URBAN UMBRELLA
Two years ago, the NYC Department of Buildings and AIA New York sponsored a design competition to develop an innovative solution for city scaffolding. This week, the winning team unveiled the prototype of the “urban umbrella.” The UrbanSHED competition asked designers to create better “sidewalk sheds” — the ubiquitous blue plywood and metal scaffolding structures seen around town. The winning design… 
CONNECTED USA
The MIT SENSEable City Lab, AT&T Labs-Research and IBM Research recently launched the “Connected States of America,” an interactive map using anonymous mobile phone data to illustrate emerging communities formed by social connections in geographically disparate areas. The base map shows color-coded states and regions, and allows users to click on any county to see which areas share the most…
LOW COST, HIGH SPEED SHELTERS
The Tokyo-based firm Shigeru Ban Architects (SBA), known for its ecologically sensitive, flexibly programmed structures, is seeking financial support for their effort to help victims displaced by the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan. SBA plan to deploy simple, cardboard and paper partition shelters, originally…
STATE OF THE CITY
Mayor Bloomberg delivered the State of the City address on Wednesday. His focus was on neighborhood specific issues, including various changes ranging from livery cab policies to urban technology innovations. “Transformation” — economic, technological, physical, social, and otherwise — and “simplicity” were the words of the day. The Staten Island Navy..
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Nevin Cohen shares the process of developing a citywide plan for urban agriculture and talks about its promise as both social justice movement and model for community development. |
Happy Thanksgiving! Instead of our usual Wednesday feature, today we bring you an early edition of the weekly roundup and a look back at some of our recent features and forum posts.
Addressing and defining change and measurable progress often seems like the end result of a project or political campaign, rather than the starting point it ought to be. Last weekend, Creative Time, that hyper-dynamic creative engine for public art and its potential in New York (and increasingly elsewhere), held its…
The Red Hook Food Vendors have been cooking up Latin American specialties since 1974 at Red Hook Park in Brooklyn. It has been a longstanding tradition for food lovers to go enjoy delicious cuisine while watching fútbol games at the adjacent field. In 2008, the Vendors were issued a six-year…
Hurricane Earl is coming! Or at least passing by. Though early reports stated that the storm might hit New York City hard, current forecasts are far less ominous. But maybe we shouldn’t rule out landfall yet. BLDGBLOG tells us that cities might actually attract passing hurricanes due to the jagged topography of urban landscapes. The irregularity of city land cover can result in an air vortex…
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Nicola Twilley recently asked designers, farmers, health officials, activists and CEOs in NYC and Toronto to discuss how we feed our cities. Find out what she’s learned. |
