Cities: The Latest Architecture and News

This article was originally published on Common Edge.

Most of the news coming out of the recently completed climate summit in Glasgow was disappointing. Previous summits had ended in similarly dispiriting ways, and COP26 was no exception. It acknowledged the severity of the problem and the urgency of the moment—the need to keep warming to under 1.5 degrees Celsius (some scientists believe it’s already too late to prevent this)—but put off making the hard commitments necessary to actually solve the problem. At the same time, this summit did feel different. There was a sense of urgency in the Glasgow streets, and the world’s attention was undeniably focused on climate change. How this focus eventually translates into action on the political front remains an open question.

But architect Edward Mazria, executive director of Architecture 2030, believes that despite the immense obstacles facing climate activists, the building sector is on the cusp of helping change the course of the planet. He sees genuine reasons for hope and renewed effort. In the wake of the seemingly grim news out of Glasgow, I spoke with him last week about the way forward, how we’ve reached an important inflection point, why energy use tied to buildings has begun to decline globally, and the steps required to fully decarbonize the built environment.

If you have ever walked around the center of London you will have seen those yellow and dark blue panels featuring maps, local attractions, and walking times dotted along the streets and near bus and tube stops. Credited with redefining city wayfinding, Legible London, as the system is called, is now seen as the benchmark for making cities accessible and legible to residents, commuters, and visitors alike. And now Seattle has launched its own version of the London system, and Madrid will do so next year. Giovanna Dunmall asks Tim Fendley, the founder and CEO of Applied, the spatial experience design practice behind all these projects, why analog is often still so superior to digital, and what makes for good wayfinding.

Buildings around the world are getting taller. Since the year 2000, global skyscraper construction has increased by 402%. Cities like Dubai are home to nearly 1000 high-rise buildings, and New York’s vibrant luxury real estate market has shown no signs of slowing down, with more high-rise additions slated to be added to its already towering skyline. There’s good in this – high-rises create much-needed space in already dense cities and can reduce urban sprawl in city centres, allowing for better preservation of natural areas.

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In its new exhibition Peter Cook: City Landscapes, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art showcases drawings by the influential architect, best known for his architectural theories and visionary concepts. Curated by Kjeld Kjeldsen and Mette Marie Kallehauge, the event is part of the exhibition series Louisiana on Paper, which presented the work of various artists over the years and is now debuting its first show featuring drawings by an architect.

The 2021 edition of Dutch Design Week (DDW) that took place in October in Eindhoven brought forward a range of explorations and innovative ideas that have the potential of shaping a positive future in the direction of less waste and sustainable consumption. As part of the programme, the Future Cities talk discussed the challenges faced by urban environments and addressed the potential of carefully considered inward growth and densification in tackling housing shortage and achieving sustainable development.

You might have heard that Mark Zuckerberg wants Facebook to become a Metaverse Company, and earlier this year, Epic Games, the company that develops the Unreal Engine announced that it completed a 1 billion round of funding to support the long-term vision for the metaverse. Metaverse is definitely the hottest buzzword in the tech scene. In this article, we will briefly discuss what is Metaverse, who will build it, and most importantly why it matters for architects, and how can designers play a significant role in this upcoming digital economy?

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In this episode of Design and the City - a podcast by reSITE on how to make cities more liveable – scholar, writer and consultant Tim Gill, author of Urban Playground: How Child-Friendly Planning and Design Can Save Cities, talks about the importance of designing cities that can foster play and empower children autonomy, as a way of creating inclusive urban environments fit for all ages and abilities. Gill argues for enhancing children's everyday freedom and discusses his research into ideas and principles that would make neighbourhoods rich in experiences in possibilities, which he defines as child-friendly urban planning.

Last week, the Common Council of Ithaca, New York, voted to approve a first-in-the-nation decarbonization plan in which the roughly 6,000 homes and buildings located within the notably “enlightened” lakeside college town will be electrified to meet goals established by the city’s impressively aggressive Green New Deal (GND) plan. That carbon-neutral-by-2030 GND plan was adopted unanimously by the Common Council in June 2019 to “address climate change, economic inequality, and racial injustice,” per the city.

The rise of electric scooter fleets in cities around the globe happened almost overnight. By making transportation fun, they quickly took over a new market share and provided not only an easy way to travel but one that also prides itself in being sustainable. First becoming popular on the West Coast of the United States, scooters migrated eastward, eventually sweeping across Europe as well. Easy to maneuver and a convenient solution to get from place to place, we have to ask- can cities handle the accelerating rise of scooters and other forms of micromobility?

Architecture, by its very definition, involves the construction of structures. Structures that are meant to serve as spaces for work, living, religious devotion, amongst many other purposes. Architectural projects and interventions, however, need land – and it is this intrinsic relationship, between land and architecture, that has massive ramifications not only regarding reducing carbon emissions but more importantly in forming an equitable future rooted in climate justice.

A lot can happen in the space between a book’s title and subtitle, as A Blueprint for Coastal Adaptation: Uniting Design, Economics, and Policy (Island Press, 2021) demonstrates. Here, in a reversal from the norm, the subtitle assumes the more evocative bent by elevating design to the same status as economics and policy. To some, this might seem a spurious move, but the volume lives its creed: Its editors include two design academics and a business school professor, to say nothing about the myriad backgrounds of its contributors.

Blueprint goes deep into the policy decisions that have shaped the brittle condition of coastal infrastructure. It coalesces into a convincing picture of the wider context in which design operates, with the aim of making the built environment more equitable for those caught on the front lines of certain climate change cataclysm.

This week, the C40 global network of cities and engineering and sustainability firm Arup launched a virtual exhibition showcasing examples of climate initiatives and resiliency strategies from 11 cities committed to addressing climate change. Given that cities account for more than 70% of global carbon emissions, the Global Cities Climate Action Exhibition aims to highlight the role of cities in reaching climate targets through local policies and urban development plans, achieving tangible emission reductions and increasing social equity.

A new report from The Trust for Public Land (TPL) makes a compelling case for transforming underperforming, paved public schoolyards into green oases for the entire community. While the benefits for schools and their educational communities are clear, TPL sees an opportunity to open up these facilities to surrounding neighborhoods after school hours, on weekends, and when school is out. If all 90,000 public schools in the country had a “community schoolyard,” more communities could tackle the persistent park equity issue — in which too few communities, particularly undeserved ones, enjoy access to nearby high-quality public green spaces. TPL argues that opening up all schoolyards, essentially turning them into part-time all-access community hubs, would “put a park within a 10-minute walk of nearly 20 million people — solving the problem of outdoor access for one-fifth of the nation’s 100 million people who don’t currently have a park close to home.”

When examining the world of African cinema, there are few names more prominent than that of Senegalese director Ousmane Sembène. His films ‘La Noire de…’ and ‘Mandabi’, released in 1966 and 1968 respectively, are films that tell evocative stories on the legacies of colonialism, identity, and immigration. And whilst these two films are relatively slow-spaced, ‘slice-of-life stories, they also offer a valuable spatial critique of the setting where the films are based, providing a helpful framework to understand the intricacies of the post-colonial African city, and the contrast between the African and European metropolises.

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As cities grow in scale, dimensions, and amplitude, taking in 60% of the world population, the United Nations has designated the 31st of October as “World Cities Day”, an opportunity to talk furthermore about global urbanization, addressing challenges, encouraging opportunities across borders and highlighting responses. Focusing this edition on the theme of “Adapting Cities for Climate Resilience”, this day, part of Urban October, seeks to raise awareness about the climate crisis and its repercussions on the built environment.

Cities, at the center of the global challenges, are hubs for institutions, society, economy, commerce, and transportation. Understanding the importance of “Thinking the City”, we have compiled in this roundup, articles published by ArchDaily’s editors that offer planning tools and guidelines, tackle the different components of the urban realm and highlight worldwide as well as contextual questions and responses.

The 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP 26) debuted yesterday in Glasgow, bringing together more than 190 world leaders, with the aim of accelerating action to reach the goals of the Paris Agreement and UN's Convention on Climate Change. Leading architecture organizations and figures are attending the two-week summit to show the AEC's industry's commitment to reduce carbon emissions and urge decision-makers to implement clear targets to achieve global climate goals.

Urban environments are in a constant process of social evolution, political and economic transformation. Attached to the idea of urban renewal is gentrification, a complex phenomenon circumscribing a variety of issues, from the improvement of the built environment and strengthening the local economy to displacement and demographic change. On the one hand, redevelopment means revitalizing neighbourhoods, improving the built environment and infrastructure and boosting the local economy, and on the other hand, gentrification drives up property prices and cost of living, forcing out low-income communities. Is the displacement of local communities a "collateral damage" of urban development? Does redevelopment intrinsically drive gentrification, and can urban environments be revitalized more ethically?

In this Editor's Talk edition, editors from Argentina, Lebanon, Brasil, Chile, Tanzania share their views on gentrification.

This article was originally published on Common Edge.

On a recent day in Santa Monica, California, visitors sat in the shaded courtyard outside City Hall East waiting for appointments. One of them ate a slice of the orange she’d picked from the tree above her and contemplated the paintings, photographs, and assemblages on the other side of the glass. The exhibit, Lives that Bind, featured local artists’ expressions of erasure and underrepresentation in Santa Monica’s past. It’s part of an effort by the city government to use the new soon-to-be certified Living Building (designed by Frederick Fisher and Partners) as a catalyst for building a community that is environmentally, socially, and economically self-sustaining.