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 [...]
Metaxourgio is a residential area of west-central Athens, in close distance to square Omonia. The vicinity’s current urban characteristics stem from its industrial past, which, today, is composed of a big reserve of empty unused buildings, open spaces, small traditional cafés, craftsmen’s workshops on the ground floors of residential buildings, and half-abandoned buildings. Metaxourgio is [...]
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 [...]
Montreal, Canada is a winter city. From November to March (and sometimes even April) the city grows cold, the days are short and it snows – sometimes a lot. Even so, in recent years cycling in winter months has increased dramatically, according to Vélo Quebec. As I write this post, it is a beautiful 6°C [...]
Gonzaga University (GU) has been in the same location across the river from downtown Spokane since its opening in 1887. GU is within a 20-minute walk from downtown, and maintains a balanced mix of park-like campus setting with just a few urban touches thrown in. Gonzaga University has grown and evolved with the city, and [...]
If Phoenix is loops and lollipops, then what is Seattle? After recently moving from Phoenix to Seattle, it is more apparent to me how sprawl has defined Phoenix’s landscape, with its vast amounts of highways interchanges (loops) and cul-de-sacs (lollipops). Disenchantment with the post-industrial city has consequently spawned debates about what constitutes “good” urban design. [...]
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 [...]
Xintiandi was once a quiet residential neighbourhood located in a rapidly developing inner city district in Shanghai, China. Between 1999 and 2001, however, the area underwent a massive redevelopment project. It involved the displacement of 25,000 households and 800 work units, including 3,800 households and 156 workplaces in just 43 days. This was done in [...]
Affordable housing is scarce in the city of San Francisco. Low-income residents and students a-like struggle to get by in a city that is so full of opportunity, yet so economically biased. One viable option towards solving this crisis is utilizing secondary dwelling units, aka “in-law units,” as a way to provide living opportunities that [...]
Ultimately, the real strength of The BLDGBLOG Book is Geoff Manaugh’s skills as a compelling storyteller. As Manaugh delves into the world of Landscape Futures in the fifth and final chapter of his book, the reader is simultaneously immersed in the floating canal city of London A.D. 2109 and in the Cloud City that hovers [...]
The main slogan for this past August 29, 2012 event was “Towards the Buenos Aires of 2030;” and for now Megaciudades is the most important conference regarding Urban Planning and Sustainability taking place in the city on an annual basis. In its third year, the event was organized by the German-Argentine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, [...]
Today, Spokane, Washington and Portland, Oregon are home to multiple universities, both public and private. They also have a reputation with their locals for having quality live performances and concerts featuring local, as well as popular, artists. Both have their respective small coffee roasters that most residents are loudly proud of, Stumptown and Thomas Hammer. [...]
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 [...]
Wow, how fast time does fly! It seems like only yesterday that I was signing my first set of paperwork to do my internship with Global Site Plans. Initially, I must admit that I was a little nervous about doing an internship with Global Site Plans because I feared that I could not produce quality [...]
Passive House, or, Passivhaus in its native German, is a global standard for energy efficiency in the domain of building construction and maintenance. The austere regulations associated with the design philosophy are similar to that of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), yet surpasses it in stringency. The ideal product of a Passive House [...]
During the 1990’s, and this past decade, the urban sprawl of Greater Buenos Aires has responded diligently to the (worst) example of North American cities, making the expansion and low density of Los Angeles, just a mere competitor in the race for urban sprawl. Considering the rapid expansion experienced by the city the question is [...]
In Spokane, WA, the hot button topic of the moment is something that affects everywhere from rural Wyoming and Montana, to the US/Canadian border city of Bellingham, WA,, to China: coal shipment. Essentially, the region is at least 3-5 years away from having a final environmental impact statement, let alone the approval for the port [...]
Geoff Manaugh’s BLDGBLOG book attempts to frame the world as consisting of architecture, resultant of design choices, as legible texts similar to a work of literary fiction, and perhaps most importantly, open to the possibility of rebuilding. With his personal interests at the fore (including a penchant for novelistic allegory and acoustic quality of space), [...]
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 [...]
In the conventional city fabric, the two attributes walkability and biotechnology are seemingly contradictory. This, of course, is not without good reason; the large research complexes fundamental to technological innovation are unsupportive of the intimate, walkable communities so presently desired. The Milken Institute, a leading policy think tank, designated Raleigh, North Carolina as the No. [...]
