Urban Planning Blog

I’ll be reviewing one of Kovacs-designed lamps soon. So some background on him before I do:

One of the most recognizable names in the lighting industry, George Kovacs wore many hats throughout his forty-plus year career. Part lighting designer, part lighting manufacturer, part lighting importer – Kovacs’ design aesthetic stood out above the rest and helped to define modern lighting as we know it today.

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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.

If you want to book a hotel or make a restaurant reservation you can switch on the Transit Layer and look for the public transport line nearest to the location. If you want to travel from A to B you can quickly familiarize yourself with the public transport network and find out which lines to use and where to change.

Google Maps has added a public transit layer for more than 50 cities around the world to help citizens and tourists obtain information on getting around quicker. I see more European cities than U.S ones. It doesn’t take a genius to tell you what that means.

Noah Radford, US Director for Space Syntax and PhD candidate at MIT presents an evidence-based approach to the planning and design of buildings and cities using computer modeling technologies.

His talk as part of a series on technology, people, place, and space covers documenting the sense of place in today’s cities. I’m sure Google’s StreetView layers has added rich information not just with use of technology but also by harnessing its reach as a primary information provider of real-time mapping solutions. I was particularly impressed with use of innovative visualization techniques to depict spatial relationships in our activities (e.g.cell phone usage). This graphic of population concentrations in America in Time Magazine is one such example.

The NY Times Rent or Buy Calculator compares the cost of renting versus buying a home. Enter your monthly rent, projected price of buying a house, mortgage rate, and property tax and the calculator will spit out the number of years after which buying is better than renting.

An extremely useful tool especially in today’s sliding housing market where some homeowners are experiencing negative equity. But as with any online tool, don’t replace it with the experience of a human. Trust but verify.

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?

GROW, a project that develops innovative solutions on green technologies draws inspiration from ivy growing on the side of a building – resulting in a hybrid energy delivery device of leafy, fluttering solar shingles that provide power via both sun and wind. I would love a day when roof shingles that use solar power are just as cheap as regular shingles.

Dubai is home not only to most construction cranes building skyscapers but also to the world’s first zero emissions 322 meter tall structure. The Burj Al-Taqa Energy Tower will “use sun, wind, and water to create all of its own energy.”

It is almost common belief that well-lit areas reduce crime but is it really so? An article in New Yorker on light pollution mentions couple of points that depart from this perception. “In the early seventies, the public-school system in San Antonio, Texas, began leaving many of its school buildings, parking lots, and other property dark at night and found that the no-lights policy not only reduced energy costs but also dramatically cut vandalism.”

In fact, bright lights that we see light up deserted areas only provide a false illusion and crime in fact would be more effectively controlled if ’smart lighting’ i.e. controlled by infrared motion sensors.

Thanks to advances in web technology and GIS mapping, cities are making crime information easily available to its citizens. Previously, I had reported on Los Angeles county’s web tool on crime mapping that used Google Maps. Developers at Stamen Design, a technology and design studio based in San Francisco has taken a page from this experiment and developed its own ‘crimespotting’ web-based visualization tool for the city of Oakland:

If you hear sirens in your neighborhood, you should know why. Crimespotting makes this possible with interactive maps, e-mail updates, and RSS feeds of crimes in areas that you care about.

I love Stamen Design’s work and remain impressed with their other design experiments like Trulia and Cabspotting.

As much as I am against wasting energy, I am not entirely comfortable with secret government monitoring. The city of Haringey, UK hired a spy plane to fly overhead and identify which households are wasting the most energy. They used this information and mapped it. Further more, to play the guilt card, they put this information online [via Techdirt]. Trying to ’shame’ people into conservation has honestly never worked but it definitely does freak them out and make them not trust anything the government says or does.

It cannot get any easier for pot lovers. And I’m not talking about fans of pottery. After that amazing interactive map listing LA County homicides, SF Weekly has compiled a map of local pot clubs where you can purchase medical marijuana (what else do you use it for, eh?).

You still need a doctor’s prescription to get it officially, you say? Well, fret not. NORML has compiled a list of area’s most weed-friendly physicians. Did I hear you say, ssssshhhh! [via]

WIRED and LivingHomes—a pioneer in green, prefabricated development— will open the doors to the first ever WIRED Home, a showcase of the best in sustainability, technology and design.

“Galactic Suite,” the first hotel planned in space, expects to open for business in 2012 and would allow guests to travel around the world in 80 minutes.

…takes the antiquated parking meter into the 21st century kicking and screaming. But don’t expect your city to replace the old ones.