How important is measuring park use for urban planners? Should it be of concern to planners when a neighborhood park is empty or underutilized? I live next to Jaycee Park, a park that is exploding with noise daily. This recently renovated park proves the importance of parks as essential for community building. When parks cater [...]
The City of Spokane, Washington implemented two of their first-ever SURGE (Spokane Urban Runoff Greenways Ecosystem) projects in 2010 with AHBL: Lincoln Street on the South Hill; [Bottom] [Official Surge Report]; Broadway Street in the West Central Neighborhood. [Top] [AHBL's Presentation to the City]. Both were the first of their kind in Eastern Washington, and [...]
In many ways, Michigan’s current economic climate is distressing to architects and urban designers. Our regional dependence on the automotive industry has left Detroit, Michigan with a major identity crisis, not to mention the visible fissures indicative of a shrinking city. Then again, these conditions also offer design students a unique landscape for urban study, [...]
It has been argued the cities in the Midwest are on the “decline.” Populations in urban centers like Detroit, Buffalo, and Cleveland are shrinking as old infrastructure decays. However, the newly relocated Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative takes an unorthodox approach to these “shrinking cities” and addresses the so-called problems as opportunities to engage in research [...]
Did you ever imagine that, as planners (or architects), we would be able to make revisions on a 10 thousand sqf retail mixed-use project in Revit, on our smart touchpads, while discussing it with a colleague on What’s App, on our way home, in a public train? It’s happening. Today’s social media mobilizes planners’ and [...]
With the growing popularity of crowdsourced funding platforms like Kickstarter or IndieGoGo, many urban planning professionals have begun to explore the potential of a good web-based brainstorm. In 2011, the development firm Renaissance Downtowns partnered with the city of Bristol, Connecticut to solicit feedback on the piazza feature of its mall redevelopment plan. After receiving [...]
A big Global Site Plans welcome to our newest blogger, Aascot Holt from Spokane, Washington. Aascot Holt is an undergraduate student in Urban and Regional Planning with a minor in Visual Communication Design at Eastern Washington University. She is from Stevenson, Washington and currently lives in Spokane, Washington. Though a plucky little nineteen year old, she [...]
A big Global Site Plans welcome to our newest blogger, Ryan Kucinski from Buffalo, New York. Ryan Kucinski is a Master’s of Urban Planning student at the University of Southern California concentrating in Urban Design and Historic Preservation of the built environment. Originally from Buffalo, New York, he graduated, in 2011, top of his class in [...]
When the opportunity arose six months ago to blog for Global Site Plans, I jumped at the chance. At the time I had recently finished a Diploma in Architecture at a University in the United Kingdom and was brimming with enthusiasm and ideas about the world of architecture, but was desperately struggling to find a [...]
In the last few years there has been a clear tendency in the towns close to Zarautz, Spain to install the “door-to-door waste collection system.” The aim is to reuse, recycle and reduce waste so that minimal amount goes to landfills. It seeks to ensure the correct segregation of waste, and creates a low-cost waste [...]
Urban design is the bridge between urban planning and architecture design. It connects the feelings inspired by the architecture of a building and how the building interacts with the fabric of the neighborhood, and that neighborhood’s future development. A rendering for the new Seneca Casino in downtown Buffalo, New York, shown left, is an example [...]
It is almost guaranteed that at some point every Architect across the United Kingdom has despaired at them. Building regulations regarding the access to and use of buildings, otherwise known as Approved Document M are more often than not, at the least, a minor annoyance, if not a full blown architectural headache. With a continuous [...]
Taksim Square, in Istanbul, Turkey, is one of the liveliest public spaces in the city. It was a part of the modernization project of the newly-formed republic in the late 1930s. Like many other parts of the city, it was based on the plans of Henri Prost, the prominent representative of the French school of [...]
A website is a critical component of any business, large or small. In fact, websites may play an even more critical role in the growth of a small business that may have less marketing resources than a larger company. However, the existence of a website for your business is not enough to ensure its growth. Like [...]
A “build it and forget it” method may not be the wisest of decisions for an urban planner when creating a website. It is a myth that a website can sustain itself after it’s developed. In fact, similar to your business, a website must be constantly maintained if you want it to continue to thrive. [...]
Blogs are today’s “black.” Nowadays, many companies are incorporating personalized websites as part of the businesses’ Public Relations strategy to reach out to new and potential clientele, or the general public. So it is important, more so within the field of architecture, engineering, environmental non-profit, landscape architecture and urban planning, to maintain your website in [...]
Imagine taking one of the busiest highways in your city, sinking it underground, and replacing it with a dynamic urban park that caters to residents of all ages and backgrounds. Now imagine designing and building this feat of engineering in less than a decade. While most cities would find this task impossible to complete (ask [...]
With 468 stations and 842 miles (1355 km) of track, the New York City subway is one of the most extensive public transportation systems in the world. The layout of many of these stations prevents riders with motor, auditory, and visual disabilities from accessing these facilities with ease and thus creates a user-designer gap. Visually [...]
Today, thanks to social media, innovative planning strategies and sustainable technologies are shared globally within the environmental design community. Are you part of that dialogue? If you’re reading The GRID, you’re off to a good start. Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn are also valuable resources, but there is something to be said for attending these discussions [...]
Something very strange is happening in Liverpool, England. In a remarkable piece of urban planning one of the most recognisable areas of the city has been changed forever by one piece of modern design. Is this beneficial to Liverpool, or has this attempt at contemporary architecture within a historically sensitive setting ruined a section of [...]
