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Urban Planning: The Latest Architecture and News

SOM Reveals Plans for New Urban District Around Philadelphia's 30th Street Station

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) has released plans for a new mixed-use urban district for Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station Precinct. In response to projections showing significant increases in transit activity in the coming decades, the project calls for a transformation of the existing Beaux Arts train station and surrounding neighborhood of University City. The design will improve transportation throughout the city, and will activate the area with new shops, restaurants and public plazas.

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KCAP Wins Competition for Island Plan in Amsterdam

KCAP Architects & Planners has won the competition for the design of “Punt de Sniep,” an urban planning project in Diemen, a city in the agglomeration of Amsterdam in the Netherlands.

Overall, the project will consist of 165 apartments, a marina, and commercial and gastronomy functions over a total of 16,000 square meters.

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Broadway Malyan to Design Additional Towers for Jakarta Business Park

Broadway Malyan has been appointed to design eight towers for the CIBIS Business Park, a 12-hectare development in Jakarta, Indonesia. Previously, the firm developed the site’s original masterplan, as well as the design for Tower 9, and has since then been asked to additionally deliver Towers 1 through 8.

The goal of the overall project is to create a business village that reflects Indonesian culture, as well as international characteristics in order to bring people together in shared and mixed-use spaces.

The additional appointments for the other towers will help us to ensure continuity and integrity of the design approach and further the high quality office space in the area, noted Ed Baker, Director of Broadway Malyan.

Masterplan by SLA and Ramboll Aims to Alleviate Flooding in Copenhagen

Planning and landscape firm SLA Architects and engineering office Ramboll have won an international competition to redesign Hans Tavsens Park and its surrounding area in the central Copenhagen borough of Nørrebro. The competition tasked architects with envisioning a park and streetscape that would benefit the hydrological, biological and social ecosystems of the neighborhood. The winning proposal, titled The Soul of Nørrebro, tackles the challenge by creating a system of drainage areas and an adaptable park designed to redirect runoff and contain and purify water during flood conditions.

Zoning New York Scavenger Hunt

Open House New York and the Museum of the City of New York invite you to celebrate the centennial anniversary of New York City's 1916 Zoning Resolution with a citywide scavenger hunt to uncover how the invisible forces of zoning have shaped the city around us, from the dramatic setbacks of Jazz Age skyscrapers to the vast open plazas of mid-century Modernism.

AR Issues: On "Notopia," the Scourge Destroying Our Cities Worldwide

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ArchDaily is continuing our partnership with The Architectural Review, bringing you short introductions to the themes of the magazine’s monthly editions. In this introduction to the June 2016 issue on what the AR has provocatively named "Notopia," Editor Christine Murray outlines the defining characteristics of this "selfish city," the "pandemic of generic buildings have no connection to each other" - stating that their issue-long tirade against Notopia "is less a warning than a prophecy of doom."

If what is called the development of our cities is allowed to multiply at the present rate, then by the end of the century our world will consist of isolated oases of glassy monuments surrounded by a limbo of shacks and beige constructions, and we will be unable to distinguish any one global city from another.

This pandemic of generic buildings have no connection to each other, let alone to the climate and culture of their location.

With apologies to our forebear Ian Nairn, upon this scourge The Architectural Review bestows a name in the hope that it will stick – NOTOPIA. Its symptom (which one can observe without even leaving London) is that the edge of Mumbai will look like the beginning of Shenzhen, and the center of Singapore will look like downtown Dallas.

reSITE 2016: 5th International Conference on a Hot Topic – “Cities in Migration”

On June 16-17, Prague will be hosting one of the leading architecture and urbanist events in Europe. Most of the 49 world renowned experts who will speak at reSITE 2016: Cities in Migration have experienced migration themselves. Coming from 20 countries, they will bring innovative solutions and successful strategies for European and Western cities to come to terms painlessly with the influx of new residents. Carl Weisbrod, Chairman of the City Planning Commission of NYC, Professor Saskia Sassen, sociologist at Columbia University, and Michael Kimmelman, the Architecture Critic for The New York Times will come from New York City. A huge number of speakers will come from Germany. Besides the famous landscape architect, Martin Rein-Cano from Topotek 1, Berlin, we will meet one of the city planner of Munich and the co-founders of the initiative “Refugees Welcome.”

Sabri Pasayigit Design Office Releases Master Plan for Turkish Municipality

Architecture and planning firm Sabri Pasayigit Design Office has released its new master plan for the Municipality of Kayseri in the Sahabiye neighborhood of Kayseri, Turkey.

The project balances historic and modern architecture elements, with a focus on the historic castle of Kayseri as the city center point. Cultural and public buildings will be placed near this historic center, with taller buildings set farther out of the city.

Places Journal Explores the Past, Present and Future of Urban Skyways

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When hearing the word “skybridge” or “elevated walkway,” what often comes to mind is a narrow, glassed-in pathway perhaps crossing between two office buildings or hospital concourses; a narrow artery whose only purpose seems to be keeping people dry and away from cars as they walk from meeting to meeting. But this wasn’t always the case - in the 1960s, skyways were seen as radical urban inventions that would bring city circulation into the 3rd dimension. Championed in the United States by architect Victor Gruen, following ideals espoused by both CIAM and Team 10 in Europe, the skyway movement took hold in cities all over the world with varying degrees of success, but rarely with the fluid connections between levels originally envisioned by its designers.

Dallas Architecture Forum Presents "Economics and Architecture"

Dallas Architecture Forum, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing public education about architecture, design and the urban environment, will continue its 2015-2016 Panel Discussion Series on Tuesday, May 10, 2016 with “Economics and Architecture” moderated by Jeff Whittington, Executive Producer and Host at KERA 90.1.

Student Survey: The Future of Parks

Husqvarna invites you to take their survey, The Future of Parks, and share your insights into how parks will look and function in the year 2030. The UN has set a goal to make cities more sustainable in the coming decades, and parks will play an integral role in making that happen. Together with students from around the world, you will help to co-create a vision of what is to come! 

Platform 8: An Index of Design & Research

Platform 8 catalogs a curated selection of work generated in the past year at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Alongside final products of design education, Platform 8 places particular emphasis on collecting and documenting the people and artifacts that shape research-driven design practices. Here, design is presented both as process and as a final product. Indexical structure, punctuated with a collection of portraits, presents a comprehensive picture of the school. Platform 8 shows the intention, direction, and passion seen and experienced every day at the GSD.

KidsBuild!

KidsBuild! will be held at BSA Space on Saturday, April 9 and Sunday April 10. Guided by professional architects, families will choose a construction site from a fictional city grid, design and build a building, and be awarded a certificate of occupancy from the city building inspectors.

Media Architecture Biennale 2016


From June 1st - 4th, design and urban planning experts from around the globe will transform The Concourse, on Sydney’s North Shore into a digital media technology hub, for the 5th international Media Architecture Biennale 2016. Architectural and design professionals, academics, state and federal government representatives and specialised experts in digital placemaking will host a series of workshops, symposia and events designed to explore the existing and future impact of digital technologies on urban planning within global cities.

Dallas Architecture Forum Presents "Village Redux: Co-Housing and Pocket Neighborhoods"

Dallas Architecture Forum, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing public education about architecture, design and the urban environment, will continue its 2015-2016 Panel Discussion Series on March 22, 2016 with “Village Redux: Co-Housing and Pocket Neighborhoods,” moderated by Nan Ellin, Founding Dean of the College of Architecture, Planning and Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Arlington.

Designing A Place for Inventing the Future: The MIT Campus, Then, Now, Next

This two-day symposium is co-sponsored with the MIT 2016 Committee and the MIT Department of Architecture. It will examine architecture and cultures at MIT and their influences on education and student life on campus. Speakers, including David Adjaye and Hashim Sarkis, will explore the prescient design of the original buildings and the interdisciplinary, innovative research that they fomented, as well as imagine the teaching and maker spaces of the future.

5 Steps to Creating High-Performance Communities

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As we become a planet of city-dwellers, planners and urban designers have an imperative to design communities that perform better than ever before. But what exactly does “performance” mean? Communities should have energy and water-saving systems, but at a high level there also needs to be a more holistic approach to creating a sense of place and connection, while at the same time being accessible to different demographics and vibrant all throughout the day. Here are five essential ingredients for designing a high-performance community.

Dallas Architecture Forum Presents "Remaking the City" Panel Discussion

Dallas Architecture Forum, will continue its 2015-2016 Panel Discussion Series on March 8, 2016 with “Remaking the City,” moderated by Bob Meckfessel, President of DSGN Associates in Dallas. This panel is presented in collaboration with Preservation Dallas.