1. ArchDaily
  2. Policy

Policy: The Latest Architecture and News

Designing Spaces That Are Good for Women and Everybody Else

"We are focused on creating a just public realm," said Chelina Odbert, Hon. ASLA, CEO and founding principal of Kounkuey Design Initiative (KDI), at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. And by just, "we mean free, inclusive, accessible, unbiased, and equitable". A "just public realm is open to everyone.” There is unlimited access to streets and public spaces so people can travel to school and work and be full members of their communities.

Unfortunately, the public realm is instead often “intimidating, exclusionary, inaccessible, unjust, and inequitable” for many women, LGBTQIA+ people, people with disabilities, and people of color. Landscape architects, planners, and others need to understand who feels safe and comfortable in public spaces or there is a risk of perpetuating inequalities, Odbert argued.

Madrid and Barcelona Benefit from Spain’s Free Travel Plan

Last summer, Spain promoted cleaner transportation by offering free seasonal tickets for suburban and regional trains, which translated into roughly 48 million journeys per month. The initiative hoped to help citizens reduce fuel consumption and reduce the cost of living during the economic uncertainties and rising energy prices. In the summer of 2022, a 30% discount for municipal public transport was announced, with local governments in places like Catalonia topping up to a 60% discount. The program ran between the 1st of September and the 31st of December of last year.

Madrid and Barcelona Benefit from Spain’s Free Travel Plan - Image 1 of 4Madrid and Barcelona Benefit from Spain’s Free Travel Plan - Image 2 of 4Madrid and Barcelona Benefit from Spain’s Free Travel Plan - Image 3 of 4Madrid and Barcelona Benefit from Spain’s Free Travel Plan - Image 4 of 4Madrid and Barcelona Benefit from Spain’s Free Travel Plan - More Images+ 1

Vice President Harris Makes the Case for Nature-based Solutions

This Earth Day, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris highlighted the many benefits of nature-based solutions and recognized the important role of landscape architects in this work. At the University of Miami, she also announced $562 million in funding for coastal resilience projects, supporting 149 projects in 30 states, through the Climate-Ready Coasts Initiative of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Vice President Harris’ remarks build on the Biden-Harris administration’s support for planning and designing with ecological systems in an equitable way.

Vice President Harris Makes the Case for Nature-based Solutions - Image 1 of 4Vice President Harris Makes the Case for Nature-based Solutions - Image 2 of 4Vice President Harris Makes the Case for Nature-based Solutions - Image 3 of 4Vice President Harris Makes the Case for Nature-based Solutions - Image 4 of 4Vice President Harris Makes the Case for Nature-based Solutions - More Images+ 1

New Orleans’ Equity-Driven Reforestation Plan

New Orleans experiences the worst urban heat island effect in the country, with temperatures nearly 9 F° higher than nearby natural areas. The city also lost more than 200,000 trees from Hurricane Katrina, dropping its overall tree canopy to just 18.5 percent.

The non-profit organization Sustaining Our Urban Landscape (SOUL) partnered with landscape architects at Spackman Mossop Michaels (SMM) to create a highly accessible, equity-focused reforestation plan for the city that provides a roadmap for achieving a tree canopy of 24 percent by 2040. But more importantly, the plan also seeks to equalize the canopy, so at least 10 percent of all 72 neighborhoods are covered in trees. Currently, more than half of neighborhoods are under the 10 percent goal.

New Orleans’ Equity-Driven Reforestation Plan - Image 1 of 4New Orleans’ Equity-Driven Reforestation Plan - Image 2 of 4New Orleans’ Equity-Driven Reforestation Plan - Image 3 of 4New Orleans’ Equity-Driven Reforestation Plan - Image 4 of 4New Orleans’ Equity-Driven Reforestation Plan - More Images+ 3

Women in Urban Leadership: 6 Trailblazers You Should Get To Know

“Successful, vibrant, happy cities arise out of the visions of many, not the powerful few.” - Jane Jacobs.

While we’ve seen progress in female representation over the last century, women’s perspectives and voices are still significantly marginalized. This year, the UN reported that women serve as Heads of State or Government in only 22 countries and that 119 countries have never had a female leader, despite the strong case that their leadership makes for more inclusive decision-making and more representative governance. Moreover, women occupy just 10 percent of the highest-ranking jobs at the world’s leading architecture firms.

Women in Urban Leadership: 6 Trailblazers You Should Get To Know  - Image 1 of 4Women in Urban Leadership: 6 Trailblazers You Should Get To Know  - Image 2 of 4Women in Urban Leadership: 6 Trailblazers You Should Get To Know  - Image 3 of 4Women in Urban Leadership: 6 Trailblazers You Should Get To Know  - Image 4 of 4Women in Urban Leadership: 6 Trailblazers You Should Get To Know  - More Images+ 1

Why Are Countries Building Their Cities From Scratch?

Imagine having a blank canvas on which to master-plan a brand new city; drawing its roads, homes, commerces, and public spaces on a fresh slate and crafting its unique urban identity. Every urban planner has fantasized about designing a city from scratch and luckily for some, this dream is morphing into concrete opportunities. 

Over the last two decades, new, master-planned cities have emerged from the ground up at an unprecedented scale, the majority of which have been created in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America, with currently over 150 new cities in the making. This new type of urban development has shown to be particularly seductive in emerging markets, where they are sold as key parts of the strategy to leapfrog from agriculture and resource-based systems to knowledge economies by attracting foreign capital and boosting economic growth.

Why Are Countries Building Their Cities From Scratch? - Image 1 of 4Why Are Countries Building Their Cities From Scratch? - Image 2 of 4Why Are Countries Building Their Cities From Scratch? - Image 3 of 4Why Are Countries Building Their Cities From Scratch? - Image 4 of 4Why Are Countries Building Their Cities From Scratch? - More Images+ 7

Carlos García Vázquez: "The Modern Urbanism Has Rediscovered Traditional Cities"

Three years ago, in the wake of the release of his book Theories and History of the Modern City ("Teorías e Historia de la Ciudad Contemporánea", 2016, Editorial Gustavo Gili), we sat down with the author, Carlos García Vázquez, to discuss this complex and "uncertain creature' that is the modern city, focusing on the three categories that define cities today: Metropolis, Megalopolis, and Metapolis.

Based on an analysis of those "who have traditionally led the way in the planning of spaces" (sociologists, historians, and architects), the book illustrates the social, economic, and political forces that, in service to their own agendas, drive the planning, transformation, exploitation, and development of cities. In 120 years, urban centers have transformed from places where "people died from the city" to bastions of personal development and economic prosperity; however, the question remains —have cities really triumphed?

"Yes", says García Vásquez, "but we have paid dearly for it."

Carlos García Vázquez: "The Modern Urbanism Has Rediscovered Traditional Cities" - Image 1 of 4Carlos García Vázquez: "The Modern Urbanism Has Rediscovered Traditional Cities" - Image 2 of 4Carlos García Vázquez: "The Modern Urbanism Has Rediscovered Traditional Cities" - Image 3 of 4Carlos García Vázquez: "The Modern Urbanism Has Rediscovered Traditional Cities" - Image 4 of 4Carlos García Vázquez: The Modern Urbanism Has Rediscovered Traditional Cities - More Images+ 6

How to Increase a City’s Affordable Rental Housing Units? The case of Barcelona

City officials in Barcelona have found an incentive to help increase the city’s available rental housing units. Authorities are threatening to forcefully buy empty properties to create more affordable housing if landlords don’t manage to fill their vacant rental assets within a certain time frame.

The 9 Architecture Topics You Need To Know About in 2018

2017 is in the past. Nevertheless, the year has left us a series of lessons, new wisdom and better tools to help us face the challenges of 2018. What surprises will this year bring us?

We asked our editors at Plataforma Arquitectura (ArchDaily's Spanish arm) to make predictions based on what they've learnt in 2017, and to share with readers the topics they expect to be in the limelight in 2018.

Call for Submissions: 2018 Fitch Funding

Since 1989, the James Marston Fitch Charitable Foundation has been in the vanguard of historic preservation practice and theory. The mission of the Fitch Foundation is to support professionals in the field of historic preservation, and to achieve this we provide mid-career grants to those working in preservation, landscape architecture, urban design, environmental planning, materials conservation, decorative arts, architectural design and history, and allied fields.

26 Things All Architects Can Relate To

Working in architecture is always a challenging experience in which you just never know what might happen next. That said, there are a number of things we can collectively relate to as a part of this industry. Here we've created a list of things we're all too familiar with—whether that relates to finishing projects, working with clients, or just dealing with people that totally don't even know what goes on in architecture. Which ones did we miss?

UK Housing Review Panel "Needs To Be More Balanced," Admits Terry Farrell

Last week the UK Government appointed a new housing design panel, intended to "ensure that new homes are not only lower-cost but also high-quality and well-designed." The panel will be led by Terry Farrell, classical architect Quinlan Terry and aesthetics philosopher Roger Scruton, as well as representatives from the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI), the UK Design Council and lobby group Create Streets. However, the profession was quick to criticize the selection of the three lead members of the panel.

China's "City-Making Process": Investors' Power in the People's Republic

The world is looking at the urban machine of Chinese cities, at the newly founded theme-cities and at the new urban economic investment areas around the cities. The buildings are repetitive, the areas are sometimes uninhabited, but the thing that leaves urban planners, architects and the public amazed is that these buildings are often completely sold out even before they are completed.

To buy these freshly constructed residences takes money, and over the last three decades the Chinese economic miracle served precisely to grow the per capita income. The reform of the economic system in 1978 was the driving force that triggered the mechanism of capital production. The reform led to millions of people migrating to the cities from the underdeveloped west of the country in search of higher salaries and a well-founded hope of revolutionizing their economic existence.

RIBA Report Aims to Put Architecture at the Heart of Next Government's Agenda

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has published a report which it hopes will influence government policy writers in time for the general election next year. The report outlines the RIBA's stance on a wide variety of architectural issues, from planning policy, to school building, to designing healthy cities.

The report hopes to build on the recommendations made by the Farrell Review, which among many other things recommended the appointment of a chief architect to advise the government, as well as an overhaul of the current planning system. However, in one sense the RIBA report goes further than the Farrell Report by saying that the government should implement a defined architecture policy, pointing to the success of such policies in countries such as Denmark.

Read on after the break for more on the report's recommendations

Sydney Pushes First-Ever Policy to Promote Culture

The City of Sydney has requested that 1.6 million square meters of empty commercial and residential space be made available to artists for “creative activities.” The proposed cultural policy offers over 120 ideas in which the space can be used to enhance Sydney’s reputation as a world renowned creative city. “The City is proud to spend more than $34 million each year to support the arts, culture and creative activity in Sydney – but we know it is equally important to create an environment where ideas and imagination can flourish.” More information on the new policy can be found here.