The Alley Flat Initiative is a collaborative project between the Gaudalupe Neighborhood Cooperation, the Austin Community Design and Development Center, and the University of Texas Center for Sustainable Development. The initiative’s goal is to demonstrate affordable and adaptable housing types with efficient design and sustainable technologies. The alley flats are “small, detached residential units, accessed [...]
The housing industry is rekindling in Florida, giving us the opportunity to re-evaluate our approach to modern housing. Recent technology has brought numerous advances; however, the wisdom and building techniques that once created resilient and sustainable architecture have been lost. South Florida’s unique housing market began after Henry Flagler’s FEC Railway extended to South Florida, [...]
While we often think of cities according to their skylines, we overlook the fact that these are constantly changing in cities around the world. Because of cities’ organic nature, the essence of the city is thus manifested physically in the urban format. New transformations and new skylines are indicative of changing attitudes, and in many [...]
Work has been done to create “smart communities,” a concept which includes information technologies as indicators for future urban planning and development, but there is still some blurriness about what these transformations really intend to do. In a October 2007 report presented by Smart Cities in Europe, developed by the University of Ljubljana, Vienna University of Technology and Delft University [...]
Easy access to a hospital is vital to a good hospital design. When we say “easy access,” we are referring to the ease with which cars and ambulances can access a hospital, especially considering emergency situations. Is this easy access concept possible for Athens, Greece – a city of approximately ten million people? Athens’s residents [...]
As architect Bertrand Goldberg’s civic legacy was highlighted in his engagement with Federal regulators during the Marina City Project, another prominent building of his remains mired in a preservation struggle. The Prentice Women’s Hospital (pictured above) is considered an icon of modern design, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation just lost the fight to save it from [...]
For many urbanites, putting up with occasional construction is accepted as an unfortunate aspect of city living. In a rapidly developing city like Shanghai, however, it never stops. The construction of an ambitious redevelopment plan in the central area called “The Bund” will continue until 2020. First established as a British settlement area, The Bund [...]
Known as a predominantly industrial and blue-collar neighborhood, the Northeast Minneapolis District in Minneapolis, Minnesota has been experiencing a significant economic and physical transformation in the last few decades, and has become closely affiliated with sustainable living and its growing artist population. Historic warehouses and old factories have taken on a new purpose of artist [...]
The nongovernmental organization “Our Park” is behind a successful story of synergy between private and public actors, as well as participatory design, for the creation of an open public space in the heart of Athens, Greece. For over a year, “Our Skate Park” in downtown Athens has set a useful and optimistic precedent in urban [...]
As a child in elementary school, you become subjected to such plays on words as rethink, reuse, and recycle. To you, as a child, it is fascinating and mind-numbing how the words work together. As the years fade though, so does the fascination with this play on words. Your once favorite buzz word recess has [...]
Thessaloniki, Greece has a rich history. Early Christian and Byzantine monuments, churches, and public buildings, with neoclassical and Baroque architecture, all contribute to the formation of a culturally diverse urban environment. Among them, completely modern edifices (such as the New City Hall) enhance the diversity of the city’s urban structures, while controversy has surrounded them since day one. The [...]
KRDB, the architects of the Sol community in East Austin, utilized creative solutions to design homes that address multiple facets of sustainability. Affordability is innate in the Zero-Net Energy homes; the carefully considered designs reduced initial costs, and utility costs are lessened due to their energy efficiency achieved through some unexpected methods listed below. Highly energy efficient [...]
A young city, Miami, Florida is still creating itself. Though a late-bloomer and nicknamed the “Magic City” for its rapid population growth, the metropolis followed the familiar route of other American cities: vibrant early 1900s town to economic depression, to post-war suburbs, to single-use zoning, to highway-dissected neighborhoods, to the massive traffic-congested city today. And [...]
Anyone who has ever been to an Apple, Inc. store knows that the company’s branding and marketing go beyond its products – it spills into the company’s architecture. The glass façade and minimalist furniture prominently featuring glowing electronics are an unmistakable stamp of Apple’s spatial branding. So what, if you could imagine, would the headquarters [...]
Like many global cities, Buenos Aires has more than one airport serving the transportation needs of its citizens. But the main international airport Ezeiza, located almost forty miles from the city center, lacks many of the so-called “ground services” – a term used in Airport Planning for defining all of the economic movement surrounding airport [...]
The University of Michigan is a world-class university with its main campus in the idyllic small-town Ann Arbor, Michigan. Students and Ann Arbor natives often refer to their little slice of heaven as “28 square miles surrounded by reality.” The reality coming to mind now is the high poverty, crime, and population decline plaguing Detroit, [...]
New York City, above others, has defined itself through an evolving scholarship connected to its rapidly changing street life. This broad conception of street life has been widely debated and discussed from the standpoint of urban theorists and activists such as Jane Jacobs and William H. Whyte, whose respective works, The Death and Life of [...]
Bertrand Goldberg’s iconic Marina City project has been a fixture of Chicago’s skyline for decades. The unique, futuristic, corncob-shaped towers, constructed using innovative concrete pouring techniques, represented a bold expression of design in the late 1950’s. As remarkable as Marina City is from a design perspective, a retrospective on Goldberg’s work at the Art Institute [...]
Why has downtown Miami’s Bicentennial Park been closed for the past few years? Because city officials, architects, and construction crews are working tirelessly on the city’s most exciting new bayside destination: Miami’s Museum Park. During the next two years, Bicentennial Park will reemerge as Museum Park, with two new museums and a reimagined transit stop. [...]
The Twin Cities prides itself on its diversity. Unbeknownst to many, it is home to the largest Somali population in the U.S. In addition, it has the largest Hmong population outside Laos, the second-largest Vietnamese and Ethiopian populations, and one of the fastest-growing Latino/Hispanic populations in the country. The different cultures have helped shape the [...]
