Vertical prison of the future! Wow!! A group of Malaysian architecture students have designed this amazing prison in the sky, and been awarded first place in evolo’s 2010 Skyscraper Competition. Their design makes room for a community garden, factories, and an integrated transport network, to help rehabilitate prisoners and prevent them from re-offending upon release. Read more here.
No, no, the bicycle driver in this picture isn’t riding illegally. He’s allowed to ride on the road, rather than on a distinct bicycle path. Madness! Yes, on the surface it seems crazy that a streetscape like this one in Haren – outside of Groningen in the Netherlands – has actually been purpose-built to remove all boundaries between bike and car lanes, and promote a more free use of space for bikers, drivers and pedestrians. To be precise, this style of planning is called SHARED SPACE.
But sharing space? On the roads? Wouldn’t it end up like this:
Photo – 1.bp.blogspot.com
Apparently it doesn’t. I visited Haren today and was amazed at how well the space was being utilised andhow little chaos there was on this ‘open’ street. The Shared Space philosophy holds that shared spaces without the obvious division of traffic modes are less congestied, lead to less accidents on the road, are more aesthetically pleasing, and promote economic growth. Haren speaks for itself, with deaths on the road now five times less frequent than before the area was converted into a shared space.
To me, it seems like a really simple way to foster a sense of safety and freedom in public space. Nice.
Photo – geographyalltheway.com
‘Urban Sprawl’, ‘low-density’, and ’suburb’ have become dirty words in planning discourse. With poor human health, environmental degradation, and problems with social cohesion now clearly linked to urban sprawl, the grand suburban dream is looking increasingly unsustainable. So what to do? Think of a smart solution… smart… development… needs to be smart…. populations are growing… but we know urban sprawl is bad, so we need to be smart about where to house these people… expansion…. growth…. needs to be smart…. aha! SMART GROWTH.
Smart Growth is one of those ambiguous terms that lends itself to multiple interpretations. Essentially, it refers to a planning theory that values consolidation, and less use of greenfield land. Smart Growth Online has a nice definition: ’smart growth invests time, attention, and resources in restoring community and vitality to center cities and older suburbs. New smart growth is more town-centered, is transit and pedestrian oriented, and has a greater mix of housing, commercial and retail uses. It also preserves open space and many other environmental amenities.’.
Critics of smart growth would point to problems of infrastructure strain, air pollution, increased traffic, and the vested interests that private developers have in producing big ticket, consolidated dwellings like apartment blocks.
The New South Wales Government’s Metropolitan Strategy is pushing smart growth in a big way, and Master Planned Communities from private development companies are dominating the new growth centres.
On the surface, we can see MPCs as the embodiment of smart growth, because they are generally designed to contain open, natural areas, and foster a sense of community through shared spaces and resident services. They’re also a convenient way for Governments to realise housing targets because they provide quick, bulk homes. The New Rose Hill in Sydney’s North West is one example of a neighbourhood currently ‘under construction’. Like most MPCs, it isn’t just selling houses, but but also a ready-made community and lifestyle.
Photos – thenewrousehill.com.au
The Government’s Metropolitan Strategy, is aiming to deliver an additional 640,000 new homes and 500,000 new jobs in the Sydney area by 2031, to cope with expected population growth from the current 4.3 million to 6 million by 2036. The two main growth centres will absorb much of this expansion. But while the concentration of development within two distinct areas might be a ’smart’ way to combat sprawl, are Master Planned Communities really the best way to develop these areas? Will they create new suburban ‘ghettos’ as such, purpose-built to foster a homogeneous community, cut off from existing infrastructure and left to develop as exclusive, individual areas, beyond the existing social fabric of the city?
Gwyther, in his 2003 report ‘Paradise Planned: Socio-economic Differentiation and the Master Planned Community on Sydney’s Urban Fringe’ has an interesting perspective: ‘MPCs have come to offer middle income households the opportunity to move into estates built specifically to meet their cultural values, aspirations and insecurities.’
God bless America! Or at least, this building – the new US embassy in London, set to open in 2017. Obama’s brand of change is all over this Kieran Timberlake design. The building will be aesthetically restrained, environmentally sustainable, and better integrated in the existing neighbourhood. Read more here.
In a country where roughly 60 percent of the population lives below sea level, it’s wise to make friends with water. Dutch water management is developing by the day, but what has remained steady over the years is their apparent love of water-side living. And when I say ‘water-side’, I mean water on ALL sides. Yes, it’s not only pirates who live on boats!!
Photos of Groningen houseboats – erugg
The Netherlands is one of the most densely populated countries in the world, with 399.651 people per square km (CBS.nl). The population is also expected to grow, from the current 16.4 million to 17.2 million by 2033. While urban consolidation and land reclamation via poldering are good ways to utilise and create space, what role will the canals and their houseboats play in the development of future housing stock?
And how sustainable is the pirate life? Danish company Danfoss A/S thinks it could possibly be even more environmentally-friendly than living on land. Danfoss is now using solar energy stored within lakes and sea water to heat houseboats, which cuts more than 50 percent off their standard energy consumption levels.
Aesthetically, Danfoss has presented a conception of the houseboat that moves away from ‘boat’ and appeals to a wider selection of consumers. The UFO (Unique Floating Object) might even be difficult to identify as a boat at all.
The gentrification of houseboats is developing rapidly in the Netherlands, alongside the market for well-designed, ‘house-like’ boats. The city of Amsterdam is further legitimising this style of living, with plans to hook all houseboats up to a sewage system by 2017.
One way to observe how Dutch houseboats are moving away from their image as temporary, cheap, post-war housing is by looking at how the boats have come to reflect contemporary architecture.
Here we can see a clear correlation between the style of houseboats in Amsterdam and a new residential development in Groningen. Both the boats and the land dwellings share a quintessentially modern ‘machine’ aesthetic, valuing simplicity above ornamentation.
Houseboats Amsterdam. Photo - Amsterdamtour.it
New housing development in Groningen. Photo - erugg.
Again, looking at the dwellings below we can see a common modernist focus on horizontal and vertical lines, and the use of form as the prime aesthetic quality. So which is the leader, and which is follower? Has, or will, the wheel come full circle for houses and houseboats?
Concrete wood house by IROJE KHM. Photo - trendir.com
Modern Dutch houseboat. Photo - world plumbing info
”… on the walls were figured the bodies of many great serpents and snakes and other pictures of evil looking idols. These walls surrounded a sort of altar covered with clotted blood. On the other side of the Idols were symbols like crosses, and all were coloured…”
- Bernal Diaz del Castillo on the painted architecture of the Yucatan, 1517.
Are the newly ‘renovated’ facades of East Berlin’s soviet apartment blocks as symbolic?
Photos – erugg
Perhaps Berlin’s latest occupation, as a ‘poor but sexy’ melting pot of liberalism and hedonism, will be as fleeting the time it spent divided, or as the home-base of the Nazi party. But as in the past, Berlin is wearing the current zeitgeist on its sleeve – on the facades of buildings, on the edges of signposts, underneath bridges… the city’s image is being both represented and created by these changes to the physical landscape. It’s the chicken and the egg, with spray cans.
How much longer this grass roots urban design will be permitted remains to be seen – a notable example of Berlin’s struggle with modernisation and commercial control is the ongoing saga along the Spree River.
The entire area, which is 3.7 km long and covers 180-hectares, is under a development proposal known as The Mediaspree – an ambitious scheme run by a group of private investors, who won a competition in the 1990s to develop the shabby riverfront into upmarket retail and office space.
It seems like a simple enough concept on the surface – problem area + other people’s money = easy solution for Berlin, right? Maybe not. Debate on design, the right to public space, the difficulty of securing investment in a city without major industry, the role of government, and the recession, has brought the development to a standstill.
The Mediaspree project is currently in the hands of the four local districts the Spree runs through, each of which have different visions for the river’s future, and the capacity to block the ideas of the others. The infighting and slow approval process is making it impossible for investors to preserve existing heritage sites, erect new developments, and negotiate public spaces along the very public riverfront.
The underlying issue, I suppose, is that there is no cohesive vision or strategy for the Spree’s development, which reflects the lack of agreement amongst locals, governments and private investors on the direction that the still deeply divided, ‘poor but sexy’ European capital should be heading in.
But Is compromise really an impossibility in this situation? Does progress have to mean a choice between ‘poor but sexy’, or ‘commercially viable and homogeneous’?
It’s true that Berlin doesn’t have any notable industry besides the creative industry, but this doesn’t mean that the city should have to seek investment and development which will fundamentally change its messy, liberal culture – why can’t Berlin capitalise on its unique brand of ‘poor but sexy’?
A great example of a city marketing campaign is the Iamsterdam initiative:
Photo - gojkovujovic.com
Photo - magculture.com
The campaign is built on Amsterdam’s diversity, and positions its ‘colourful’ character as its main selling point. The official site says:
‘Amsterdam’s creative, intellectual and cultural contributions are significant and respected. With some of Europe’s most important museums, including The Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh, Amsterdam is a natural choice for inspiration. Amsterdam’s tolerance, multicultural neighbourhoods and broad diversity provide a fertile environment for creative people.’
So why can’t Berlin also value its cultural capital, and position it as the catalyst for development?
What if the climate change ‘alarmists’ are right? What if major cities are soon engulfed by rising sea levels? What if these images by New York architects Studio Lindfors really are a window into the future??
