Approaching zero-waste is a matter of changing the way our culture thinks about use and reuse. It's not an impossible task, and San Francisco is leading the march to establish a feasible means of enacting public policy, structuring programs and educating the public on what it means to be "zero-waste". With a goal set for 2020, SF hopes to keep 100% of its waste out of landfills. Mayor Ed Lee estimates that the leading waste management company "Recology" is diverting nearly 80% of trash from landfills to be recycled or turned into compost. This begins with a public policy that sets a standard and gains traction as citizens embrace the goals of the city. Support programs reinforce these guidelines that eventually become habits and a cultural response to treating our environment.
Read on after the break for more on San Francisco's road to "zero-waste".
How can a small 420 square foot apartment transform into eight comfortable rooms? It takes smart design solutions that incorporates modulation and interior planning that conforms to everyday needs in an increasingly competitive environment of living space. Founder of Treehugger.com, Graham Hill takes the viewer on a tour of his "Life Edited" apartment that provides a sustainable living solution to compact apartments in urban environments like New York City. This apartment provides all the amenities necessary with some additional effort of converting rooms to fit everyday needs. Interested in seeing this apartment transform into a living room, bedroom, kitchen, dining room and guest room? Join us after the break to find out.
32BNYis collaborating with Spirit of Space is relaunching a website in a corner of the internet structured as a videopolemic to explore architectural discourse in a revolutionary way. The first video in the series is a tribute to Lebbeus Woods who passed away late last year. Woods was an aggressive philosophical thinker of architecture and space. He launched worldy ideas into his architecture through imaginative leaps - exploring politics, society, ethics and the human condition as it pertained to architectural space in the form of vivid and dynamic drawings. His work has inspired his contemporaries to think outside of the physical space of architecture. Steven Holl and Sanford Kwinter discuss some of his ideas and philosophies through his quotes and inspirations. The video serves as a reminder, and to some a guide, as to how to build upon the philosophy of architecture beyond the physical.
In recent years there has been a lot of talk in the United States about our aging population in terms of social security funds and medicare. We have asked how we should deal with the impending problem that our elderly will outnumber the population that can take of them. While speculations for a solution have generally settled within the realm of the economy, urban planners and architects are asking a different set of questions and looking for solutions regarding how we design. It is important to note, that while most of the discussion has been framed about the aging "baby-boomer" generation, Jack Rowe, speaking at the symposium for Designing Homes and Neighborhoods for an Aging Population in Washington, DC, pointed out that this concern is a conservative estimate of the bigger problem in our "demographic transformation". In fact, the trend is far more expansive; medical advancements and a longer life expectancy mean that for the next few generations each aging population is expected to outlive its parents and will exceed the population of its children. This makes the issue at hand a more over-arching concern, or as Rowe later states, an issue that all members of society must face.
This is why we must think about architecture and urban planning in terms of adaptability for the aging, as we have already starting thinking about it in terms of handicapped accessibility. More after the break.
The City of New York has long awaited renovations to the East River Greenway; squeezed between the FDR Drive to the west and the river to East, there are a few scattered public parks connected by a path that has been weathered and torn apart over the years. The proposed Blueway is a coordinated collaboration between Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, Community Boards 3 and 6, State Assembly Member Brian Kavanaugh and architecture and urban design firm WXY along that takes suggestions from the general public to develop a scheme that works within the framework of the existing Greenway and provides specific sites of waterfront access, development of wetlands and connectivity to the city and its waterways. The stretch along the greenway that is the focus of the scheme developed by WXY runs from Midtown East at 38th street to the Brooklyn Bridge.
After months of debate, the United States Congress has passed a bill that will allocate $51 billion to Hurricane Sandy relief helping the thousands who lost their homes and businesses to the devastating storm last October. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that $400 million of the aid will be used to fund New York's buyout program, an initiative to help address the damaged homes and coastline. The program is two-fold; in part it will help reimburse the property damage caused by the storm, but the initiative has a larger goal, which is to address the nature of coastal flooding and create a barrier that would mitigate the damage created to the coast by storm surges in the future. Since the storm, there have been many suggestions as to how to prepare for the type of damage brought on by Hurricane Sandy of 2012 and Hurricane Irene of 2011. These suggestions range from flood gates to barrier reefs. Cuomo's buyout program, as reported by the Architect's Newspaper Blog, hopes to encourage residents along vulnerable flood zones to sell their land to the city for the development of a natural coast that would absorb the impact of strong winds and storm surges.
The Getty Trust is partnering with Pacific Standard Time to present 11 individual exhibitions throughout LA's museums that will explore the history and heritage of the city's modern architecture and its influential designers. As musician, photographer and architectural blogger Moby boasts that "LA has the most diverse architecture of any city on the planet". Pacific Standard Time Presents: Modern Architecture in LA will explore this diversity that covers post World War II architecture through today through specific points of view ranging in architectural style, influence and decade. The exhibitions, which will run from April through July 2013, are a follow-up to last year's Pacific Standard Time: Art in LA, 1945-1980. The focus of the exhibitions will range in scale and cover the monumental and everyday architectural moments that make LA unique. Exhibitions will present iconic modernist homes and cultural landmarks as well as coffee shops, car washes, and the freeways in addition to the un-built architectural fantasies of modernism and post-modernism.
There has been some controversy over the past few months for the George Square redesign in Glasgow, Scotland since we last announced the six shortlisted architecture firms in December. Following the submission and assessment by a jury in January, the project went through an upheaval when Labour leader of the Glasgow City Council, Gordon Matheson announced that the submitted designs would be scrapped in favor of a "facelift" for the square. Numerous reports on the Herald Scotland present conflicting arguments for the turn of events and the abrupt change in plans have left the council, jury, design firms and the public in discontent. It is unclear what the status of the project is today, but for the moment it is on hold as the council discusses ways in which to proceed.
"My Hair is at MoMA PS1" is exactly what it sounds like. TempAgency, composed of architecture firms Kutonotuk and mcdowellespinosa have designed an installation that uses human hair from hair salons and barbershops as architecture. The finalist for 2013 MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program has found inspiration in the material waste to develop a project of cultural and design significance. Join us after the break for more images.
Late last month the AIA released a report indicating that nonresidential construction is projected to increase by approximately 5% this year. While the recovery of both residential and nonresidential construction markets continues to grow slowly, the indication that it is steadily increasing marks a sense of security or stability that owners are beginning to identify in the economy. In the commercial / industrial sectors, hotels are seeing the largest projected growth at 15.7%, with retail and office buildings hovering between a 7 to 8% growth rate. In the institutional sector, construction growth is projected to be highest in health care facilities, which is expected to rise by 4.4%, while public safety spending is expected to decline in 2013.
Think the best way to promote the economic and creative development of a city is to build stadiums and and shopping malls? Think again. In a recent article in the New York Times, Steve Lohr reveals the findings of a study from the Brookings Institution that looks into where and why specific cities emerge as hubs of creativity and innovation. By studying the patent filings of the United States' 370 metropolitan areas, the study revealed that cities with the most innovation were centers of education and research. San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, California; Burlington-South Burlington, Vermont.; Rochester, Minnesota; Corvallis, Oregon; and Boulder, Colorado topped the list as the "output of innovation. Lohr suggests that this data can help promote policies that encourage urban development for economic feedback.
It's that time of year again: the 2013 AIA National Convention is gearing up to provide architects with the latest technological, conceptual and design innovations over the course of a three-day conference in Denver, Colorado. This year's theme: Building Leaders, is an opportunity for architects to see leading achievements in the profession as well as build upon their own knowledge.
MoMA's upcoming exhibitionHenri Labrouste: Structure Brought to Light celebrates the impact of this 19th century architect on space, materials, luminosity and on great places of assembly. The exhibition will run from March 10th to June 24th, 2013 and will be the first solo exhibition of Labrouste's work in the United States.
Walkability, density, and mixed-use have become key terms in the conversation about designing our cities to promote healthy lifestyles. In an interview with behavioral psychologist, Dr. James Sallis of the University of California San Diego in The Globe and Mail, Sallis discusses how his research reveals key design elements that encourage physical activity. In the 20th century, the automobile and new ideals in urban planning radically changed the way in which cities were structured. Residential and commercial areas were divided and highways were built to criss-cross between them. Suburban sprawl rescued city dwellers from dense urban environments that had gained a reputation for being polluted and dangerous. In recent decades, planners, policy makers and environmentalists have noted how these seemingly healthy expansions have had an adverse affect on our personal health and the health of our built environment. Today, the conversation is heavily structured around how welcoming density, diversity and physical activity can help ameliorate the negative affects that decades of mid-century planning have had on health. Sallis describes how much of a psychological feat it is to change the adverse habits that have developed over the years and how design, in particular, can help encourage the change.
Mumbai, like many populous modern cities, has a traffic problem that may be better be categorized as a traffic nightmare. At the Kala Nagar Junction, where five main traffic arteries merge to connect nearly 60,000 commuters per hour from the Island City to the western suburbs of Mumbai, the BMW Guggenheim Lab and Mumbai Environmental Social Network launched a competition to search for realistic solutions to the infrastructural tangle. Likely designed when traffic congestion was not as severe, the Kala Nagar Junction is no longer capable of accommodating the daily commuter demand. The competition, open to students and professionals, called on participants to consider solutions that not only resolved the traffic problems, but also produced public spaces and safe pedestrian routes. The six winning designs - 3 from the professional category, 2 from the student category and 1 people's choice that was decided by community votes and visitors to the Guggenheim Design Lab.
In 2005, OLIN - a landscape architecture, urban design and planning studio - developed a master plan for University of California Berkley's southeastern campus in an effort to unify its distinct elements and strengthen the social spaces of the campus. HNTB Architects led the renovation of the California Memorial Stadium and worked with STUDIOS Architecture and OLIN to design the Simpson Center for Student-Athlete High Performance. These are unified by OLIN's design of the grounds which are just part of the transformation planned for the campus, which also includes the renovations and landscape design for the Haas School of Business, UC Berkley School of Law and the Piedmont Avenue.
The bursting of the housing bubble wreaked havoc on cities across the United States causing widespread blight in once-thriving community economies. Foreclosed, abandoned and condemned homes continue to pockmark neighborhoods and communities, adding to the vacant lots of populous but affected cities like Philadelphia. The Mayor's Office of Philadelphiaapproximates that there are nearly 40,000 vacant lots throughout the city of brotherly love, about 74% of which are privately owned, making them virtually inaccessible to rehabilitation. But the city has a strong drive to amend these conditions. With organizations like DesignPhiladelphia's "Not a Vacant Lot"and the city's Redevelopment Authority, some of this land is being put to good use.
