Urban Neighbourhood

Dear North American Airports, you wish you were as cool as me… love Winnipeg International

If you are a traveller you appreciate a good airport, when I lived overseas I had the pleasure of transiting through Incheon International Airport on a regular basis on my way to the south coast of Korea and I used to marvel at the experience. Bright airy spaces, fast service and a logical design, I used to think that the half hour average time from gate to subway stop was a byproduct of my ‘professor status’ but that airport has been ranked in the top 5 airports in the world since it opened so maybe not so much.

Until now the top airports have been primarily located in Asia but there’s a new city appearing on the list; Winnipeg’s James Armstrong Richardson International Airport.

It made it on the list of the Travel Channel’s top ten most iconic;

 Renowned architect César Pelli (who designed the Petronas Towers in Malaysia and the International Financial Centre in Hong Kong) drew his inspiration from the vast prairies and sky when he conceived of this terminal, the first freestanding airport building in Canada that’s LEED-certified. Skylights, an atrium and large windows fill the space with light and bring the big sky inside — a design element that (along with “smart” mechanical systems) helps reduce overall energy consumption.  Travel Channel

The existing terminal designed in 1964 is on its way to retirement or to be re-purposed.  The Winnipeg Airports Authority (WAA)designed the new terminal with the following principals; abundant use of transparency and natural light, openness to the interior, and connectivity. Special attention was paid to space management which resulted in; wider corridors, larger lounges, more seating, and larger customs facilities, with extra space in the screening and security areas in case any new regulations come along. I guess its important to plan for 1984 even if you don’t want it to happen. s

Either way, the new terminal in Winnipeg is likely to stay near the top of the list for a while, until another North American city gets frustrated that it is being beaten by Winnipeg. To bad for Toronto, and Vancouver, your new Airport’s are already done.

The Winnipeg Airports Authority has a youtube channel if you want to take a closer look.

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For a better gallery of images from inside visit ChrisD.ca for gallery supplied by a local and the requisite photos of college age people wearing inflatable airplanes that authorities love so much.

Japan’s Solar Shift

One thing that you can say about disasters is that they are rare opportunities to redo everything. A tabula rasa opportunity when it comes to rebuilding affected areas.

Japan is still recovering from the massive earthquake and tsunami that struck on March 11th and the nuclear crisis that it triggered.

The AFP is reporting that Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan is expected to announce Japan’s decision to continue operating nukes in order to meet the countries current power needs, but to also a mandate that would require all new homes and buildings to be outfitted with solar panels as part of the upcoming G8 Summit in France.

Of course a mandate isn’t legislation, but the construction required does present an opportunity for a solar company to step in and take advantage of the increased opportunity for demand if they can offer an efficient solar option.

The Detroit Woodward Light Rail Transit Rap

Two involved peeps Joel Batterman and Elias Schewel have produced a video on YouTube outlining all the reasons why the centre lane Light Rail Transit option is the way to go. For anyone who cares about mass transit, or likes to see LEGO figures rapping, this video is a must see!

It’s time for Detroit to reclaim the mantle of transportation innovation. This music video argues that a light rail line running down the middle of Woodward Avenue, “Mainline Option A,” will be faster, safer, and more reliable than the side-running alternative, “Mainline Option B.” Let’s bring the trains down the middle! Tell it to the feds by March 14: take a moment to submit a comment to woodwardlightrail@detroitmi.gov. See TransportMichigan.org for more information.

Playing dirty in sustainable energy.

In a confluence of two news articles that have come across my desk in the past month; the first from Time discussing how the Chinese have shown that they can do capitalism better then the west, made evident by their decisive decision making and fast response times when dealing with the recent recession. While western governments argue if tax cuts for the wealthy or infrastructure spending is best, the Chinese central government acted swiftly, invested in the right places and the Chinese economy has carried along at a steady pace. The second a news report from the CBC discussing how the the US in up in arms about the Chinese green revolution and the unfair trade practices they used to developing their own solar panel manufacturing industry. An industry that China developed, incidentally enough, almost entirely in the last two years.

The United Steel Workers go on a long rant about how the United States needs to put  a stop to the illegal and unfair trade practices that China is adopting to build its green energy industry;  sanctions, lawsuits and the like, which we all know will be very effective, but while the US focuses on suing China, China will just carry on building the industry, they know that in the long run energy independence is much more important then keeping the US, (who’s debt it practically owns anyway) happy.  As the quote indicates, they already know how to win the battle for clean energy. (not to mention have a strangle hold on most of the raw materials.

“Who wins this clean energy race really depends on how much support the government gives.” Zhao Feng, general manger of Hunan Sunzone Optoelectronics.

I have always been a little dubious about Free Trade, its not that I don’t think that there are certain good things about it, I mean I like my goods to be inexpensive,  it’s just that I think the pay off has mostly been for big business and not for the rest of us.

Do you think that it is unfair for a country to subsidize an industry to the detriment of its other trade partners?  Do you think these sudden changes in trade practice have wronged the US? (if you think government subsidies are a new phenomenon… you are so cute!)

That isn’t the ultimate question for me though, My question is, does the planet care? Ever since I read a particularly apt line in a Terry Pratchett novel about how the planet was also alive, but it just moved a lot slower then the rest of us eons rather then years, and humans had better watch out for the point in time  when the planet realizes that it has developed a disfiguring skin condition, I have been more concerned with the effect, rather then the politics.

Ultimately the environment doesn’t give a geological event who comes up with green technology, it just cares that someone does, and in this case China showed the rest of the world that you can create a sustainable industry in no time at all, if you just do it. So maybe next time a western government decides that it wants to become an industry leader in some green technology then they will just do it… since time has proven that if they don’t someone else will beat them too it, that’s just business after all. There isn’t any crying in capitalism.

Neighbourhood News Roundup: Nov 3 2010

Editors Note:

Recently we made an executive decision here at Urban Neighborhood to revamp the way that we deliver news about what is going on in cities around the world, as you can see from previous Neighborhood News installments we used to provide  the first couple paragraphs of the article in full with a picture and then hyperlink you over to the actual article at its source.  This was all well and good but ultimately a rather labor intensive process for content that was essentially a redirect to other news sites that were not providing any incentive. In order to make it easier to do the round up and therefore be more consistent with our installments we are switching over to a method more commonly found on entertainment websites and some of our favorite architecture blogs. So without further adieu here is your news round up for the week.

Hong Kong has decided to shell out some major bucks in order to build the worlds largest cultural district, the West Kowloon Cultural District is a publicly funded project with a price tag of 2.8 billion to be… well approximate… the intention is pretty simple, its plans on using the development to become Asia’s World City.

Since Dubai isn’t paying the the architectural big bucks any more architects like Rem Koolhaas are looking East and Rem has decided to jump on the aforementioned West Kowloon Cultural District gravy train to pay the bills. Rem has a proposal that is ether cultural appropriation or paying tribute to China’s Village history, depending on how you look at it.

The city of Chicago is about to loose out to New York once more, until now it might not have been the biggest city in America but it has had the country’s biggest building for decades, in a couple years One World Trade center is going to take that title away. There was hope that the title transfer would be short lived with the plans for The Spire, then the firm behind it filed for bankruptcy. At least they still have Oprah.

In Green News India has come up with a novel idea to use children to power its parks and playgrounds, now that we have your attention its isn’t as nefarious as you think, the city of Chandigarh wants to use kinetic energy from playground equiptment and solar power to light up its green spaces.

Skyrise Greenery, a website dedicated to green roofs and green spaces integrated into the built form presents its winners for the Skyrise Greenery Awards 2010.

Most tourist bureau’s concentrated on happy and fun but the Cambodian government has decided to take another route and concentrate on its dark history to pull the tourists in. The Atlantic writes about how the Cambodian government plans to develop Anlong Veng a sun-baked, mine-riddled frontier town into a theme park devoted to the Khmer Rouge. A regime that was responsible for murdering almost every in Cambodia who would be between the ages of 25 to 50 if they were still alive today, just in case yo have no knowledge of world history.

Over in Russia Ivan Marchenko discusses the poor state of architecture and the multitudes of unforgettable places that make up the capital and wonders if the sketches presented by designers for the central city are just tomorrows slums being proposed today.

Mason White presents an essay on ‘The Productive Surface’ for all you academics that discusses the shape of our environment and asks questions like “What does architecture and landscape already produce — intentionally or otherwise? And how is that component managed by design?”

For the cartographers and map lovers among us Think Big has a collection of strange maps that range from proposals  fill in the east river to create a Greater New York, to a composite map of European stereotypes.

Gary, Indiana: Unbroken spirit amid the ruins of the 20th Centry

A look back at the effectiveness of federal stimulus past and present by the BBC. Gary In was a town that received federal stimulus money after the great depression and once again when the Obama administration announced its stimulus package after the recent economic collapse. The movie takes a look at how effective stimulus can be, and the politics behind its delivery.

Watch this video over at the BBC.

To put this in context you have to know that Gary, home to what is still US Steel Corp’s biggest plant, is suffering from one of the most advanced cases of urban blight in the developed world. Its city centre is near-deserted by day. The texture of the urban landscape is cracked stone, grass, crumbled brick and buddleia.

Gary is one third poor, 84% African American, and has seen its population halve over the past three decades. If crime, as the official figures suggest, has recently dropped off then – say the critics – that is because population flight from the city is bigger than the census figures show.

Gary in the end got $266m of stimulus money and has, according to the federal “recipient reported data” created a grand total of 327 jobs. That’s $800,000 per job.

I went back determined to find out how the stimulus dollars had been spent; to get beyond the ideology and recriminations and see why President Barack Obama’s stimulus has failed to turn the country around.

The striking thing is that they are all structurally dangerous and yet totally accessible. I did not have to cross a single piece of wire, tape or fencing to get in, nor did I encounter a security guard or dog patrol. The city seems to have given up even securing these ruins.

Neighbourhood Video Series: Restoring Historic Jeddah

Its been a while since there have been any video’s in the neighbourhood video series so I I figured that I would highlight a video of one of our old favourites. Squint/Opera

Restoring Historic Jeddah

In the modern period, there has scarcely been a single pilgrim to Mecca from overseas who has not made a stop-over at Jeddah—an important port, a place of recuperation, the best place to buy souvenirs and the essentials, both personal and religious, one will need in the course of the Hajj.

squint/operas film for the redevelopment of Jeddah Central District describes a project of six million square metres, the largest city centre project in the Arab world. The narrative explains the historical importance of the city and makes the case for a sympathetic development, aiming to revitalize the citys architectural and social inheritance whilst protecting its utterly unique character.

Archive photographs and pictorial representations of the city animated by subtly shifting two-dimensional planes give way to a long, and thoroughly impossible, tracking shot in which the viewers gaze seems to be the cause of a spectacular regeneration: dilapidated buildings are renovated, roads healed, trees and shades descend to provide comfort in public spaces.

The viewer is ushered through the project by points of focus serving the films narrative and explanatory elements. A GPS map in a taxi-boat shows an image of the future; an architects model is suddenly scaled to a size where a businessman can open the door of his paper car to be driven into a completed and entirely populated city.

squint/operas trademarks of combining the live and the computer-generated, telling and frequently amusing details and narrative coherence are all present.

Pay your subscription or watch it burn.

The big question today in Tennessee is whether or not libertarian fire services should be an option. Last week firefighters watched a house burn because the owners had neglected to pay the 75$ annual subscription fee for fire protection. The optional aspect of fire coverage comes from the fact that the property that burnt down is not within the city limits where the citizens automatically pay for fire protection with their taxes, its a rural property outside the city that provides users outside South Fulton with the option to ‘opt in’ to rural fire service by paying a 75$ annual subscription. In this case the property owner hadn’t done so.  Thus leading to the scene wherein the firefighters were on site to protect the neighbours but did nothing to protect the owners.

What do you think? Should there a be a good Samaritan clause? Or is the fire department and town right to let the place burn? A debate has been rageing on the Internet about whether the city was right to let the house burn or not. What do you think?

Kevin Williamson writes at the National Review Online:

The situation is this: The city of South Fulton’s fire department, until a few years ago, would not respond to any fires outside of the city limits — which is to say, the city limited its jurisdiction to the city itself, and to city taxpayers. A reasonable position. Then, a few years ago, a fire broke out in a rural area that was not covered bythe city fire department, and the city authorities felt bad about not being able to do anything to help. So they began to offer an opt-in service, for the very reasonable price of $75 a year. Which is to say: They greatly expanded the range of services they offer. The rural homeowners were, collectively, better off, rather than worse off. Before the opt-in program, they had no access to afire department. Now they do.

And, for their trouble, the South Fulton fire department is being treated as though it has done something wrong, rather than having gone out of its way to make services available to people who did not have them before. The world is full of jerks, freeloaders, and ingrates — and the problems they create for themselves are their own. These free-riders have no more right to South Fulton’s firefighting services than people in Muleshoe, Texas, have to those of NYPD detectives.

The Mayor makes his case over at NWTN TODAY.

Vowell explained that the property owner was not a paying member of the rural fire subscription service offered to county residents by the City of South Fulton. He said as per city policy, established by city ordinance, the call was declined and the city’s fire department could not respond.
“I have no problem with the way any of my people handled the situation. They did what they were supposed to do,” he said. “It’s a regrettable situation any time something like this happens.”
He said the South Fulton Fire Department did respond to a request to protect the property of the adjacent property owner, who is a member of the rural fire subscription service.
Vowell said county residents do not have guaranteed fire service since there is no countywide fire department to cover rural areas, but many municipalities offer rural fire coverage to residents in specified coverage areas for a nominal annual fee. South Fulton’s fee is $75.
However, Vowell said residents in those rural areas cannot be forced to pay the fee and it’s their decision whether to accept the coverage.

Vowell said people always think they will never be in a situation where they will need rural fire protection, but he said City of South Fulton personnel actually go above and beyond in trying to offer the service. He said the city mails out notices to customers in the specified rural coverage area, with coverage running from July 1 of one year to July 1 the next year.
At the end of the enrollment month of July, the city goes a step further and makes phone calls to rural residents who have not responded to the mail-out.
“These folks were called and notified,” Vowell said. “I want to make sure everybody has the opportunity to get it and be aware it’s available. It’s been there for 20 years, but it’s very important to follow up.”
Mayor Crocker added, “It’s my understanding with talking with the firefighters that these folks had received their bill and they had also contacted them by phone.”

Masdar Springs From The Desert

“The environmental ambitions of the Masdar Initiative – zero carbon and waste free – are a world first. They have provided us with a challenging design brief that promises to question conventional urban wisdom at a fundamental level. Masdar promises to set new benchmarks for the sustainable city of the future.” Norman Foster of  Foster + Partners

I remember seeing a post about Masdar in the past, back during the height of the Dubai construction orgies when it seemed like every week there was a new project coming out that was fantastic this, super-sized that!  Given that I had a bit of an anti Dubai stance, (take a look back at the Dubai tag and you will see how little attention I paid to it) I have to admit that I wrote Masdar off as just another mega project of a dubious nature. Well it seems that I am now playing catch up on this project as it is in fact being built and it is a significant chapter in the development of new sustainable cities.  My attention was re-piqued after a colleague of mine sent me a link to a New York Times article in the Critic’s Notebook about the opening of the first phase of Masdar. They also have an awesome photo slide show given that they were able to fly a photographer over there.

The New York Times takes issue with the fact that the city is at this point essentially a gated community and identity is not helped by its construction techniques.  Visitors to the city drive through the desert until they reach the blank wall of the city.  While the city wall has a function and basis in sustainable design; enabling the raised city to capture desert breezes and regulate transportation functions to its lower level.  It reinforces the perception that this is a city for elites, and not a city for every one.  Of course given that the city just opened and its first residents are only now moving in the government (who happens to be the landlord) still has time to make sure that the city houses a cross section of society.

Upon arrival to the city a visitor must leave their car at a parking garage just inside the city’s edge. All transportation functions within the city are covered by a fleet of driver less cars that navigate through a series of tunnels at ground level, below the main pedestrian level of the city 23 feet above.  Once the transportation system comes online a fleet of hundreds of personal transportation pods that have been likened to the transportation pods in 2001: A Space Oddessy will transport people and goods around the city by following the destination commands inputted by users through a simple LCD screen interface.  It’s a method of separating circulation functions that Le Corbuiser first envisioned and would have loved to employ in many of his residential projects.

The design aesthetic for the city is a combination of modernism and traditional aribic architecture.  Laboratories and office spaces are predominantly hosted in large concrete buildings that have been clad in panels of ethylene-tetrafluoroethylene. Residential buildings tend towards the traditional and appear similar to the Terra Cotta construction techniques found across the Middle East.

By way of design the city aims to tackle one of the biggest issues in the modern day Middle East; obesity. Elevators from the lower levels are tucked out of sight behind stairwells, and on the main level the only way to get around is by foot.  It’s a design response to the growing problem of obesity in the Middle East as anyone can afford to travel by car to escape the heat does so.  The city also uses traditional wind towers to funnel winds down to street level, and orients the streets at an angle to the suns trajectory in order to maximize shade. On top of all of these features the city is also aiming to be one of the first truly solar cities.

Some of the public spaces will also feature reactive architecture: international architectural firm LAVA (Laboratory for Visionary Architecture) won an international design competition for its proposal to utilize a series of giant umbrellas base on the sunflower principle that open during the day to provide shade, store heat, and then close during the night opening the public squares to the sky and releasing their stored heat.

It is impossible to see the city as anything other than visionary in the way it approaches new city building.  While the Times is correct to raise questions about its utopian purity and its creation in isolation from the real city that lives next door, the Times also ignores the fact that brand new from scratch cities is a reality for the next century.  Experts agree that in order to handle the world’s growing population at least 20 new cities will need to be constructed, predominantly in the Asia, Africa and the Middle East in order to handle the world’s growing a urban population.  In Korea New Songdo is being used as a test case for a fully wired its city, and in the middle east Masdar is most definitely a test case for a carbon neutral city that responds to the constraints of its environment.  It is entirely likely that future cities combine the lessons learned from both in their construction.

From Foster + Partner’s Website:

The Masdar Institute

The Masdar Institute (MI) is the first part of the wider Masdar City Master-plan to be realized and creates a focus for the entire programme, as well as setting the context for subsequent development. Initially, five MSc programmes will be established and as well as undertaking research with MIT, Masdar faculty members will be able to work within the Masdar Research Network. The MI campus embodies the principles and goals of the Masdar City Master-plan to create a prototypical and sustainable city, one in which residents and commuters can enjoy the highest quality of life with the lowest environmental footprint. All developments within the city are to be carbon neutral and zero waste.

The buildings are oriented to provide optimum shade and reduce cooling loads. Shaded colonnades at podium level exploit the benefits of exposed thermal mass and transitional thermal spaces are integrated to mediate between internal and external zones. Facades are designed to respond to their orientation and photovoltaic installations on every roof are combined with carefully positioned photovoltaic panels to shade streets and buildings. Green linear parks adjacent to the buildings capture cooling night-time winds, with wind gates employed to control hot winds. The ventilation strategy for the streets and night time cooling is further enhanced by wind towers and courtyards.

Pedestrian circulation is primarily at podium deck level, where a shaded route throughout the campus is provided. The buildings within MI are made up primarily of laboratories and residential accommodation, supported by a gymnasium, canteen, café, library and landscaped areas that contribute to the campus environment and forge a new destination within the city. The laboratories – and the interactive laboratory space – are at the heart of the development and offer the optimum flexible, column free space possible within the strict loading and vibration criteria. The residential element further integrates the principles of the master-plan and provides one, two and three bedroom apartments in low-rise, high-density blocks. These complete the master-plan street-scape and urban form, while acting as a social counterpoint to the intense laboratory environment. Source

Life on the Canal: Hausboot auf dem Eilbekkanal

Houseboat on the Eilbekkanal, located in Hamburg Germany

Compled: 2009

Living and working Surface: 110m²

Architekten Rost Niderehe

If you have ever wanted to change your neighbours without having to buy a new house then Canal living may be for you. Rost Nidereche Archiects has designed a houseboat that is moored on the  Eibek-canal in Hamburg Germany. The boat is a blend of clean wooden lines and modern design.

Roadsworth: Crossing the Line

Over a period of three years, the stencil artist Peter Gibson, aka Roadsworth, made his mark on Montreal in the early hours of the morning by launching a self-described “attack on the streets.” Armed with spray paint and handmade stencils, he began to play with the language of the streets, overlaying city asphalt markings with his own images: a crosswalk became a giant boot print, vines choked up traffic dividers, and electrical plugs filled parking spots. Each piece begged the question, Who owns public space?

Pedestrian and Pavingstones

Photographer Adam Magyar provides us a series of birds eye photographs of pedestrians crossing public areas in Hong Kong and Tokyo. Pedestrians in clusters, on their own, and sometimes even in neat little rows. Check out his series entitled ‘Squares’ on his website for more.

Neighbourhood News September 13th: Urban Water and Bridges

Metropolis magazine calls for a new type of water infrastructure since most of it needs to be replaced anyway.

The Cleveland Rowing Foundation closes a deal to create Rivergate Park.

On the subject of Cleveland the city commissions architect Miguel Rosales to build three pedestrian bridges.

Minneapolis St Paul unveils the I35W memorial garden.

(more…)

The 9 Day Traffic Jam

In testimony to the fact that china can truly make anything bigger and better comes the 100km long and 9 days running traffic jam on the road from Beijing to Huai’an in the southeast. S

A spokesman for the Beijing Traffic Management Bureau has reportedly released a statement to China’s ‘Global Times’ newspaper that the traffic jam has come about as a result of “insufficient traffic capacity… caused by maintenance construction.”  According to reports the traffic jam started on the 14th of August and could last for a while. Evidently there was another traffic jam in July that lasted for almost a month.

So next time you get frustrated because traffic delays for an hour or two, consider yourself lucky that you haven’t been stuck in a traffic jam for days!

Hopefully this encourages more people in China to leave the car at home and support public transit.  The people who  did, surprisingly enough made it to their destinations on schedule.

Read the CBC news article…

Power in ‘The Land of Giants’

“Like the statues of Easter Island, it is envisioned that these one hundred and fifty foot tall, modern caryatids will take on a quiet authority, belonging to their landscape yet serving the people, silently transporting electricity across all terrain, day and night, sunshine or snow.”

Choi + Shine Architects have come up with an innovative and artistic way for us to move power across the landscape by turning the massive power lines that cross our world into massive pylon figures that will become monuments in the landscape, rather then utilitarian towers.

I have long been a fan and advocate for monumental infrastructure. Consider your reaction to the great monuments that exist in our world at present and to those portrayed in film. Then consider your reaction to major infrastructure as an aesthetic object. To often the major structures that we use are utilitarian, strictly functional, visual pollution on the landscape. These are wasted opportunities for us to build structures that are a monumental testament to human creativity and show the beauty that we are capable of producing.

Like the statues of Easter Island, it is envisioned that these one hundred and fifty foot tall, modern caryatids will take on a quiet authority, belonging to their landscape yet serving the people, silently transporting electricity across all terrain, day and night, sunshine or snow.

The firm states that with only minor changes to current established steel-framed tower design, they have built a series of towers that are not only powerful and solemn, but also variable. This makes it possible for the figures to be shaped into different ‘poses’ which they suggest could be informed by the landscape around them. The manufacturing process is less complex then you think. With each pylon figure made from the same basic materials they can be assembled into a variety of positions simply by using different joints.

“Subtle alterations in the hands and head combined with repositioning of the main body parts in the x, y and z-axis, allow for a rich variety of expressions. The pylon-figures can be placed in pairs, walking in the same direction or opposite directions, glancing at each other as they pass by or kneeling respectively, head bowed at a town.”

Project Details.

Check out the project page at Choi + Shine Architects.