With the trend of de-industrialization common to many American cities, the 93,500 square-foot Peer Foods meatpacking plant was in danger of being abandoned when it was sold in 2010 to a unique social enterprise. Enter the The Plant, an ambitious effort to convert this huge facility into a vertical farm and business incubator. By recruiting [...]
On the evening of January 29, 2013, roughly 150 people gathered in SPUR’s Urban Center to listen to San Francisco’s Planning Director speak about the city’s present state and future initiatives in an event contentiously titled “The Meanies and the War Mongers: Recent Planning Lessons from SF.” John Rahaim spoke in a direct manner that [...]
When one thinks of Thessaloniki, Greece, often the first thing that comes in mind is the White Tower, a monument that was built around 1450 and today has become the city’s landmark. This is why the regeneration of the White Tower’s square is considered as one of the most important projects that the city can [...]
“The more successfully a city mingles everyday diversity of uses and users in its everyday streets, the more successfully, casually (and economically) its people thereby enliven and support well-located parks that can thus give back grace and delight to their neighborhoods instead of vacuity.” ― Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities [...]
“Love is in the Air” as Valentine’s Day approaches – lovebirds making romantic plans together and some committed couples planning their wedding. So what is the venue of popular choice? Old, pre-1950’s, historical buildings. The Biltmore, Deering Estate, and Gables Museum are all Valentine’s Day favorites; just as Vizcaya, Miami Beach Community Church, Cruz Building, [...]
In September 2012, New Yorkers were offered a first glimpse of what the Low Line will look like – New York City’s newest subterranean park, designed by co-founders James Ramsey and Dan Barish. According to the New Yorker, the exhibition, entitled “Imagining the Low Line,” on view through September 27, 2012, allowed visitors to “feel [...]
In the middle of one of the busiest and fastest growing cities, lies Shanghai’s former French Concession. With tree-lined avenues, small cafes, boutique shops, parks, and quiet residential streets, the area is markedly different from many of the surrounding areas of immense residential towers and offices. Not only is the FFC (Former French Concession) wildly [...]
Outside of the city of Hamburg, Germany, lies a piece of land that is hard to get to via public transport, on a street which usually appears deserted. Surrounded on both sides by containers, trucks, and industrial storage spaces, it is not what you would normally call an urban, livable place. But then you look [...]
Cheap labour is good, but free labour is even better. With the emergence of ever evolving social media platforms, many of the world’s industries are formulating creatively inexpensive strategies for optimal gain. However, when it comes to the tourism industry, the utilisation of platforms like Instagram and Pinterest are either non existent or tepidly innovative. [...]
In July of 2012, Target opened a brand new location in downtown Chicago, in architect Louis Sullivan’s famed Carson Pirie Scott building. Critics were left to wonder if the landmark building’s character could be preserved with such a corporate tenant, yet the remarkable cast-iron façade remains intact, and the exterior corporate branding is less obtrusive [...]
In a European Capital, one imagines that people from all demographics would be entitled to contemporary resources and basic services. However, in the Southern European country of Macedonia around ten percent of the capital’s population consists of a Roma community that is practically economically and socially excluded from the first world. The Romans have origins that [...]
Let’s begin with a bit of word association. When you hear “Honolulu,” you probably imagine palm trees gently swaying in the wind along sunny beaches abutting the clear, cool ocean. While Honolulu is renowned for its lovely beaches and, of course, the famed Mai Tai, it is also notorious for its traffic. Bleary-eyed commuters are often at [...]
“There is the opportunity to imagine a different Waller Creek, one that is a vital component of urban infrastructure, an open stage for social interaction, and a restored source of natural beauty.” Waller Creek is an urban riparian ecosystem that meanders for seven miles from the northern part of Austin, TX, southward through The University [...]
Global Site Plans has been an important part of my development as a writer and I am proud for having had the chance to work with Renée van Staveren and the crew there. My work as a master’s candidate at the University of Minnesota has exposed me to many of the issues that I wrote [...]
In “Writing About Architecture,” Alexander Lange treats the reader to a process as well as a list of critiques that we can employ to deem the importance and worth of a building. Chapter 3 entitled ‘Whats Worth Preserving’ promotes famous art historian’s Alois Riegl’s five values that help the critic utilize a framework, which he can [...]
Chinatown is one of Vancouver, British Columbia’s original four neighborhoods. Located at the neck of the downtown peninsula, the district holds particular historical and cultural importance. In the past several decades Chinatown has seen a mass exodus of retailers and residents as Chinese communities have become more developed in Vancouver’s suburban cities. Recognizing the importance [...]
If the act of naming something validates its existence, the Dakota War of 1862 is overwrought with meaning. That same conflict, one that killed hundreds of whites as well as Native Americans, is variously referred to as Little Crow’s War, the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862, the Sioux Uprising, the Dakota Uprising, the Dakota Conflict, and [...]
Although frequently ignored in mainstream discourse, the City of Vancouver, British Columbia sits on unceded First Nations’ land. Years of systematic neglect have transformed Vancouver’s oldest neighbourhood, now called the Downtown Eastside (DTES), into essentially an urban reserve. The DTES, historically home to marginalized groups, is the single poorest postal code in Canada. Despite the [...]
For over a decade, the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) has given professionals and students in architecture, landscape, and urban design the opportunity to compete across multiple categories for the annual CNU Charter Awards. The Charter Awards honor a select number of winners, honorable mentions, and two grand prize winners: one professional and one [...]
Often nicknamed the “City of Glass” for its towering downtown condominiums, it is hard to imagine that Vancouver, British Columbia used to be a dense cedar and hemlock forest hosting one of the most active above-ground water drainage areas in the Northwest. More than 100 years after the first European settlers arrived on Canada’s West [...]
