Cities: The Latest Architecture and News

2050年马德里的气候将更像今天摩洛哥马拉喀什的气候，斯德哥尔摩将更像布达佩斯，伦敦更像巴塞罗那，莫斯科更像索菲亚，西雅图更像旧金山，东京更像中国的长沙。

苏黎世联邦理工学院克劳瑟实验室（The Crowther Lab）在科学杂志《公共科学图书馆》（PLoS ONE）上发表了一篇题为《从对相似城市的分析开始理解气候变化》的研究，为世界城市中心的未来描绘了一幅严峻的图景。

The climate in Madrid in 2050 will look more like the climate in Marrakesh, Morocco today. Stockholm will feel more like Budapest, London like Barcelona, Moscow like Sofia, Seattle like San Francisco, and Tokyo like Changsa in China. 

The research "Understanding Climate Change Starting with an Analysis of Similar Cities" published in the scientific magazine PLOS ONE by The Crowther Lab of ETH Zurich, paints a grim picture of the future for the world's urban centers.

It should come as no surprise that one of the most respected surveys about bicycle use comes from a Danish organization. This ranking by Copenhagenize Design Company uses a point system to compile a list of the cities looking to re-establish the bicycle as an accepted and practical mode of transportation.

Some assembly required for this vision of future urban living. Known for simple, well-designed, flat-pack furniture, IKEA is proposing expanding their DIY-model to a much larger scale: entire city centers. Democratic Design Days is an annual event where IKEA introduces its upcoming brands and collaborations, this year featuring The Urban Village Project, a collaboration between SPACE10 and EFFEKT Architects. After two years of research, SPACE10 (IKEA’s global research and design lab) is releasing their vision to the public for a new way to design, build, and share our homes, neighborhoods, and cities.

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Vienna, Austria has been ranked as the city with the best quality of life in the world for ten consecutive years. The ranking made by multinational consultancy Mercer is dominated by Western European cities in the highest positions, while Vancouver, Canada reached third place, becoming the highest-ranking city in North America for the last 10 years.

From the Publisher:
The book presents the first historical analysis of the productive tension between the city and the architectural form. It introduces 20th-century theories to construct a historical context from which a new architecture-city relationship emerged. The book provides a conceptual framework to understand this relationship and comes to the conclusion that urbanization may be filled with potential, i.e. be a Good Metropolis.

This article was originally published on Common Edge.

Paul Goldberger has a new book out, released just this week, entitled Ballpark: Baseball in the American City. Taking a page from the Ken Burns playbook, the book looks at a particularly American building type as a lens for looking at the broader culture of cities. Goldberger’s premise is a good one: Ballparks do parallel, to a remarkable degree, trends in American urbanism. They start as an escape from the city, then the city builds up around them. Post–World War II, they escape to the suburbs, then decades later return to the city. Today, privatization of the public realm and real estate development are driving the agenda. Recently I talked with Goldberger about the new book and a whole slew of magical ballparks, both living and long gone.

"Soy de Azteca" (Or "I'm from Azteca") is a photographic project by Zaickz Moz that seeks to re-think the expressions of community and identity of the periphery of Mexico City—which is becoming more diffuse and overflows beyond its geographical limits. The objective of this project is to re-think the interpretations of community and identity of the residents of Ciudad Azteca (State of Mexico) manifested in private, public and urban spaces, through photographic series that addresses issues such as appropriation and modification of space habitable, urban development and the sense of community in the neighborhood of Ciudad Azteca.

The particular characteristics of a community give the inhabitants a sense of identity and belonging. Does this happen in any inhabited place? When observing that the history of Ciudad Azteca always exists in relation to Mexico City, it is worth asking if identifying traits have emerged among the inhabitants of Ciudad Azteca. As in other areas of the capital's periphery, it is possible to observe in this group of neighborhoods located in the municipality of Ecatepec the capacity of the locals to build and transform a space into a variety of forms of urban habitat.

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Amidst efforts to revitalize and improve urban centers, the peripheral areas of cities are often ignored or forgotten. The intense focus on the downtown core means, in terms of land use, that only a relatively small area receives the majority of designers’ attention. "Dvorulitsa" (literally "Yardstreet" in Russian) is an urban development strategy proposed by Russian architecture firm Meganom, aiming to shift that focus. Taking the idea of the “superpark” from the 2013 study, "Archaeology of the Periphery," the yardstreet project presents an alternative method of viewing the periphery of a post-soviet city.

Amer Ismail, architect-turned-artist based in London, has developed a spectacular set of intricate “Globe Drawings” of cities around the world. Beginning in 2016, Ismail developed these 5-point-perspective drawings with heavy inspiration from artist Stephen Wiltshire. Having spent many years drawings architecture, including time at Foster+Partners, Ismail tasked himself with developing a series that encompassed his “interest for architecture, city planning, travel, drawings, and Star Wars.”

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Last week, we asked our social media followers, "What does public architecture mean to you?" These thoughts are intrinsic to the architectural debate and come into play in various types of projects, especially in those related to the planning of common-use spaces in cities.

For ten consecutive years, Vienna ranks first in the Mercer survey on cities with the best quality of life in the world. In this edition to the global ranking, eight Western European cities join the top ten, even when "trade tensions and populist undercurrents continue to dominate the global economic climate", as Mercer points out in its report.

Within the framework of Espacios Oscuros research project, focused on observing and analyzing the experience of sexual diversity in public spaces of Santiago de Chile, architects María González and José Tomás Franco spoke with Nikos Salingaros, a mathematician and thinker known for his alternative theoretical approach to architecture and urbanism. Salingaros promotes design focused on human needs and aspirations, combining rigorous scientific analysis with a deep intuitive experience.

Our cities are, for the most part, hostile to the sensibilities of their citizens. (...) Almost everything has been aligned, standardized, emptied. So, how to meet different people, and how to expect a mix between strangers?

Where we live plays a role in who we are. It influences where we go to school, where we work, who we hang out with, everything. According to the United Nations, almost 75% of everyone on earth will live in a city by 2050. This move to a high-density living will push architecture and the urban experience to its max.

When we think of energy from renewable sources, the first that probably come to mind are solar and wind. And decentralizing power generation is something that has inspired engineers and inventors from all over the world.

So what about turning the mechanical energy generated when people walk into electrical energy? It can be done thanks to technology developed by Laurence Kemball-Cook,founder of Pavegen. Using platforms inserted within sidewalks Pavegen converts steps into electric power (while also generating data and even rewards). But before you go out there feeling like Michael Jackson in Billie Jean, you should understand how this system works.

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This issue of OASE proactively confronts a disturbing trend: the encroaching standardization of interiors as civilization moves inwards. Rather than simply identifying the issue, the editors single out projects for interiors that derive their significance from a specific approach and show a recognizable element of authorship.

This article was originally published on Metropolis Magazine as "Hudson Yards Promised a High-Tech Neighborhood — It was a Greater Challenge Than Expected."

There’s something striking about the command center of America’s largest private real estate development, Hudson Yards, in that it’s actually pretty boring. The room—technically known as the Energy Control Center, or ECC for short—contains two long desks crammed with desktop computers, a few TV monitors plastered to the wall, and a corkboard lined with employee badges. The ceiling is paneled; the lighting, fluorescent. However, New York’s Hudson Yards was once billed as the country’s first “quantified community”: A network of sensors would collect data on air quality, noise levels, temperature, and pedestrian traffic. This would create a feedback loop for the developers, helping them monitor and improve quality of life. So where is the NASA-like mission control? Data collection and advanced infrastructure will still drive parts of Hudson Yards’ operations, but not (yet) as first advertised.

If you're an architecture aficionado, the Colombian capital of Bogota should be high on your list. The city's architecture contains bits and pieces from throughout the country's history, from colonial structures to classical designs from the time of the Republic.

If you're a first time visitor to Bogotá —or a native tourist in your own city— we recommend this architecture guide for the top 10 locations to capture the city's best works.