Urban Planning Blog

[An] holistic approach to illuminating cities has come to be known as a lighting master plan. While few cities outside Europe have a plan currently in place, the steps involved in creating one help officials evaluate how the layers of lighting – street-level, marquees and directional signage, and monuments or cultural landmarks – should work together and be energy efficient.

An interesting look at how lighting is stepping out from the shadows of historic preservation and being used by urban planners to help improve a city’s character and livability.

Anyone remotely interested in modern architecture must have heard of Le Corbusier’s chapel of Notre Dame du Haut (1954) in Ronchamp (France). It is one of Le Corbusier’s iconic buildings and is currently in the eye of a storm (in a teacup?) with regards to replacement of its visitor’s center to be designed by Renzo Piano.

DNA India points us to tiny hamlets within the suburbs of densely populated Mumbai, India. Mumbai was a cluster of seven islands with several villages not more than 70 years ago (my ancestors hail from one of them). I’m glad to see some remnants of those humble roots but these will not last long.

Christopher Hitchens makes an argument for preserving that quirky sense of place and cultural hotspots that make a city what it is. As he mentions, London, Paris, and San Francisco have recognized the need for its Bohemia and it is time for Manhattan to wake up and smell the coffee.

The challenge for all cities with a rich architectural legacy is to find a balance between preserving the historical identity without becoming a slave to it.

The Super Spatial Blog writes on Venice calling it a city that was destroyed by its own beauty by turning in to essentially “a theme park for hordes of visitors.”

This classic piece of American architecture never gets old.

Admittedly, it is the people that make a city but nevertheless, ghost towns can be hauntingly beautiful too.

What cities come readily to mind when you think of skyscrapers? New York? Tokyo? Shanghai? Well, how about Shibam located in the deserts of Yemen.

This city was host to more than 500 mud-brick ’skyscrapers’ built more than 500 years ago. Click through for a fly-by of the city.

“Before industry and technology gave us sawmills and frame houses, this is how the average person lived in much of the world. The dugout or pit house, with sod roof, log walls and earthen floor, is among the most ancient of human dwellings — at some point in history your ancestors lived in one.”

I love walking down Bombay’s historic D.N.Road so these photographs of ’stone flowers’ brings up fond memories. More here and here.

I have always loved the concept of moving entire houses. Considering how ‘rooted’ the houses are in India because of the way they are built, this concept was completely unimaginable to me when I first heard of it. Here is a time-lapse video of moving an 1883 carriage house in Portland:

I’m sure the old neighborhood will miss it but I’m sure the new one will love it.

A creative adaptive reuse of an extant shell of a mill building, with
contrasting insertion of contemporary materials, weaving the old and
the new into a seamless whole…A complex and intriguing social and
regional story that reveals itself as the visitor progresses through
the spaces. It is museum as a verb…A gutsy, crystalline, glowing
courtyard for a reemerging waterfront district that attracts young and
old and has stimulated adjacent development [source].

Jason Kottke shares a wonderful experience of a old derelict ruin turned into a museum. I am always fascinated by subtle workings of such architectural ingenuity where the changes do not overwhelm the basic structure or diminish the experience. My design dissertation during my undergrad years focused on a similar concept. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a shell of an historic structure to work with but nevertheless, the experience is in the sense of a place which the Mill City Musuem does a great job of.

Update: A panoramic image of Mill City Museum [click on image for larger version]

Image courtesy: Kottke.
Technorati Tags: Mill City Museum, historic preservation, history, architecture, preservation, Minneapolis, Washburn A mill

I had the opportunity to take a quick visitor tour through the School of Nursing at the UT Health Science Center, thanks to my fiancee who studies in the adjacent building. This building is counted as one of the top green projects for 2006. I could tell you more but I’ll point you in her direction as she has some interesting links for you. I took few pictures and am sharing a couple:

more »

A gallery of derelict London cinemas accompanied with a brief background of each [via].

Technorati Tags: revitalization, cinema, theaters, redevelopment, abandoned, derelict

Who knew iPods could be useful for a rich urban experience? Well, at least not so soon. Jennifer Coleman, an architect in Cleveland has hit upon a novel idea to implement iPods for city walk narration. CityProwl, the website that lets you download a neighborhood narration [for free!!!] is her brainchild. You can easily install the narration; basically an audio file just like any other MP3 song and listen to stories of the streets as you walk down them. Otis White at Urban Notebook listens to one of her narrations:

Coleman’s first narration is a walk through downtown’s Lower Prospect
Avenue, a business street that boomed a century ago, faded and is
coming back. The tour takes a little less than 40 minutes. In her
pleasant voice, Coleman begins with some rules of safety and courteous
walking (and a legal disclaimer), then sets off down Prospect Avenue
from beneath the awning at Flannery’s Pub (you can hear her shoes
clicking on the pavement).

I hope such narrations are soon available for other cities as well. Each urban area has plentiful stories to keep us busy for ages. At least our spatial experiences or urban walks are complemented by historical insights that make it doubly pleasurable.

Update: Great! Rob has created a narration for a neighborhood in Birmingham, UK. Only if more people joined in this effort, we could have a online library of such audio narrations for neighborhoods around the world.

Technorati Tags: iPod, walking tours, Cleveland, planning, historic preservation, history, urbanscape, neighborhood, walk, tourism, city walk Jennifer Coleman, stories