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 [...]
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 [...]
Is rapid transit a key factor to unleashing a city’s economic potential? A new report from accounting giant KPMG indicates that this is certainly the case for Vancouver, British Columbia’s Broadway Corridor. The Corridor is a ten-kilometer stretch of roadway that spans the length between historic Commercial Drive and the largest university in Vancouver, the [...]
Climate change is seen as the major problem of our generation, and confronting it will mean action on how energy is sourced and the levels of demand. In 1990, the United Kingdom signed an agreement for reducing emission levels at least 80% by 2050. The Northern Ireland government has set a bold target in relation [...]
What is the most effective method for rejuvenating neighborhoods that have seen chronic underinvestment for generations? This is a daunting question that major cities across the United States have struggled to answer for decades. While there may be no easy answer, the City of Chicago believes that they have developed a unique approach that will [...]
Historically, port cities located their industrial zones near the waterfront for the convenience of transporting goods. Often times, highways or railroads were later constructed near the industrial waterfront. But as contemporary manufacturing and shipping processes are significantly more efficient and require less space (since transportation moved from bulk to shipping containers), these port cities are [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
What happens when we run out of farmland, green recreation space, and forests that inhale carbon dioxide? An increasingly significant global problem is the amount of land and soil that is lost to urban development. With 70% of the world’s population expected to live in an urban area by 2050, efficient urban planning is essential [...]
Vancouver, British Columbia consistently ranks as one of the “most livable“ cities in the world. However, what is frequently ignored about Canada’s most livable city are the multiple suburb municipalities that surround it. The Metro Vancouver region is composed of twenty-two municipalities and a population of just under two million people, many of whom work and [...]
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 [...]
Phoenix, Arizona has been making changes from its suburban, single story, sprawling past. The inception of Phoenix’s , light-rail system, METRO, has acted as a catalyst for the proliferation of transit oriented developments (TODs) along the corridor it occupies. This is no accident, as the cities in the Phoenix, Arizona metropolitan area have been pursuing [...]
Downtown Lincoln, Nebraska has always been the economic and social center of the city; the Haymarket area being the heart of this downtown area. While parts of the Haymarket remain popular hot spots for restaurants, farmers markets and businesses, the outskirt area of the West Haymarket area, an area that was once a bustling railroad station, [...]
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 [...]
In 1993, the Base Realignment and Closure Commission (BRAC) announced the closure of Naval Air Station Barbers Point, located on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. Formally closed in 1999, Barbers Point became the Kalaeloa Community Development District. In 2002, the State Legislature appointed the Hawaiian Community Development Authority (HCDA), an agency that works to revitalize areas [...]
