Landscape of Energy

Landscapes of Energy 

Edited by Rania Ghosn.

Energy infrastructures deploy space at a large scale, yet they remain invisible because the creation of value in the oil regime has long externalized spatial costs, sliding them out of sight and away from design's agency. Contemporary environmental, political, and financial crises have brought energy once again to the forefront of design concerns. Rarely, however, do practices of sustainable design-efficient building skins, islands of self-sufficiency, positive-energy machines-address the spatiality of energy systems. Instead, they tend to emphasize a renewable/nonrenewable binary that associates environmental costs exclusively with the infrastructure of oil and overlooks the geographic imperative of all forms of energy.

Volume 2 of New Geographies proposes to historicize and materialize the relations of energy and space, and map some of the physical, social, and representational geographies of oil, in particular. By making visible this infrastructure, Landscapes of Energy is an invitation to articulate design's environmental agency and its appropriate scales of intervention.

City of Apps

This is a repost from the New York Times Bits Blog
"New York City Names Winners of Apps Contest" by Jenna Wortham

So interesting to see cities taking on the private sector to create transparency, efficiency and localized, dispersed networks. The future of city building...

Emergency Aid

photo by Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

And so come the reports of the aftermath of the Earthquake that hit the capital city of Haiti. It was of no surprise that much aid was needed, that money was being asked for and that organization was to say the least, unorganized. Its the nature of events such as these, that we can imagine, yet still feel unprepared in its real aftermath. From the Tsunami to Katrina, we just never have enough in preparation for such events.

And why does it come to this? It could be easy to say that these communities are already under pressure and the slightest imbalance can cause deeper unrest. But if we get to the heart of the issue, are the cities, the built environment, the dwellings and infrastructure ill prepared for resiliency in such events? Can we plan for unplanned events?

Our cities are not built sustainably. Density, materials and technologies are not capable to respond to big events that mother nature can unleash. But what has been reported are the numbers of "unorganized" decisions coming out of the events that are worth noting. I will also list other organizations and types of thinking that help to plan the un-planable.

Housing:
Transitional Structures
architecture for humanity

Organizational:
Wise Earth Network

additional links:
A Plan to Spur Growth Away From Haiti’s Capital

Get a Degree in Ruralism

photo credit

In reading AKASH KAPUR's "letter from India", Agriculture Left to Die at India's Peril, one begs the question of whether urbanists, designers, planners and architects aren't missing the issue by not focusing on RURAL development and only on urban. While the drive is for greater urbanization, and yes, the needs for water, housing and waste management will be of major necessity, but shouldn't we be addressing this in the most "sustainable" of manners, and thus nipping this at the bud? And instead asking, Why are people moving into the cities, and how can we improve the RURAL experience? Thus addressing and supporting issues such as agriculture and food supplies, safe water and sanitation. Does waiting till the critical mass appear in the city makes sense? Or should we not be addressing these issues on a more dispersed scale - that of the rural?

rural desigers...ruralist!

see my earlier related blogposts

Cyber Nations

"Cyber Nations is the most popular free persistent browser-based nation simulation game on the Internet. Create a nation and decide how you will rule your people by choosing a government type, a national religion, tax rate and more. Build your nation by purchasing infrastructure to support your citizens, land to expand your borders, technology to increase your effectiveness, military to defend your interests, and develop national improvements and wonders to build your nation according to your choosing.."

an essay for the economic deceleration

I like to tune into Core77 for some refreshing takes on the design field. This essay by Tad Toulis gives a nice overview of some emerging trends in the industry: Copy/Paste Creativity, Ubiquitous High-Fidelity and Links and Linkatures

The Cab Ride

There is something so simple and effective about this study that I just keep coming back to. Rachel Abrams gives us a play by play of how she "see's" the taxi ride and gives us a great tool for exploring the world of transportation. Here at Urban Omnibus

MADE IN ____ & ____ & ____ ...

Ever wonder what "Made in China" really means? This well researched site, Source Map, documents the constuction and movement of all the materials used to make some of the common products you probably are using right now. Great supply chain mappings adds to the visual research.

Land of Ghosn - The Beirut Blog

You can also see me blogging on my Beirut Blog while based here in Lebanon

The Counterfeit Triangle

New York's Street of Schemes
 By ALEX KALMAN and LOLA SINREICH
The New York Times

Shrinking City

Article: New York Times by David Streitfeld

"a model for a different era". From expansion with development to developing with shrinkage. Flint, Michigan talk about using land banks to covert abandoned, foreclosed properties into natural landscape, saving money, condesing the town and ultimately rethinking the American city.

“If it’s going to look abandoned, let it be clean and green,” he said. “Create the new Flint forest — something people will choose to live near, rather than something that symbolizes failure.”

land banks: (taken from this U. of Michigan site by Jessica de Wit) A land bank is a public authority created to efficiently hold, manage and develop tax-foreclosed property.(1) Land banks act as a legal and financial mechanism to transform vacant, abandoned and tax-foreclosed property back to productive use. Generally, land banks are funded by local governments' budgets or the management and disposition of tax-foreclosed property.(2) In addition, a land bank is a powerful locational incentive, which encourages redevelopment in older communities that generally have little available land and neighborhoods that have been blighted by an out-migration of residents and businesses.(3) While a land bank provides short-term fiscal benefits, it can also act as a tool for planning long-term community development. Successful land bank programs revitalize blighted neighborhoods and direct reinvestment back into these neighborhoods to support their long-term community vision.

Related:
Shrinking Cities in a Global Perspective Program, University of California, Berkeley

USA Today Article

Privatizing Public Infrastructure

Leveraging public need with private financing...

KFC fills potholes
Neo Nazi's clean the highways
Strip club adopts highway

Egyptian Public Space

Penned-In Egyptians Find Peace in City's Din

"...Cairo is a city with a lot of people, a lot of tightly packed houses and buildings, a lot of traffic — and very little open space. There are some parks, but they tend to be fenced off and charge admission. So Egyptians grab what public space there is and make it their own. Bridges are a favorite, but nearly any open space will do. Even a patch of grass in the middle of a traffic circle..."

Building a Process

Related Article

Basically: Non-profit invests in foreclosed real estate, employs own clients to renovate and live, while profiting and empowering more clients in new process of housing those in need.

"Pikes Peak Behavioral Health ...

The nonprofit group, a mental health counseling center with a growing number of military veteran clients and patients, wants to buy a half-built foreclosed apartment project near the Fort Carson Army base. Using military veterans to complete the construction project, the group would sell the buildings and use the proceeds to buy another property, and repeat the process.

The group also wants to hire veterans as “peer navigators” in a buddy system to guide wounded and troubled veterans into civilian life, helping them with things like job applications and the fine print at the department of motor vehicles..."

Design Corps

Design Corps:

Design Corps' mission is to create positive change in communities by providing architecture and planning services. Our vision is realized when people are involved in the decisions that shape their lives, including the built environment.

Design Corps was founded in 1991 and became a 501-c-3 in1996.

Design Corps' community service program that is ten years old and has a proven record of success. It brings the skills of recent architecture and planning graduates who provide technical assistance to communities in need. We primarily serve small rural communities composed of low-income families who do not have access to the technical services needed to shape their physical needs. The design and planning expertise provided by these interns allows communities to shape their physical environment and create positive change. Design Corps' community service program offers technical assistance in planning, design, and grant writing. Known as Community Design Fellows, they bring their technical educations and experiences to bear at each local site where they are placed and are supported by trained professionals. Once at the site, Fellows work to identify challenges and pool needed resources through community involvement and participation to ensure that the community shares in identifying challenges, creating a vision, and implementing design responses.

Design Corps