Urban Planning Blog

For a forthcoming exhibition called Contemplating the Void, New York’s Guggenheim Museum “invited more than two hundred artists, architects, and designers to imagine their dream interventions in the space.

In this exhibition of ideal projects, certain themes emerge, including the return to nature in its primordial state, the desire to climb the building, the interplay of light and space, the interest in diaphanous effects as a counterpoint to the concrete structure, and the impact of sound on the environment.

[Source: Spiral Icon - BLDGBlog]

Model cities aren’t just for show; they can have real utility. In 1957 the US Army Corps of Engineers created the Bay Model, a replica of the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta meant to simulate the impact of public works projects and disasters—natural and man-made—on currents and tides.

Terence Russell at Wired Magazine tells us how scale models of cities are increasingly used for urban planning and design applications.

A review of global studies into the impact of modern office design found the switch to open-plan spaces had been overwhelmingly negative, with 90 percent reporting adverse health and psychological effects.

Open-plan offices not so good? Contrary to the popular opinion in business circles, Australian researchers have found open-plan offices counter productive and in fact, harmful to the health of the employees. Now let me get back to my cubicle and get some work done. Hopefully.

Namba Parks in Osaka, Japan that is an office complex, shopping center, and garden and seems like an open sectional drawing but nevertheless quite cool.

The excellent Sunday New York Times Magazine has a special issue on architecture and urban planning this week. Plenty of interesting essays and slideshows that I plan to cover over the next week.

“If you are in a shipwreck and all the boats are gone, a piano top . . . that comes along makes a fortuitous life preserver,” Fuller once wrote. “But this is not to say that the best way to design a life preserver is in the form of a piano top. I think that we are clinging to a great many piano tops in accepting yesterday’s fortuitous contrivings.”

The New Yorker has an excellent piece on Buckminister Fuller, the inventor of the geodesic dome displayed in a grand fashion for the U.S. Pavilion for the 1967 World’s Fair in Montreal.

The geodesic dome as you know encloses more space with less material than any other structure and can withstand tremendous pressure (a staple for most sci-fi futuristic movies). But yet they are considered a “massive total failure.” Anyone care to guess why? Anyway, Fuller’s mission was not aimed at selling the Dome but hammering away at people’s stagnant capacity for change.

“Serero Architects have won the open competition to redesign any of the Eiffel Tower’s public reception and access areas as a celebration of the 120th birthday of Gustave Eiffel’s original creation” [source]. Don’t worry, the installation is temporary in nature and won’t modify the original structure in any way. But Eiffel Tower, one of the world’s recognizable icons itself was supposed to be a temporary structure [for the World Fair].

Bridges are one of the most beautiful structures in the world – structurally perfect yet aesthetically pleasing. Bridges are one of the few structures are an epitome of form follows function yet results in form triumphing over the mundane function of transporting people and vehicles from one side to another. Here are the ten most beautiful bridges in the world.

Couple of colleagues in a Sustainable Urbanism class had proposed floating homes as a potential solution for homes in New Orleans. This floating villa designed by Swedish architect, Staffan Strindberg, currently situated in the town of Kalmar on the east coast of Sweden may be a tad fancy for residents of New Orleans especially for those whose houses got washed away. But definitely a technology worth exploring, right?

The office space of David Yocum and Brian Bell’s architecture firm. They have ‘decorated’ the space by using blight. Does it work?

Mukesh Ambani, India’s richest person is building a monstrous residence in the heart of densely-populated Mumbai. The structure is 490 feet tall and includes a corporate meeting facility along with his 35,000 square feet of private residence. Arzan however is impressed by the architectural aspects of the structure which might change the way high rises are built in dense Indian cities.

I know that the toilet bowl in one heck of a sculptural design piece but why would you design a house to look like it?

We all love beautiful architecture, don’t we? But that doesn’t mean there isn’t any ugliness in our world. Deputy Dog presents 9 repulsive buildings on Earth.

I can definitely add at least a dozen more to that list but maybe sometime later.

Trailer homes always have had a bad rap in architecture. But recent innovations especially with respect to post-disaster emergency housing has led to some beautiful and innovative creations.

These homes are designed by Front Architects and are incredibly small. I don’t speak or read German Polish so can’t say much about them but I love the exposed staircase leading up to the house in each of the design. I’ve always considered the staircase as a sculpture so why hide it, eh?