James Corner Interview

Interview by Jill Fehrenbacher at Habitat.com with James Corner on the topic of the High Line in NYC.

Icons and Development

This recent article highlights the latest debate of historical preservation vs. development.
Its a matter of icon, history, memory and perhaps ego. How long to be hold onto images? Who has the right to fight for them, and what this the reason we move forward, change, alter and adapt? In this case, the all mighty recession is given the reason to build, leaving the Empire State Building in the shadow. But what is reassuring about this recent development plan is the possibility that New York City isn't dead yet. Not dead as in debt, no jobs or a defunct rail system. But dead in the sense of soul. What are the global cities of today? Dubai, Doha, Shanghai. And what is it about them that sparks the excitement of city, of living and of a future tomorrow. Wasn't New York City THE one city that brought all those terms to mind? When the city was at its explosive youth, it set the standards for codes, setbacks...It redefined an urbanity, it created an synergy and it imagined a future. Now, bogged down in its own history, stagnate from its own memory, its own inhabitants are themselves holding back its greatest potential - that to evolve.

Sure, this is just one building, but numerous other projects in the city can attest to the old age amnesia the city and its inhabitants have taken on...while the young, restless and future-seeking global cities leave it in the dust.

From Pyramids to Suburbs...

And the cities just keep coming... Cairo is next and is in need, no doubt. This NY Times article sums up the progress of serveral new cities being built on the edges of civilization...


"Greater Cairo needs 2 million new housing units within the next 10 years..."

"A few miles farther out in the desert is the extreme side of replacement Cairo: an exclusive golf course community called Allegria, already half built, and the planned luxury development of Westown, flanking the main highway from Cairo to Alexandria. Developers are building a replica of downtown Beirut, which will serve as an urban hub for all the gated communities and other developments proliferating in the desert."

St Louis Arch Riverfront Design Comp

The City + The Arch + The River
St. Louis and the International Design Competition to rethink the arch national park, the waterfront and the city.

"Higher" Transportation

Some interesting developments in the land of hyper urbanization...China. This new elevated bus system promises to decrease the increasing traffic congestion while decreasing the pollution load on the ever increasing cities of China. To be tested out in Beijing, the opportunities to see our street scapes as layers in the cities for multiple programming could yet be seen.

Designing beyond idealism

Sometimes the amount of need for the urban and architectural condition is overwhelming...and the idealism and Utopian visions are numerous. I like this article from Core77 that invites us as designers to remain effective.

“Faced with a potentially inevitable catastrophic set of circumstances, the designers embodied principles of pragmatism over idealism in the artefacts they created, all the while working within a realization that some problems cannot be solved. This might be hard for us to come to terms with as designers, but Protect and Survive demonstrates that it's certainly a useful space for us to explore. When faced with an unsolvable problem, how can we still be effective?...”

“…By being honest in our design work about the imperfections of the worlds both outside and inside us, we might craft more products and services that speak to who we are in a straightforward way…”

“…I hope that with these few examples, I've begun to hint at how a design process that doesn't necessarily default to an optimistic view of our behaviour or our future can form a valuable and productive mode of enquiry, and lead to equally impactful outcomes. By being honest in our design work about the imperfections of the worlds both outside and inside us, we might craft more products and services that speak to who we are in a straightforward way, and, in doing so, offer more meaningful, true support for the way that we really live our lives—and maybe lead us to less artifical utopias…”

Rural design vernacular

Another nice essay from Core 77

I would ask, how could we look at this in terms of rural vs. urban? Design, planning and infrastructure?

"In an attempt to discover how rural habits of mind and making could inform a design practice, I've been investigating the qualities of agency in a project entitled Objects of the Rural Vernacular."

“There is a unique borrowing from the rural by the urban in design, both past and the present. At their roots, these projects exude a sense of self-sufficiency, informed by a romanticized sense of rural autonomy and resourcefulness. Still, objects that can provide the means to this self-reliance expose agency—the ability to deliberately and directly affect one's environment in an undisciplined, creative manner."

Feedback Loop Urbanism

Always a great read, Urban Omnibus discusses the issue of city and citizen responsiveness.

"311 provides an online point of entry, but its primary form of engagement is a phone call between a citizen with a question and an operator able to point her towards the proper resource or department. But once this connection is made, the caller is deposited right back into the big-city bureaucracy. Similar things are true of FixMyStreet, which collects issues on its users' behalf and then forwards the aggregated complaints to the relevant department of government.
How might we close the loop? How could we arrange things so that the originator, other members of the public, the city bureaucracy itself and other interested parties are all notified that an issue has been identified and is being dealt with? How might we identify the specific individuals or teams tasked with responding to the issue, allow people to track the status of issues they're reported, and ensure that observed best practices and lessons learned are gathered in a resolution database?..."

Build a Better Burb results in

And the results are in! Check out the finalists for envisioning a new suburban future for Long Island...

Making Mega Projects

The recent article from The Bay Citizen highlights the difficulty in cities handling growth management. On the one hand we hear that our cities our growing and that we must prepare for the millions more that will need to be housed in the global cities of tomorrow. But on the other hand, we have the millions already in the city, resistant to such planning, hesitant for such sudden mega-projects.

Some opt for more "small scale infill" projects - a less obtrusive, abrupt design procedure that operates perhaps more on the scale of our human comprehension, a better sense of security...

What have we learned from the mega planning projects of the Modernist? Where do we now stand in the forethought to prepare for the future while sensitive to the presence of "now"...

The "urban acupuncture" ideas throw into question a lot of the common place zoning, property rights and such that many would be hard pressed to allow (NIMBY - not in my backyard).

Is it the "master plan"? The large scale, cream colored shaded squares, tied together in a network of make-believe roads surrounded by green geometric shapes? Is the way we represent the future leave out the concerns of today and thus leave the viewer, the concerned citizen, out of the picture? (or the environment, the nature preserves...)

In times of emergency, we adapt to large adaptations...Massive planning is comprehended through massive loss or destruction. But when we have just a trickle of people entering the cities, the vision of massive planning is intimidating...its not for the city perhaps, but for the anticipated city...a plan for the others...

piecemeal development, renovation, in-fill allows the resident to feel the scale of self and its city in a comfortable relationship with the addition of the new, the other. What we as architects vision is a reality of the new, but perhaps we fail to create a vision for the old. 

Getting Around the Mega-Cities

related article: Envisioning a Small Electric BMW for the World’s Very Big Cities

In thinking about how we will move about the new more congested cities, several auto companies are preparing to introduce new smaller "people movers"...

" The Mega City Vehicle is imagined not simply as an in-city errand hauler, but as a commuter car. “In the beginning of the program we asked, what does ‘megacity’ mean?’” he said. “What kind of people will drive this car? What will they do everyday?”"

Third Spaces

Interesting article not only on how we are changing the live/work dynamic, but on how our cities themselves can change, evolve to foster that. Ray Oldenburg talks about these new spaces as "third spaces"...":where we go not just to drink coffee but also to send an e-mail; the hotel lobby where we take a meeting; or the local library where we write a report, edit a document or revise a business plan." Its those places where no one looks like they are working, but in fact are.

And these places can be anywhere...so people are looking at where we live over where we work. Bigger cities then become the magnets for this sort of "senergy".... but the author offers some interesting perspectives of how any size place can foster this sort of momentum...

"All successful revitalization efforts focus on upgrading existing local assets — developing better ties among colleges, universities and communities, strengthening business districts, upgrading parks and open spaces, preserving and reusing old buildings and supporting local art and music."


image credit

And the Eco Cities fade?

Keeping up with the progress of these grand plans for Eco-Cities...here is an update from the Times.