I started writing for Global Site Plans and The Grid in October 2012 and I can’t believe how fast time has passed by. I was reading The Grid posts on social media and I always thought that it was a very well organised initiative from people interested in environmental and urban design – for anyone [...]
For the first time since 2002, the City of Phoenix, Arizona is undergoing a General Plan Update. The current plan is being updated in order to comply with Arizona state statutes, particularly the Growing Smarter Act, which requires cities to update their general plan every 10 years. This time around, Phoenix has created an interactive [...]
“In the elevators of the Empire State Building, you’d hear the elevators of the Eiffel Tower. The sounds of the Paris Metró are replaced with the sounds of the Bejing subway…If you don’t like Rome, you can make it sound like Dubai.” –Geoff Manaugh, The BldgBlog Book In this passage, author Geoff Manaugh introduces his [...]
While I don’t have a background in design, I know a good website when I see one. Elton Consulting Group is a planning firm with three offices in Australia. In addition to consulting services, Elton Consulting Group operates a news bulletin called Urban Affairs. Here are five things that make their website stand out. 1. [...]
The BLDGBLOG Book offers readers an exciting and unpredictable exploration of architecture in the broadest of contexts. Uninhibited by constraints, author Geoff Manaugh follows his line of interests wherever they may lead him, unlocking the possibilities of the future of architecture through his collection of narratives, interviews, images, and more. Ultimately, he challenges readers to join him in [...]
The explosion of online education in the past decade is rapidly changing the face of education. In 2006, 3.5 million students were listed as enrolled in an “online learning institution of higher education.” In 2009, it was asserted that 44 percent of USA post-secondary students were taking either some or all of their courses online. [...]
With its 2.5 acres of land, Tempelhof has recently become Europe’s largest unimproved inner-city space. A site for experimental airships already in the 19th century, Tempelhof was one of Berlin’s most central airports for most of the 20th century. From holding a strategic logistic function within the Nazi regime, to providing an air passage during [...]
Envision a scenario consisting of a strong urban core with dispersing traffic; mixed-income housing; new construction; streets, and building scale meant to reinforce a village-like atmosphere. With the help of zoning and regulations; subdivision ordinances; and transportation services, more and more cities nowadays are seeking to recreate. The Twin Cities are doing just that by [...]
The new wave in social media communication is quickly creating a method for discussing topics relating to urban planning, architecture, and community development. The social media site Twitter is leading the charge in this evolution by creating a way for people from around the world to gather in one centralized location to discuss and solve various [...]
Do you have a problem? Mark it on the map and we’ll take care of it – if you vote for us. Prior to Germany’s Berlin Senate election in 2011, the Green Party presented an interactive online tool that people could use to suggest changes for the urban environment. More than 800 requests were sent [...]
Any person that is reading this post is most likely a frequent Internet user. The population of the world in December 2011 was estimated at 6 billion inhabitants, and the number of Internet users was 2 billion people. This means that a third part of the world can be considered as an Internet user. I [...]
Vitoria (Gasteiz in Basque), Spain, was awarded the title of European Green Capital for the year 2012. Former European Green Capitals were the city of Stockholm, Sweden in 2010 and Hamburg, Germany in 2011. For the year 2013, the green torch will be passed on to the city of Nantes, France. The aim of this [...]
Zoning, the main form in which land use is regulated in the United States, is a controversial form of urban planning. Property owners do not like being told what they can and cannot do with their land and view use restrictions as a violation of their property rights. Those in favor of zoning view it [...]
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 [...]
Planning participation is a requirement in most American states, and many municipalities realize its power; a sense of ownership in the community for an initiative can be a determining factor in the success of any plan. To distribute and gather information to and from the community there are essentially three routes. Depending on the community [...]
Planning should be participatory; however, it’s often very difficult to get stakeholders to contribute to planning processes. Mail-in survey return rates are low, and more often than not, residents don’t want to sit through a Saturday morning design charette. Marketing online and social media platforms give urban planners and architects a set of contemporary tools [...]
Planning consultancies offer a wide range of advice on matters concerned with planning, development, and environmental issues which surround a building project. They are involved in a number of different types of projects, for example: Town centre improvements; Business parks; Airports; Smaller building works for companies. In all of these projects it is important that [...]
Search engine optimization (SEO) is crucial for the success of many websites. No matter how often you may tune your site for a better ranking with major search engines, it may still not be enough if the right keywords or keyphrases are not being selected. This is because search engines decide how relevant a site [...]
During rainfall and snow storms, 27 billion gallons of raw sewage and stormwater are released into New York City’s waterways. These discharges are called Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOS). CSOs occur when treatment plants are overwhelmed by water flows that are more than twice the design capacity. A number of sustainable methods of stormwater management have [...]
It is pretty well acknowledged that the Internet has changed the world, with easy, universal access to information and instant communication across the planet. But how has it impacted the daily life of an architect? Has it changed the way they work? And is the full potential of the Internet being utilised? Habits are changing. [...]
