April 2, 2011
While preparing the URBACT Biannual report, we found some interesting information regarding sustainable urban development. One of them is Sostre Cívic, a non-profit association that aims to provide planning solutions applicable to our society through non speculative access to housing.
March 5, 2011
Artists in Berlin utilize a forgotten beer cellar, an old soviet bunker and an abandoned power station.
Berlin is well known for it’s population’s frequent reclamation of abandoned tenement buildings, but the past couple of years have seen an even more impressive trend of the reuse of seemingly uninhabitable dark spaces for art showings and cultural gatherings.
Galerie Unter Berlin
Eight meters below ground, Galerie unter Berlin exists in the cellar of a former brewery. The 500 square meter space recently opened to the public in fall 2010 and serves as a venue for gallery art and performance pieces. continue reading
June 4, 2010
ECOLOGICAL URBANISM: Alternative and Sustainable Cities of the Future
Conference at Harvard University Graduate School of Design
April 3 – 5, 2009
The conference, which ran from April 3-5, 2009, brought together design practitioners, students and theorists, economists, engineers, environmental scientists, politicians and public health specialists, with the goal of reaching a more robust understanding of ecological urbanism and what it might be in the future. continue reading
April 25, 2010
Post-ownership living may be closer than we think. We see the evidence all around us, in the form of innovations from community kitchens to emerging mobility solutions. So, if people are recognizing the practical potential in social solutions, why aren’t even more models for collaboration, sharing and product-service systems thriving? According to architect Stephanie Smith, spurring the movement may be a simple matter of providing the tech support.
This week Smith, who heads WeCommune, plans to launch the first software platform designed specifically for, well, communing (if you visit, you may get a splash page while they transition). The platform’s services will allow groups of three or more people to self-organize a “commune” defined by a shared interest or shared zip code, and will provide tools for communicating, organizing and managing projects, and sharing resources. continue reading
February 17, 2009
Through the public bid won by means of the project presented to the aids to the investigation regarding architecture in the year 2007, from the old Ministry of Public Works and Transportation and today dependent on the Ministry of Housing and Planning of the Territory of Junta of Andalusia, a line of investigation is defined regarding the manners of coexistence and habitation in the Andalusian territory in the near future, within 20 and 40 years, that shape evolutions and generate possibilities according to variables that today, each day, we can perceive as determinants of cultural transformation. continue reading
February 16, 2009
For a long time now I’ve been obsessed with suburban and exurban master-planned communities and how to make them better. But as the economy and the mortgage crisis just seem to get worse, and gas prices continue to plunge, the issues around housing have changed dramatically. The problem now isn’t really how to better design homes and communities, but rather what are we going to do with all the homes and communities we’re left with. continue reading
February 1, 2009
[bracket] is a collaboration of Archinect and InfraNet Lab, and is composed of a collection of diverse editors and an open-source contributing membership.
[bracket] is an annual publication documenting issues overlooked yet central to our cultural milieu that have evolved out of the new disciplinary territory at the intersection of architecture, landscape, urbanism and, now, the internet. It is no coincidence that the professional term architect can also now refer to information architects, and that the word community can also now refer to an online community. [bracket] is a publishing platform for ideas charting the complex overlap of the sphere of architecture and online social spheres. continue reading
December 10, 2008
September 30, 2008
Improving mobility for citizens
Citizens of Lyon will in future have better mobility, shorter tranportation time and be less dependent on private transportation. Lyon is the first French city to engage in a master plan for transport development. continue reading
May 16, 2008
BURB.TV is a collaborative research wiki focusing on the urbanization of China. Each article is a topical blog or BURB into which texts, images, and discussion are submitted. Each BURB grows to expand into the larger knowledge of The Chinese Dream, a project that investigates the goal to build 400 new cities by 2020. The research is produced with visionaries, architects, planners and social scientists invited by the Dynamic City Foundation.
