Community Planning: The Latest Architecture and News

In recent years, the term “co-creation,” a buzzword in the business and management sector, has made its way into the architecture and urban planning discourse. The term is used to define a large concept that describes working intentionally with others to create something jointly. But architecture is already the result of a collaboration between multiple actors, architects, clients, investors, developers, and local administration, to name a few. Can the term still apply to this field, can it bring forth new forms of knowledge, and does it differ from the concept of participatory design?

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When the Aga Khan Award for Architecture (AKAA) announced its winners of the 2022 edition, 20 projects were selected for their excellence in the fields of contemporary design, social housing, community development, and preservation and improvement of the environment. Among them, one project in Jhenaidah, Bangladesh, managed to capitalize on the strength of the local community to reverse the ecological degradation of its riverscape and create a functional and socially inclusive public space along the riverbanks. ArchDaily’s Managing Editor, Christele Harrouk, had the chance to interview Suhailey Farzana, and Khondaker Hasibul Kabir co-founders of Co.Creation.Architects, and Rubaiya Nasrin from Platform of Community Action and Architecture, POCAA, part of the team behind the Co-creation of Urban Spaces by the Nobogonga River, in Bangladesh. The project also won the 5th category of the UIA 2030 Award for the Access to Green and Public Spaces.

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Community development proposals in Disney World come from back days. One of Walt Disney's last visionary projects was the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (EPCOT), a center for American enterprise and urban living. Disney advocated that the problems of cities were the most critical issues facing society and planned a city that could develop in a controlled manner, contrary to the urban expansion in the USA during the first half of the last century. After Disney died in 1966, the "EPCOT" concept was abandoned as the company was uncertain about the feasibility of operating a city. Fifty- five years later, after a thorough search, Walt Disney World chose The Michaels Organization for its experience in building and managing attainable housing communities.

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Pioneer in large-scale 3D printing, ICON announced the construction of a 3D-printed 100-Home Community co-designed by BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group and developed by Lennar. Located north of Austin, in the city of Georgetown, "The Genesis Collection at Wolf Ranch" will become the first and largest house estate in the world built by a fleet of robots integrating additive construction techniques.

Combining the digital possibilities of 3d printing with sustainable features at an affordable price, the project aims to support the housing crisis in Austin, one of the U.S.A's most dynamic and growing cities, home to the new Tesla Gigafactory and other giants such as Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Oracle.

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The Transportation Alternatives and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have initiated a new digital tool, Spatial Equity NYC, to help users understand how space is distributed and restricted across the neighborhoods of New York City. The tool asses the use of streets, sidewalks, and public spaces, as they are key factors that influence data such as pollution, traffic fatalities, accessibility, or air quality. The data collected shows a direct correlation between neighborhoods with low-income communities and communities of color and the detrimental ways in which public space is used, leading to health and mobility issues in those communities.

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Brink Tower by Mecanoo was just granted planning permission and construction works are planned for mid-October 2022. Located in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, the 90-meter-high building, developed by Xior Student Housing and DubbeLL – winners of the competition for this tower together with Mecanoo Architecten in 2020- will offer a mixed program, including spaces to live, work, and relax in a healthy environment. The residential tower is set to create an" energy-positive, green, and inclusive neighborhood" and contribute to the development of Overhoeks in North Amsterdam.

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Handel Architects designed the third tallest in Los Angeles, a 63-story high-rise 265 meters high in the Historical Downtown L.A. Featuring a 150 meters second tower, affordable residential housing, and community spaces, the "Angels Landing" will be the largest and tallest development to be built by Black developers in the United States, marking a milestone in the real estate industry, as in L.A.'s skyline. In partnership with The Peebles Corporation and MacFarlane Partners, the complex is scheduled to open in 2027 and will create more than 8,300 new jobs during construction.

This article was originally published on Common Edge.

There are few more powerful questions than “Where are you from?” People feel intensely connected to cities as places and to other people who feel that same kind of connection. In other words, we tend to understand and experience places in a very personal way.

Yet to understand place—indeed, to understand human settlements in general—it’s important to recognize that places are not created by accident. They are created on purpose to further a political or economic agenda. Better cities emerge when the people who shape them think more broadly and consciously about the places they are creating. 

Chinese architect and town planner Wu Liangyong was recently featured in a new interview from the International Union of Architects (UIA) about his life and teaching. As the former Vice-President of the UIA and the Architectural Society of China (ASC), Liangyong won the Jean Tschumi Prize back in 1996. Today, he reflects on his academic career spanning 70 years at the Tsinghua University School of Architecture.

The Orbit illustrates Partisans’ vision for a cutting-edge community where small town and rural lifestyles are enhanced by the benefits and attributes of urban living. The award-winning Toronto-based architecture studio imagined a new urban fabric that inspires citizens.

"The Community" might be the most frequently used term over the last 50 years of Architectural and Urban discourse. For decades, "the community" has served as a legitimization for anything from Team X to New Urbanism, from Celebration to "vancouverism". But what is "the community"? Where should we look for the proper definition? How did communities appear in the past and how do they form today? Can 'the community" influence the design of its own space, territoiry or context? If yes, what could be the relationship between the community and architecture in the future?

In his Strelka talk Reinier de Graaf is trying to answer these and other, even more complex questions.

Via the Strelka Institute.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has released an extensive new publication that serves as a guide for low-income, minority, tribal and overburdened communities to build smart, environmentally just, and equitable developments using strategies that are accessible and affordable. The guidelines build upon precedents of past successes within struggling communities, whether these struggles are in the face of discrimination, social or economic prejudices, or environmental injustive. The EPA identifies seven common elements that have been illustrated in in-depth case studies of communities that have struggled with those very issues. By targeting community groups, governmental agencies, private and non-profit partners, regional and local planners and residents of these communities, the EPA's smart growth guide for "Creating Equitable, Healthy and Sustainable Communities: Strategies for Advancing Smart Growth, Environmental Justice, and Equitable Development" seeks to bring access to valuable information about the inherent possibilities to creating healthful, sustainable, and prosperous communities under a variety of circumstances.

Join us after the break for a breakdown of the EPA's findings and how they address equitability in community development.

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".