Cities: The Latest Architecture and News

Studio Gang and The Community Builders have won the City of Chicago’s C40 Reinventing Cities, a competition that seeks to “transform underutilized sites or buildings into beacons of sustainability and resilience and act as a showcase for future zero-carbon urban developments”. The winning proposal will create 207 residences for the downtown workforce earning as little as minimum wage, revitalize Pritzker Park, and add community spaces and amenities to the Chicago Loop.

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This article was originally published on Common Edge.

Stefan Fuchs & Raphael Dillhof interview Adam Nathaniel Furman and discuss the role and importance of facades in today's urban fabric, "in the context of a broader range of social, economic, and political issues". Part of a more in-depth study examining the role of facades in the 21st century, this discussion also raises the question of why buildings always embody the values of their creators.

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Auckland in New Zealand has topped the ranking in the 2021 EIU's annual world's most liveable city survey. Classifying 140 cities across five categories including stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure, this year’s edition of the review has been highly affected by the global pandemic. Australia, Japan, and New Zealand took leading positions, while European and Canadian cities fell down the ranking.

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In this week's piece by Metropolis, author Kelly Beamon explores in her original article "the patriotism associated with pitched roofs and shares how architects are reimagining this staple of suburban house styles". According to its definition, a gable roof is a classic roof shape, usually in cold or temperate climates, consisting of two roof sections sloping in opposite directions and placed such that the highest, horizontal edges meet to form the roof ridge. Emblematic of the US, this article discusses its return to the urban fabric.

For this month, The Dirt and author Jared Green share with us a study about urban heat islands, exploring new approaches that have been designed to both reduce urban temperatures and help communities adapt to a hotter world, In three cities: New York City, Copenhagen, and Abu Dhabi.

"The explosion of outdoor dining is both a survival tool for restaurants and a welcome cultural shift that may be here to stay", states Jessica Ritz, in her article originally published on Metropolis. In fact, the author explores hospitality trends that have emerged during the pandemic in California, mainly outdoor dining, and that are likely to last or be present for a long time.

Juan Miró, co-founder of Miró Rivera Architects reflects in an opinion piece on the value of American cities. Stating that "when we idealize cities like Copenhagen, we risk losing focus of the fundamental historical differences between the urban trajectories of European and American cities", the architect and educator draws a timeline of events and urban transformations, in order to explain why it would be more relevant to look on the inside when planning U.S cities, rather than taking examples from the outside.

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This article was originally published on Common Edge.

Martin Pederson interviewed this week Antonis Antoniou and Steven Heller, author of Decoding Manhattan, a new book that compiles over 250 architectural maps, diagrams, and graphics of the island of Manhattan in New York City, talking about the origin story of the book, the process of research, and the collaboration.

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Earlier this month, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the launch of the Open Boulevards program, an initiative that would temporarily close off car traffic on boulevard segments across several blocks, expanding the public space for dining, cultural activities and artistic performances. The project builds on the successful initiatives Open streets and Open Restaurants, which transformed the city’s streetscape to better serve diners, cyclists and pedestrians amidst the pandemic.

Romania’s contribution to the 17th Venice Architecture Biennale showcases a new perspective on mass migration, a phenomenon with a wide array of causes, ranking high on the international public agenda. Titled Fading Borders and curated by architects Irina Meliță and Ștefan Simion, the exhibition explores the challenges and opportunities of migration and its consequences on the built environment. Using Romania as a study case, where three million people have left the country in the last decade in pursuit of a better life abroad, the curatorial project frames a conversation around the role of architecture in the successful management of the migration phenomenon, as territorial boundaries continue to fade around the globe.

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Following the Industrial Revolution, many European cities faced an unprecedented rise in the rate of population growth, intensified by the migration of people from rural areas to urban areas seeking better opportunities.

Although cities became more inviting, problems such as pollution and the growth of informal settlements also intensified. Meanwhile, the countryside provided proximity to nature and an abundance of natural resources, but it also suffered from isolation and a decrease in employment opportunities.

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America’s central business districts suffered greatly during the COVID-19 pandemic through job losses and business closings, but they also have a good chance to recover if stakeholders can capitalize on trends that will shape the way people live and work in a post-pandemic economy. That’s the view of the author and urbanist Richard Florida, a professor at the University of Toronto and author of The Rise of the Creative Class and The New Urban Crisis.

This article was originally published on Common Edge.

Dozens of neighborhoods in New York City have been upzoned based on contrived, and even false claims made by the city, which promised more diversity, affordable housing, minimum displacement, and other worthy goals. None of those projections materialized, but this is never acknowledged. Worse, the upzoning created the opposite conditions: less diversity, fewer affordable units, and whiter, wealthier neighborhoods. This, too, is never acknowledged. But the damage is done—and developers are having their way—following the new zoning. Then it’s onto the next neighborhood, with the same approach. Roberta Brandes Gratz explores in her article city planning and city promises in New Tork City, disclosing zoning regulations that lead to the opposite of what they preach.

Jennifer Toole, ASLA, is the founder and President of Toole Design and has over 30 years of experience planning and designing multimodal transportation systems. A certified planner with a degree in landscape architecture, Toole has a strong background in urban design. She has been involved in numerous projects of national significance for the Federal Highway Administration, American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).