The Netherlands is a relatively small country, however it has a considerably sizeable population that is currently in and around 16.5 million. This makes it one of the most densely populated countries in the world, with almost 83% living in urban regions. It is an extremely low lying country with about 50% of its land [...]
The image of public housing may have been tainted by the likes of Pruitt Igoe and Cabrini Green; but Seattle, Washington has taken a different approach to public housing that aims to develop urban, mixed-income neighborhoods. The Seattle Housing Authority (SHA) has spent the past six years planning a $300 million redevelopment of Yesler Terrace, [...]
In my opinion, the future of building is building up. The use of multifunctional buildings to conserve space is a necessary component of smart urban planning for the future. While many large East Coast cities within the U.S, as well as many cities internationally have adopted this practice, there is definite improvement to be had [...]
Capacity utilization is a key term in business and an increasingly important term with regards to sustainability. The way in which cities utilise space is becoming a far more pressing issue in today’s world. The various ways space can be used inevitably forecasts a city’s future. In the United Kingdom, Nottingham leads the top twenty [...]
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, [...]
During the twilight of the 1880s, Cincinnati, OH, (the Queen City) was internationally celebrated as one of the most prolific centers for beer brewing in the United States. According to Michael D. Morgan, Author of Over the Rhine: When Beer was King, Cincinnati, during this pinnacle era, was chief among the Great American Brewing cities. The city [...]
Kalamazoo Public Schools is the school district neighboring the Portage Public School District that I graduated from. Portage is a suburb of Kalamazoo, Michigan, in the most awful definition of that word, a small town established in 1963 because of white-flight from the city of Kalamazoo. Substitute teachers in the area, for some reason, felt [...]
The special characteristics of cities and the urban way of life have been of fascination to people for a long time. But what exactly does this idea entail? Urbanity is a concept that is classically associated with modernity, when inner-city industrial spaces became the new centers of living and working, leading to a population boom [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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, [...]
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 [...]
Diversity is a key ingredient for a successful development, or at least that’s what George Merrick, Founding Father of Coral Gables, believed in 1925. Along with The American Building Company and former Ohio Governor Myers Cooper, he created the largest home development project in that time’s history: the Village Project. At the time, South Florida [...]
“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 [...]
A problem often seen in up and coming neighborhoods is that the very artists who help spark great communities are priced out when the area takes off. In a city that is known to the world for its art and music, New Orleans is making great efforts to keep artists in the community even as [...]
Will a district characterized by its piers and warehouses become the vibrant “live-work-play urban neighborhood” imagined by the Hawaiian Community Development Authority? The HCDA selected Forest City Hawaii to design, develop, and manage 690 Pohukaina; a Hawaiian contemporary, mixed-use complex meant be the hallmark of the new Kaka’ako. Forest City Hawaii is a subsidiary of [...]
Orlando, Florida’s downtown is undergoing what you might call a “residential renaissance.” As one of the leaders in this national trend, Orlando is seeing faster growth in its downtown than in its suburbs. Economists suspect thousands of apartment units will be added to Orlando’s urban core over the next four years, with a handful of [...]
Imagine a home that can save nearly 50,000 gallons of water a year, has an electric bill that could be next to nothing, and can be monitored and controlled from your smartphone. Such homes are already available in a number of residential subdivisions in Southern California, where houses are oriented to take advantage of the [...]
The central areas of Austin, TX continue to transform with the addition of shopping districts, new office space, condominiums, and apartments. The city’s aim is to create more compact and walkable neighborhoods/areas in order to encourage healthier and more sustainable lifestyles among its residents through reduced car and land-use. It appears that there has been [...]
