Rob Ford, the Toronto Mayor famous for making enemies of "urban thinkers, designers and practitioners," has been ousted from office for violating a conflict-of-interest act (he spoke and voted on a matter which allowed his own Football Foundation to financially benefit).
Mathews Nielsen Landscape Architects shared with us their design for the streetscape masterplan for Hudson Square in Manhattan, New York. Designed to transform the district’s public realm into a socially, economically, and environmentally sustainable neighborhood, the project will serve area workers and, eventually, residents. The masterplan creates a pedestrian-focused district accessible from all directions and adjacent neighborhoods—including SoHo, TriBeCa, and Greenwich Village—that coordinates the needs of the Holland Tunnel, a regional transportation facility, with those of the re-imagined neighborhood. More images and architects’ description after the break.
This design for the North Point waterfront redevelopment, which won the first prize in the competition, proposes an “organic network” of forms for the site. Designed by Chris Y. H. Chan + Stephanie M. L. Tan, the project approach is based on the study of the adjacent “community street” – Chun Yeung St., which should have human life and the life of dwellers establishing the community. In this project, they aim to transform the Chun Yeung St’s urban model as part of an organic ecology. This model could affect the North Point district to become a more sustainable urban model. More images and architects’ description after the break.
The west side of midtown Manhattan is probably one of the more unexplored areas of New York City by residents and tourists alike. Aside from the Jacob Javits Center, and the different programs off of the Hudson River Parkway that runs parallel to the waterfront, there is very little reason to walk through this industry – and infrastructure – dominated expanse of land full of manufacturers, body shops, parking facilities and vacant lots. The NYC government and various agencies, aware of the lost potential of this area, began hatching plans in 2001 to develop this 48-block, 26-acre section, bound by 43rd Street to the North, 8th Ave to the East, 30th Street to the South and the West Side Highway to the West.
The new Hudson Yards, NYC’s largest development, will be a feat of collaboration between many agencies and designers. The result will be 26 million square feet of new office development, 20,000 units of housing, 2 million square feet of retail, and 3 million square feet of hotel space, mixed use development featuring cultural and parking uses, 12 acres of public open space, a new public school and an extension of a subway line the 7 that currently terminates at Times Square-42nd Street, reintroducing the otherwise infrastructurally isolated portion of the city back into the life of midtown Manhattan. All this for $800 million with up to $3 billion in public money.
Join us after the break for details and images.
Imagine driving down a road at night without street lights with the light-emitting road guiding your way. As the temperature outside drops the road starts to reveal images of ice crystals, signaling to you, the driver, that conditions are now icy and slippery. This futuristic concept may soon be a reality as Dutch design firm Studio Roosegaarde and the engineers at Heijmans Infrastructure team up to develop “Smart Highways” – a design agenda for interactive, sustainable and safe roads. The concept won the two firms Best Future Concept at the Dutch Design Awards 2012. Join us after the break for more.
In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, as communities band together to clean up the devastation and utility companies work tirelessly to restore the infrastructure that keeps New York City running, planners and policy makers are debating the next steps to making the city as resilient to natural disaster as we once thought it was. We have at our hands a range of options to debate and design and the political leverage to make some of these solutions a reality. The question now is, which option or combination of options is most suitable for protecting New York City and its boroughs? Follow us after the break for more.
Located in the heart of Andenne, near the town square, the project by Frédéric Haesevoets Architecture + Art and Build focuses on the revitalization of the city center, to assure for the future a coherent urbanization. These future blocks will complete the existing urban fabric of the neighborhood which is booming. Carefully integrated, these blocks will fit into the urban fabric without attacking the city, on the contrary, they weave links with the surrounding streets by a sensitive treatment of the spaces. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Designed by dom arquitectura, the masterplan in Huizhou, China focuses on the traditional Chinese cultural concepts and social issues. Their response was to group housing towers in two lines, with an staggered arrangement, forming a double perimeter line and leaving a large green space in the site centre. The concentration of a big green space will enhance the CO2 consumption and improve the users air quality. More images and architects’ description after the break.
After months of anticipation, October 13th, 2012 (a.k.a. TEDxCity2.0: A day of urban inspiration), is around the corner! This Saturday, TEDx communities around the world, made up of “urban innovators and organizers, stewards and artists, builders and taste makers,” will get together and share their stories of urban inspiration.
The mixed-used masterplan of YueHaiWanJia commercial district aims at combining shops, restaurants, leisure, museum, bars, KTV, cinema, hotels and children amusement together in the same place. Designed by SURE Architecture, they were able to create a new amusement and attraction place for all kinds of people. With the idea of the European City context, overlapped with the Stamp of Xi Xia, which has a historic influence for this city, the result is an interesting layout and space to enjoy for people of all ages. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Designed by OOIIO Architecture, the Patchwork City Masterplan focuses on organizing the future growth of Linkoping, a city in southern Sweden with 100,000 inhabitants. The architects were challenged to experiment and explore new ways of designing cities, with all the complexities, sustainable construction systems and social cohesion aspects that a XXI st century city needs. The result is a contemporary city where the inhabitants colonize and personalize their own structure as they wish, crocheting their own city piece to generate a large patchwork all together. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Today the Nederlandse Tuinbouwraad (NTR) announced the City of Almere, along with it’s MVRDV-designed proposal, as winner of the prestigious world horticultural expo, Floriade 2022. The event takes place once every ten years in the Netherlands and is currently ending in Venlo.
The MVRDV plan for Almere is not a temporary expo site but a lasting green Cité Idéale as an extension to the existing city centre. The waterfront site opposite the city centre will be developed as a vibrant new urban neighborhood and also a giant plant library which will remain beyond the expo.
The ambition is to create a 300% greener exhibition than currently standard, both literally green and sustainable: each program on the site will be combined with plants which will create programmatic surprises, innovation and ecology. At the same time the site will be with a vast program such as a university, hotel, marina, offices and homes more urban than any other Floriade has ever been before, it is an exemplary green city. Continue after the break for more!
With last year’s opening of the 9/11 Memorial at Ground Zero and the near-completion of the World Trade Center One, Daniel Libeskind’s vision for the World Trade Center site is close to presenting the future of NYC’s downtown financial center, 11 years after the attacks. Studio Daniel Libeskind was selected to develop the master plan for the site in 2003, and since has been coordinating with NYC’s numerous agencies and individual architects to rebuild the site. The project, in Libeskind’s words, is a “healing of New York”, a “site of memory” and “a space to witness the resilience of America”.
Follow us after the break for more on the elements and progress of the master plan.
Located on the Yangzi River to the north-east of Nanjing in Jiangsu Province, the proposal for the Nanjing ecological and technological island, by AAUPC Agence Patrick Chavannes + G.C.A. Design Consulting, consists of a development strategy for the Yangzi delta and Jiangsu province. The aim is to define a new image for the city of Nanjing, transforming it into an open economy, developing eco-technological industries and modern services, innovating with existing mechanisms and putting in place the local development strategy of ‘crossing the Yangzi River’. More images and architects’ description after the break.
An international jury has selected Capital Cities Planning Group (CCPG), an Anglo-American team including Gillespies, John Thompson & Partners and Buro Happold, as winners for the design and planning of the new Federal District in Moscow.
Earlier this year, the Russian Federal Government announced that it was doubling the territory of Moscow to enable it to grow into a competitive 21st century world capital. In response, Genplan, Moscow’s city planner, earmarked an area of 155km2 to the south-west of the city for a new Federal Government Centre, aiming to relieve inner-city congestion through the relocation of the capital’s major employer. Ten international teams were invited to develop strategies and designs for the region during a six month, three stage competition. Continue reading to learn more.
The life of a city-funded project is a tumultuous one. After winning a design competition early this year and receiving public support to move forward, Diller, Scofidio + Renfro’s “Granite Web” design for the redevelopment of the nineteenth-century Terrace Gardens in Aberdeen, Scotland was recently rejected by the city council in a 22-20 vote. The project promised to bring a revived pulse to the heart of the city centre with a public space that would bring a year-round civic garden onto the “unattractive” Denburn dual carriageway and railway line.
More after the break.
Copenhagen based architecture firm Tredje Natur recently presented their plans to develop Denmark’s first climate adapted neighborhood, which transforms Saint Kjeld’s Quarter into Copenhagen’s greenest neighborhood. The comprehensive urban development project seeks to demonstrate how the city can be arranged so rainwater can be managed in the streets in a more natural and effective way. Their project offers a wide range of pragmatic strategies to meet the many expectations in the area. As a key principle the architects reclaim 20% of the street area by optimizing the infrastructure and parking lots according to current standard. More images and architects’ description after the break.
