Whether it is a small balcony, access to green space or a private garden, the outdoor space has become a privilege for many, especially upon the dawn of the Covid-19 pandemic and the multiple lock down periods that followed. Green space in the city is constantly under threat, particularly since governments seek to increase housing densities in order to feed a growing demand for suburban development. As a result, the garden and access to green/outdoor spaces has decreased in recent times, as priorities lie in housing as many as possible, often with disregard to beneficial features such as access to outdoor areas in residential developments.
In terms of living conditions the lack of access to these spaces presents evident inequalities, uncovered during periods of lock down and restrictions during the pandemic. People were confined to their homes and local outdoor spaces, where they could exercise. Those who had access to these public spaces and had their own gardens/external space were very lucky in the sense that they were able to enjoy an element of the outside. While those less fortunate in flats and areas of depravity faced claustrophobic and demoralizing conditions, contained within the shell of their homes.
In 1782, Bangkok became the capital of Siam – as Thailand was previously known. Its strategic position within the protective curve of Chao Phraya River to the West and the vast, swampy delta of the Sea of Mud that secured the city to the East was key. King Rama I modeled the new city on what had been the urban reference of Thailand since the 14th century: Ayutthaya, which by 1700 had become the largest city in the world with a total of 1 million inhabitants.
Bangkok progressively saw the construction of temples (wats), schools, libraries and hospitals. However, few other typologies were erected and the city lacked significant paved streets. Instead, the river and a network of interconnected canals served as the transport infrastructure of the city. With time, the floating houses anchored along the riverfront decreased and the pavements spread.
Render of affordable homes created out of plastic waste. Image Courtesy of Othalo
A lot of people around the world would agree that we are currently in a climate emergency. The IPCC report, released last year, makes for difficult reading. Practitioners in the built environment have taken to direct climate action, with organizations such as ACAN and Architects Declare fostering carbon literacy and calling for designers to re-evaluate how they practice.
Kyiv, Ukraine, September 2021: Maidan Nezalezhnosti square - aerial drone view. Monument of Independence.. Image via Shutterstock
Friday, June 3, marks 100 days of war in Ukraine. One of the many devastating effects has been de destruction of urban and rural environments. Ukraine’s cultural and architectural heritage is under threat. As of 30 May, UNESCO has verified damage to 139 sites affected by the ongoing hostilities. The list includes 62 religious sites, 12 museums, 26 historic buildings, 17 buildings dedicated to cultural activities, 15 museums, and seven libraries. According to UNESCO, the most affected buildings included in the list are in Kyiv. Still, damages are also found in the regions of Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhya, Zhytomyr, Donetsk, Lugansk, and Sumy. This represents a preliminary damage assessment for cultural properties done by cross-checking the reported incidents with multiple credible sources. The published data will be regularly updated.
To wholly document a survey on the state of French forests, the wood industry, and forestry R&D, François Leclercq and Paul Laigle, from the architecture and urban planning practice Leclercq Associés, are in collaboration with architecture editor Michèle Leloup and photographer Cyrille Weiner.
The Wood That Makes Our Cities explores the environmental, economic, industrial, and technical challenges involved in the use of wood for large structures and urban architecture and assesses the future of wood construction. The book retraces the practice’s twenty years of experience with wood construction through five of its projects, featuring contributions by historians, researchers, manufacturers, timber producers, and forestry specialists.
Cities with disabilities are those that present spaces and environments that impede or make it difficult for citizens to access, participate and interact, regardless of any loss or abnormality related to their psychological, physiological or anatomical structure or function. I invite readers to, with me, change the focus of the approach on disabilities, transferring to cities and built environments the inability to meet in a dignified and effective way the diversity of abilities and capacities inherent to human beings.
We are still at the dawn of the Metaverse, the next wave of the Internet. The current “mainstream” Metaverse platforms serve as experimental containers to host the wildest dreams of virtual worlds where we are supposed to unleash the imagination. However, from a spatial design perspective, they have so far been lame and ordinary. Without the constraints in the physical world, how do we draft the urban blueprints in the metaverse? I believe metaverse planners can find inspiration from Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, in which he revealed a poetic and mathematical approach to “urban planning” in the imaginary worlds.
Half of the world’s population now lives in cities, according to UN-Habitat’s latest reports. While this number is set to increase to two-thirds by 2050, urban challenges are growing exponentially, making it more crucial than ever, to transform our cities. Annually, the world population review assesses the growth of cities and the number of residents living in metropolitan areas, to understand global evolution trends. In 2022, the list of the top 20 most populated countries remained similar to the 2021 edition, with a slight change in numbers and positions. Tokyo kept its status as the world’s largest city, with 37 million inhabitants, while Delhi and Shanghai, followed in second and third positions.
Comparing the results to the 2021 edition, the only decrease that can be seen in the top 20, involves both Japanese cities, Tokyo and Osaka. The rest of the list had, on average, a growth of 1.8% in the total of people residing in metropolitan areas. In fact, African cities Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Lagos in Nigeria gathered the highest rates, with respectively a 4.39% and a 3.54% increase in residents in 1 year. The largest city in the American continent is still Sao Paulo in Brazil, followed closely by Mexico City and Buenos Aires in Argentina, further down the table. In Europe, Istanbul is the most populous, with more than 14.5 million residents.
Sundance Square, a new central place for the city of Fort Worth, TX, USA. Image Courtesy of PPS
Public spaces play a significant role in organizing the life of every community but defining what differentiates them from other spaces within the city is not an easy task. Once these spaces start to settle into the collective memory of the local communities, they become key elements that concentrate the mental image of a city. While this process usually happens with urban spaces, monuments and isolated architectural elements can also become markers for the urban life of an area. So, what happens when dramatic events like fires, war, or even the pandemic alter that image?
The topic of cannabis can be rather taboo in some instances, as countries around the world have differing views on the legalization of marijuana products based on their cultural and religious beliefs. In the United States specifically, it’s been a long contended issue that each state has, for now, been left to decide on how they want to handle. Each year, more and more states (now totaling 18 and the District of Columbia out of 50), have legalized the recreational sale and use of a limited amount of cannabis, but it remains illegal on a federal level.
Addressing themes involving memory, oblivion and gender, the Argentinean visual artist and muralist, Mariela Ajras, displays her art on the walls of numerous cities around the world such as Barcelona, Valencia, Salamanca, Mexico City, Bogota, Montevideo, Buenos Aires, among many others. With a background in psychology, she has participated in different urban art festivals, exhibitions, fairs and public art projects, one of the largest murals in the city of Buenos Aires being the one she developed for the project "Corredor de la Memoria", commemorating the 25th anniversary of the AMIA bombing.
Neighborhood Next / 15 Minute City by Gehl Architects. Image Courtesy of 3XN
The planning and design of mixed-use neighborhoods and individual mixed-use developments are on the rise. Many of the places we frequent most feature a variety of programs, bringing many of life's daily conveniences to one place. But mixed-use spaces do more than just create a diverse array of experiences in cities- they might also help contribute to lower crime rates.
There’s something magical about seeing a city from the very top. To have a new vantage point, and look across a skyline instead of looking up at it is one of the most powerful and awe-inspiring feelings. Observation decks are not just architectural marvels, but also a sort of civic icon and sense of pride for a city. In the present day, it’s not just their height that draws people in, but the additional programming of sky-high bars, rides, and bungee jumping as well.
Almost seven kilometers from the green of Uhuru Park in central Nairobi, lies the informal settlement of Kibera. It is an area whose urban character consists of corrugated iron roofs, mud walls, and a complicated network of utility poles. Kibera, at this point in time, is a well-known place. Much has been written and researched on this “city within a city,” from its infrastructural issues to its navigation of the COVID-19 pandemic.
From Epic Games' Build: Architecture 2021. Image Courtesy of Zaha Hadid Architects
Epic Games operates one of the world’s largest games, Fortnite, and also develops Unreal Engine, the most advanced real-time 3D creation tool that powers Fortnite and is used in industries beyond games. Over the last few years, more professionals in architecture and related fields are using Unreal Engine to bring stunning, photorealistic worlds to life.
In an exclusive interview with ArchDaily, David Weir-McCall, Architecture Industry Marketing Manager at Epic Games, shares his insights on the use of digital technology, such as the likes of Unreal Engine, for collaboration and co-design within the field of architecture, engineering, and construction.
Various cities have been experimenting with wavering fees for public transport in an effort to promote sustainable mobility, alleviate traffic congestion and decrease social inequality. This past February, Salt Lake City has paused fare collection for a month to reduce carbon emissions in the region. At the end of March, the Italian city of Genoa extended free access to some of its public transport networks, following a successful experiment which began at the end of 2021 and in an ambitious plan to become the first Italian city with free transportation. Meanwhile, the small duchy of Luxembourg became the world’s first country with free public transit in 2020.
Today, one of the most popular initiatives regarding public space, participatory design and activism in the city is the so-called citizen urbanism or tactical urbanism. The approach proposes to trigger, through limited and low-cost interventions, long-term changes in public space, i.e. short-term action, long-term change (Street Plans, 2013).
The strategy used is to create temporary scenarios that make visible a specific problem and the formation of specific interventions to solve it, seeking to incorporate the community to give it relevance and promote its sustainability over time and, in this way, raise the discussion about the benefits of the projects for the quality of life in the context in which they are inserted.
Can a piece of infrastructure literally kill a city? This is the question that writer Jim Krueger poses in his recent podcast, The Road That Killed a City. The place in question is Krueger’s current hometown—Hartford, Connecticut—which he grew up next to in the leafy suburb of West Hartford. Kruerger has lived in both towns, and that helps to balance the amazing story he uncovers about how Connecticut’s capital was impaled by a roadway (actually, two: east/west I-84 and north/south I-91 converge in Hartford in a sort of arterial highway ground zero). I spoke with Krueger about what prompted the podcast, some of what he uncovered about the history of this ill-fated urban “improvement,” and the legacy of a highway that continues to thwart Hartford’s rebirth—an inheritance shared by many cities across North America.
https://www.archdaily.com/981425/did-a-highway-kill-the-city-of-hartfordMichael J. Crosbie
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