Human Scale Cities

massurban: Fast Company: “Restarting Neighborhoods By...

Fri, 24 May 2013 16:02:15 +0200

Fast Company:

“Restarting Neighborhoods By Reactivating Abandoned Buildings

Impossible Living lets you tell the world about abandoned buildings in your neighborhood and crowdsource possible solutions or capital to get things humming again.

Ben Schiller.

From Detroit to recession-hit Spain, the world is full of abandoned buildings: factories left by companies that went somewhere else, suburban subdivisions from the boom years, crumbling farms and churches in remote places. Italy has an estimated 2 million such properties; Spain, another 3.5 million; America, many more.

Andrea Sesta, who lives in Milan, has been trying to find alternative uses for some of them. His web site, Impossible Living, allows anyone to map unused real estate, and act as champions for their renewal (even if they don’t own them). If there’s a building standing empty near you, you can add an address, put up some photos and videos, and then call on the web to help develop new ideas. “It’s a communication tool between the activator and the community,” he says.”

Photo: Impossible Living

A renewed look at Europe’s population distribution High...

Fri, 24 May 2013 15:23:00 +0200

A renewed look at Europe’s population distribution

High resolution map

Focusing the map on European capital cities reveals a diversity of structures and morphologies, from the least populated (e.g. Tallinn, Bratislava or Riga) to the most populated (e.g. Madrid, London or Paris). While Madrid and Paris show large and compact city cores with generally very high population densities, London’s central area still shows an overall high residential density, with moderate residential density at the centre, which gradually declines towards the periphery in a radial pattern. Berlin, on the contrary, shows a more homogeneous pattern, with very large areas around the centre with medium to high population densities. Other cities such as Rome or Lisbon show less compact residential cores and rather disperse peripheries with overall low population densities. This diversity is a result of demographic processes in interaction with the local geographies, cultural idiosyncrasies, and urban planning policies and practices.

Smart citizens make smart cities Talk by Dan Hill, Fabrica -...

Thu, 23 May 2013 19:07:22 +0200

Smart citizens make smart cities

Talk by Dan Hill, Fabrica - Speaker at NEXT13

Studio-X NYC: The always-smart Courtney Humphries has written an interesting Boston...

Thu, 23 May 2013 17:57:46 +0200

Studio-X NYC: The always-smart Courtney Humphries has written an interesting Boston...:

studiox-nyc:

The always-smart Courtney Humphries has written an interesting Boston Globe article on the potential downsides of smart cities (citing Anthony Townsend, who, with Greg Lindsay, curated our 2012 X-Cities series on the promise and pitfalls of smart cities). She explores privacy issues,…

everydayhybridity: Checked out the blog of a new follower and...

Wed, 22 May 2013 17:33:42 +0200

everydayhybridity:

Checked out the blog of a new follower and it is full of superb stuff. Especially recommended for fans of urbanism and public space…

Annette Koh

Urban Class Warfare: Are Cities Built for the Rich? - Interview with David Harvey

Wed, 22 May 2013 11:49:30 +0200

Urban Class Warfare: Are Cities Built for the Rich? - Interview with David Harvey :

Today’s class struggles are increasingly taking place in cities, says Marxist and social theorist David Harvey. In an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE, he discusses how urbanization will play a key role in social conflicts to come.

You can also find me on Twitter for more updates

Wed, 22 May 2013 11:32:46 +0200

You can also find me on Twitter for more updates

Top 20 Flickr Groups for Infographics

Tue, 21 May 2013 18:53:22 +0200

Top 20 Flickr Groups for Infographics:

visualoop:

http://bit.ly/10MmFAV

sunlightcities: Yet another guess-the-place game caught by...

Tue, 21 May 2013 15:50:17 +0200

sunlightcities:

Yet another guess-the-place game caught by Atlantic Cities: LocateStreet gives players multiple choice and several play options.

-Read more at Atlantic Cities

elcasc is a sociocultural renewal project set in Villena, Spain,...

Tue, 21 May 2013 10:37:13 +0200

elcasc is a sociocultural renewal project set in Villena, Spain, which aims to investigate and transform aspects of the historic city centre’s social and urban fabric. Over the course of 10 days in the summer of 2013, from july 29th to august 8th, a 200-strong multi-disciplinary group of students and young professionals from around the world will descend upon the town and work together to devise and deliver a series of low-cost architectural, artistic and cultural interventions that draw on and celebrate the city’s local heritage and socio-cultural patterns.

arkigekko: taikonautas: Una forma muy gráfica de ver como la...

Tue, 21 May 2013 09:04:19 +0200

arkigekko:

taikonautas:

Una forma muy gráfica de ver como la burbuja inmobiliaria ha destrozado nuestro paisaje y nuestros pueblos…
En Nación Rotonda podemos ver con estos deslizantes el antes y el después de toda esta locura sobre muchos núcleos.

IMPRESIONANTE! toda una lección de ANTIURBANISMO

The too-smart city

Mon, 20 May 2013 10:41:45 +0200

The too-smart city:

The smart city has become a buzzword in urban planning and university engineering departments, and a topic of breathless coverage in science and business magazines. But as political leaders, engineers, and environmentalists join the smart-city bandwagon, a growing chorus of thinkers from social sciences, architecture, urban planning, and design are starting to sound a note of caution. Though they share enthusiasm for what a smart city could do, they also point out that smart-city programs couldâwith little public oversightâput us on track to an oversanitized, high-surveillance, serendipity-free urban future that not everyone thinks is ideal.

Good article with great insights on some of the problems I have with the mainstream idea of smart cities and the role of technologies in urban living.

European Metromonitor Comprendiendo el impacto de la crisis en...

Mon, 20 May 2013 09:44:53 +0200

European Metromonitor

Comprendiendo el impacto de la crisis en las economías urbanas

intldev: Rise of the Megacity - A megacity generally defines a...

Mon, 20 May 2013 09:37:23 +0200

intldev:

Rise of the Megacity - A megacity generally defines a metropolitan area that has a population in excess of 10 million people.

Read More

brucesterling: Archigram visionary Peter Cook modelling “Info...

Sun, 19 May 2013 10:51:50 +0200

brucesterling:

Archigram visionary Peter Cook modelling “Info Gonks,” the Google Glass of London in 1968.

thepeoplesrecord: Google+ demonstrates deforestation and other...

Sat, 18 May 2013 18:51:56 +0200

thepeoplesrecord:

Google+ demonstrates deforestation and other man-made climate disasters with satellite images
May 18, 2013

It’s one thing to talk about deforestation, disappearing habitats, and shrinking glaciers and water resources, and another thing entirely to demonstrate it with actual satellite imagery. And thanks to Landsat images and the Google Earth Engine, we’re getting a glimpse at some key locations across the planet as they are changed by the hands of man. A series of interactive timelapse GIFs that use Landsat satellite data to display massive changes to the Earth’s surface could be a potent tool for motivating individuals and organizations to take action on key issues.

Google’s Animated GIFs of Earth Over Time focuses our attention on key features of our planet, such as the Amazon rainforest, the coal beds of Wyoming, the Columbia Glacier, the Aral Sea, and the deserts of Saudi Arabia.

Today, we’re making it possible for you to go back in time and get a stunning historical perspective on the changes to the Earth’s surface over time. Working with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), NASA and TIME, we’re releasing more than a quarter-century of images of Earth taken from space, compiled for the first time into an interactive time-lapse experience. We believe this is the most comprehensive picture of our changing planet ever made available to the public.

- Google

Some of the visualizations are kind of subtle, and need to be put into context to really hit home (such as the massive increase in irrigated areas in Saudi Arabia, which affects local water supplies, or the urban sprawl of Las Vegas, which also puts increased demands on local resources), but some of them, such as this one documenting the rapidly disappearing rainforest in the Brazilian Amazon, speak for themselves:

Explore a global timelapse of our planet, constructed from Landsat satellite imagery. The Amazon rainforest is shrinking at a rapid rate to provide land for farming and raising cattle. Each frame of the timelapse map is constructed from a year of Landsat satellite data, constituting an annual 1.7-terapixel snapshot of the Earth at 30-meter resolution.

- Google Earth Engine

These interactive time-lapse images can be manipulated by pausing or zooming in to them, as we’ve come to expect from Google Earth, and may serve as a pivot point for those who are on the fence about the effects that our booming population and its increased demand for resources has on our Big Blue Marble.

Source

You can view all of the images at Google +, and you can read a backstory at TIME.

brewcitysafari: A Clean River is a Fun River

Sat, 18 May 2013 17:08:11 +0200

brewcitysafari:

A Clean River is a Fun River

icancauseaconstellation: Amsterdam, the canal rings

Sat, 18 May 2013 17:07:38 +0200

icancauseaconstellation:

Amsterdam, the canal rings

soundbitecity: From Centers of Death to Centers of Creation:...

Sat, 18 May 2013 17:06:52 +0200

soundbitecity:

From Centers of Death to Centers of Creation: Adaptively Re-Using Slaughterhouses

The former slaughterhouse in the Testaccio section of Rome. Once home to a massive slaughter operation, and responsible for providing a steady stream of meat to Roman citizens from 1891 to 1975, it is now is home to a museum and arts center, funky art installations, non-profit associations, shops, venues, and space for interesting events (I.e. beer festivals).

It’s a little eerie to walk alongside the former pens, to look up and see the meat hooks that still hang from the ceilings, or to envision the number of animals that must have passed through here; but its an important piece of maintaining the history and character of the place. Its also an important food experience, in a world where most people are increasingly out of touch with where their food comes from or what processes it went through to get to them. In one breath, you can be inspired by a modern piece of art or music, while also becoming conscious of the scale and infrastructure required for meat operations.

Overall, they’ve done a great job of coming up with interesting uses and bringing some of the empty spaces to life. I hope they continue to be creative, as I’m sure there’s even more that can be done. As you can see from the pictures, the space maintains a significantly empty feeling, even with a large event like a beer festival going on. In any case, I’m glad to see the space being re-used and maintained, rather than torn down for the purpose of developing something new. It can really function for so many purposes.

Photos taken April, 2013

Related Posts:

Discovering Italian Craft Beer (beer festival in the slaughterhouse)

Monte Testaccio (sits just across from the slaughterhouse. Formerly housed stables and other related facilities)

Some interesting external links:

Design Observer: Trash Heap of History: Extensive post about the history and design of the area, and how it provides insights for modern urban redevelopment and reclamation

Food Lover’s Odyssey: Offals in Testaccio: Some history of the slaughterhouse and offals, which are quite popular in Rome. There is a reason!

Rome Art Lover: Testaccio: Some neighborhood history, including architecture, housing, development, food, and more.

Slaughterhouses: Princeton wiki on slaughterhouse design, terminology, history, amounts of animals processed, etc.

studio630: Infographic: The Intricate Anatomy Of UX...

Sat, 18 May 2013 09:12:30 +0200

studio630:

Infographic: The Intricate Anatomy Of UX Design

THIS MEGA GRAPHIC ATTEMPTS TO TACKLE THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN UX AND ALL OTHER ASPECTS OF DESIGN.

Via FastCoDesign