Tag: streetscape | ArchDaily

Coffee or Tea: Third Places, Kiosks, and the Retail Architecture of Duration

Jonathan Yeung — Sun, 24 May 2026 07:30:00 +0000

"Coffee or tea?" is one of those phrases that follows you across contexts: asked on airplanes, after a meal, in hotel lounges, and in meeting rooms. It sounds like a small question—mere preference, a quick fork in the service script. Yet it also carries a quiet cultural inheritance. Tea arrives with the long history of ritual and domestic pacing, tied to older geographies of trade and everyday etiquette. Coffee arrives with a different lineage of circulation, later industrialized into the modern café and its public-facing rituals. In both cases, the drink is never only a drink; it is a practiced relationship to time and space.

Podium–Tower Urbanism in Southeast Asia: Density, Management, and the Disappearing Street

Jonathan Yeung — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 04:00:00 +0000

If elevated networks reveal a city that increasingly walks above the street, the podium–tower is the typology that often makes that condition feel inevitable. Across Southeast Asia, podium–tower projects have become one of the dominant languages of metropolitan growth: a system that concentrates housing, jobs, retail, and transit connections into highly legible and managed parcels. From an urban planning perspective, the model can be remarkably effective—absorbing congestion, formalizing circulation, and delivering density quickly. Yet as it spreads, the typology also raises a quieter question: what does it optimize for, and what does it erode—especially at the level of the street, where urban life is meant to be negotiated rather than curated?

Building at the Edge: New York and Hong Kong’s Competing Waterfront Logics

Jonathan Yeung — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 08:30:00 +0000

Coastal development in major cities has long been a terrain of opportunity and contention—shaped at once by the pursuit of capital (premium views, scarce land, and the promise of reclamation), by civic demands for public access and collective waterfront life, and by contemporary aspirations for sustainability and place-defining urban identity. Precisely because these agendas rarely align, extracting the full potential of waterfront sites is never straightforward.

Urban Banquet at the Curb: Hong Kong’s Third-Space Dining

Jonathan Yeung — Sun, 18 Jan 2026 08:30:00 +0000

Across cities worldwide, architecture unfolds continuously at the scale of people and community—not only through new buildings, renovations, or monumental works. "Third spaces" are especially revealing. Consider the street-side culinary realm: how seating, serving, and lingering occupy the edge of the street often discloses a city's cultural codes and spatial habits. What forms of dining and inhabitation have emerged in response to local climate, regulation, and social custom—and how have they evolved over time?

Rethinking Mixed-Use Architecture: 8 Conceptual Projects That Integrate Nature, Culture, Work, Play, and Community

Nour Fakharany — Fri, 18 Jul 2025 04:00:00 +0000

From forest-inspired offices in Sweden to jungle-nest clubhouses in Tulum, mixed-use architecture continues to evolve as a tool for integrated living. As cities grow and our expectations of public, private, and commercial space shift, designers are increasingly rethinking how different functions including work, play, rest, learning, can coexist in a single architectural language. These projects suggest that buildings and projects no longer need to silo activities, but rather choreograph them to reflect the rhythms of everyday life.

A Skyward Shift: Exploring the Social Impact of Elevated Public Spaces in Cities

Jonathan Yeung — Mon, 16 Sep 2024 04:00:00 +0000

With escalating land values in urban centers, there has been a growing trend to float public spaces from ground level to elevated locations, such as rooftops or podiums between buildings. From a development perspective, maximizing floor area has become crucial as urban environments expand. Ground-level spaces are highly sought after for retail use due to their strategic location, which attracts foot traffic and potential customers and drives city development and economics.

Urban Mobility in the United States: How Ridesharing Services Impact American Cities

Ankitha Gattupalli — Mon, 19 Feb 2024 07:30:00 +0000

Urban mobility in the United States has seen a radical transformation with the introduction of ridesharing services in the late 2000s. The widespread adoption of services such as Uber and Lyft has altered the way citizens move around cities, offering convenience, flexibility, and accessibility like never before. The innovative business model that excels at designing for individual users failed to foresee larger implications at the scale of the city - congestion, public transit systems, and car ownership. While European countries such as Brussels have pledged to encourage public transportation to curb traffic congestion issues, American cities hunt for solutions of their own.

UN-Habitat Launches “My Neighborhood,” a Practical Guide for Achieving Sustainable Urban Spaces

Maria-Cristina Florian — Mon, 05 Feb 2024 07:30:00 +0000

The UN-Habitat Urban Lab has published “My Neighborhood,” a publication that offers a checklist of urban design principles aimed at creating more sustainable and resilient cities. Containing actions that are applicable at the neighborhood scale, the guide strives to present an integrated approach that responds to key sectors such as transportation, local urban initiatives, housing, public spaces, utilities, and more.

How Neighborhoods Rely on Graffiti to Protest Gentrification

Paul Yakubu — Fri, 04 Aug 2023 07:30:00 +0000

Graffiti, as an art form, has a complex relationship with gentrification. On one hand, it has engaged the streets and urban fabric as a canvas for people to express themselves culturally and socio-politically. This expression could be a form of rebellion by ethnic minorities and disadvantaged groups in certain neighborhoods, or it can build up a sense of cultural uniqueness and social expression, giving a neighborhood a positive character and attracting newcomers. However, over the years, the latter has been an agent of gentrification, spiking up property values to accommodate richer residents and alienating the native communities of those neighborhoods.

The Safety of Light: A Short History of Light in Public Spaces

Maria-Cristina Florian — Thu, 23 Mar 2023 07:30:00 +0000

The simple activity of taking a walk in the evening can easily turn from a relaxing leisurely activity to a dangerous endeavor by removing just one element from the streetscape: public lighting. While not often recognized as defining aspect of urban environments, artificial illumination has played an essential role in defining the character of modern cities. Crime control, the appeal of nightlife, the rise of the shop window, revolutionary movements, utopias, and ideals of social equity are all concepts whose development is tightly linked to the history of public lighting. Technological advancements over the past centuries have continuously shaped the appearance and symbolism of streetlamps. Still, the this element has remains a constant throughout its history.

Activating the Edges: How to Create Lively, Active Streets

Amanda Loper, Daniel Simons, David Baker — Fri, 21 Oct 2022 03:30:00 +0000

This article was originally published on Common Edge.

10 Actions to Improve Streets for Children

Eric Baldwin — Mon, 15 Aug 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Last week, the Global Designing Cities Initiative (GDCI) released Designing Streets for Kids to set a new global baseline for designing urban streets. Designing Streets for Kids builds upon the approach of putting people first, with a focus on the specific needs of babies, children, and their caregivers as pedestrians, cyclists, and transit users in urban streets around the world.

London Introduces Car-Free Streets as Lockdown Eases

Christele Harrouk — Tue, 19 May 2020 06:30:00 +0000

After Milan and Paris, London has announced its plans to transform large areas in the city, converting streets to car-free zones, as the coronavirus lockdown loosens up. Repurposing the city for people, London aims to emerge differently from the pandemic, supporting a low-carbon and sustainable recovery. Works have already started and are expected to be completed within six weeks.

Paris Plans to Maintain Anti-Pollution and Anti-Congestion Measures post Covid-19 Lockdown

Christele Harrouk — Tue, 05 May 2020 06:31:00 +0000

Paris, just like Milan, is planning on keeping its streets car-free after the coronavirus lockdown. Mayor Anne Hidalgo announced plans to maintain the anti-pollution and anti-congestion measures introduced during the confinement period, as the city reopens.

People to Reclaim Streets in Milan in Post Covid-19 Vision of the City

Christele Harrouk — Thu, 23 Apr 2020 06:30:00 +0000

The city of Milan has announced its Strade Aperte plan or “Open streets” plan that favors pedestrians and cyclists over cars. In order to reduce car usage, the Lombardy area will repurpose 35km of roads, over the summer, after the coronavirus lockdown, transforming them into people-friendly streets.

Trees Trees Trees! Design Competition

Rene Submissions — Mon, 04 Nov 2019 12:16:00 +0000

As you may know, things aren't going too well for mother earth. With challenges like deforestation, fires, pollution, and even methane from cows we are facing an uphill battle against climate change.

One of the simplest, and possibly most effective, methods to reverse the damage is to plant trees, billions of them. According to the respected Science Journal, "The restoration of forested land at a global scale could help capture atmospheric carbon and mitigate climate change."

This is no easy task and will require hundreds of millions of people to plant trees in their front yards, backyards, patios, open land, businesses, cities,

Urban Bloom / AIM Architecture + URBAN MATTERS

舒岳康 - SHU Yuekang — Wed, 04 Apr 2018 19:00:00 +0000

More and more urban life is a negotiation between where we need to be, and where we want to be. What we have, and how much we don’t need. As life increasingly moves toward crowded cities, we are interested in creating a space that caters to enjoyment of that space, on its own merit and terms.