Design and Planning
Discover how experts drive innovation in urban design, infrastructure, adaptive reuse, and community‑centered planning
Called by GQmagazine “the Capital of Cool,” downtown Los Angeles is seeing some 22,000 residences under construction or in planning. What lessons does DTLA’s resurgence hold for other U.S. cities?
In mid-July, New York City’s Deputy Mayor for Housing and Economic Development Alicia Glen and the New York City Economic Development Corporation announced the selection of the Lowline as the designated developer for the underground trolley terminal at the base of the Williamsburg Bridge that has been disused for nearly seven decades.
After four decades in Stockholm’s city center, Swedbank had outgrown its headquarters. The banking group wanted a new building that embraced the working methods and technology associated with banking in the 21st century and that reinforced its brand as an innovative financial institution.
This is a book that educates, entertains, and astonishes. It is an effort that progresses along multiple paths of utopian impulse, while at the same time gushing forth with a bravado of egocentric, architectural hubris.
The following ten projects model strategies for making micro housing more livable, using modular construction to save costs, incorporating significant amounts of foliage and green space, and providing expansive communal areas.
A central courtyard—and a mix of unit sizes—create community on a small site.
This month, Governors Island, the 172-acre (70 ha) island in the heart of New York Harbor, will open to the public for the first time its newest addition to the park, The Hills, with Fast Company calling it “an engineering marvel built for resiliency and recreation.”
One of two dozen research groups housed at MIT’s Media Lab, the Changing Places group is focused on developing new, more efficient, and creative mobility systems and ways of living and working in cities at a time when urban populations are growing, while the resources to sustain them are shrinking. Kent Larson leads the group and shared several of Changing Places’ projects during the closing keynote speech at the recent ULI Florida Summit in Miami.
The competition was intended to “reimagine how we think about, feel, and experience memorials,” eliciting entries that both aim to fill in topics and themes that have not been commemorated and to anticipate those that might merit future attention.
Homebuyers and developers have developed an appetite for more food-based amenities, said panelists speaking at a recent ULI Food & Real Estate Forum. “One of the hottest trends in new home development is incorporating agriculture … communities that include working farms are popping up all over the country,” says Sarene Marshall, executive director of the ULI Center for Sustainability.
According to authors Ray Tomalty and Alan Mallach, U.S. cities should look to Canada for ways to make our urban areas more livable and sustainable.
The development of 12th Avenue Arts transformed a 29,000-square-foot (2,700 sq m) surface parking lot into a light-filled cultural center mixing arts, housing, and public-safety needs. The activation of this specific plot of land had been mentioned in two neighborhood plans over the last 12 years as the highest community priority.