube in a portable pool! Dubbed Barge Beach Budapest, the sandy sailing island acts as a contemporary Turkish bath and open air pool situated in the waterways between the river’s edges. The pop up beach is constructed from three recycled barges and provides residents with a brand new public space to bask in the sun.

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Green on 19: Santa Monica’s First Multi-Family Eco Townhomes

Santa Monica-based architecture firm Jesse Bornstein Architecture, known for their environmentally conscious custom single-family residential homes, recently completed a sustainably designed and built 5-unit townhouse project aptly named “Green on 19 Townhomes” located in Santa Monica, California.

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URBAN DESIGN: Making Public Places Forum Next Monday

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 …

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Registration Open for the 2010 eVolvo Skyscraper Competition

As the world’s population shifts from rural areas towards dense urban cores, skyscrapers, urban infill, and redevelopment will become even more important in the structure of our lives. Now In its 6th year, the eVolo Skyscraper Competition is currently accepting entries for future-forward skyscrapers that redefine how we envision urban design. They’re looking for buildings which examine the relationship between the skyscraper and the natural world, the skyscraper and the community and the skyscraper and urban living, so if you have a project that pushes the envelope in these areas register today!

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A Clearing in the Streets: NYC Spouts a Meadow Amid Concrete

As the topic of urban restoration garners more attention, we have seen an increase in the investigation and experimentation relating to NYC’s ecological past. NYC Wildflower Week demonstrated a rise in popularity of plants native to New York City. Coupling urban restoration and indigenous plants, Julie Farris and Sarah Wayland-Smith, both landscape designers, were commissioned by the Public Art Fund to design and construct ‘A Clearing in the Streets,’ a 15-foot wide, plywood structure containing the beginnings of a meadow. The temporary installation, meant to invite passers-by to appreciate and watch the “re-insertion” of nature back into the city, offers a glimpse into NYC’s native landscape.

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IRON DESIGNER: THE WINNERS!

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!

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TEN Arquitectos NYC Tower Has Stepped Green-Roof!

New York City’s urban grid is dense, so when new developments pop up, we root for intelligent and environmentally-positive design that balances out the concrete with a little bit of greenery. Architect Enrique Norten and his NYC-based firm, TEN ARQUITECTOS, are in the midst of building a mixed-use high-rise in Hell’s Kitchen called Clinton Park, which will provide some much-needed green space to concrete jungle on the west side. The unusual stepped roof and S-shaped design reminds us a bit of terraced farming — an age-old agricultural method — and provides ample space for budding urban gardeners to sow their seeds. When you consider the stepped terrace with the contemporary look-and-feel of the building’s facade, we know this green and attractive addition to the urban grid is sure to please future residents.

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An Urban Oasis for Rijeka, Croatia

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.

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Brazil Promotes Sustainability with São Paulo Eco-Park

Anna Dietzsch, Managing Director of Davis Brody Bond Aedas‘ São Paulo office and Levisky Arquitetos Associados designed this beautiful eco-park on what was once a contaminated brownfield in São Paulo, Brazil. The 130,000-square-foot site was previously the home to a garbage incinerator, so even after the area’s clean-up the team strove to minimize soil excavation by building a deck that, on average, floats three feet above the ground. Victor Civita Plaza also includes solar panels, the extensive use of reclaimed wood, and a retro-fitted museum that explains the sustainable features that were designed into the site.

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Europe’s Grass-Lined Green Railways = Good Urban Design

Although it’s certainly not a new idea to combine landscaping with public transportation, we love the sight of these European trams gliding along on beds of grass. From Barcelona to the Czech Republic, Frankfurt, St-Etienne and Strasbourg, these public transit greenways are showing the potential of incorporating landscaping into good urban design.

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Sweden’s Sweeping Green Roofed Hillside City

Nestled beneath an undulating series of rolling green roofs, Kjellgren Kaminsky Architects New Heden project transforms a vacant city block is a self-contained sustainable city interspersed with cycling paths and walkways. Envisioned as a “green lung” for Gothenburg, Sweden, the development will introduce a beautiful expanse of fresh green space to an area currently consumed by parking lots and football fields.

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New York City to Install Super-Efficient LED Streetlamps

Over the past year we’ve been thoroughly impressed with New York’s ever-lengthening list of green credentials. The Big Apple already has a plastic bag tax, an amazing mass transit system, LEED certified skyscrapers, and car free zones, and we’re excited to announce that NYC will soon be installing a new breed of super-efficient LED street lamps. The new units will be tested this coming year in a select area, and if successful, one day all of New York’s 300,000 lights will be replaced with new LED versions.

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WORLD’S LARGEST SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

A project for the world’s largest sustainable region has been announced and is expected to include all the things that one would expect in a sustainable development: renewable energy, environmentally responsible town planning, micro-banking, education, and biofuels. Where? The ancient city of Cyrene, Libya.

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LIVING SUSTAINABLY AS A DESIGN STUDENT

We talk a lot about sustainability and design here at Inhabitat, but something we’ve never talked about before is the sustainability of life as a design student. Design school is intense and competitive, not to mention full of noxious chemicals – and it can often be trying to lead a sustainable, balanced and healthy life while in design school.

Core77 recently put together a great “Hack2School Special” — full of tips and tricks for getting through design school. Because my focus is sustainable design, I decided to contribute my thoughts on how to make the design school lifestyle more sustainable. Here’s what I wrote…

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AIA HOME TOURS

The last day of Dwell on Design brought fogless, downright hot weather to San Francisco. A perfect day to take a ride around the city and check out some residential gems. Guest writer Maryam Rostami braved the hills on on two wheels to scout AIA San Francisco Home Tours by bicycle! She picked her two favorites and gave us this report:

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