Design and Planning
Discover how experts drive innovation in urban design, infrastructure, adaptive reuse, and community‑centered planning
Speaking at ULI Europe’s Real Estate Trends Conference, ULI senior fellow Greg Clark drew attention to the “long memory” for failed density projects across the globe. “If Europe is to retain economic strength, it is necessary to unlock these issues,” he warned.
Wearable technology, driverless cars, and the sharing economy are challenging the real estate industry to design cities with alternative buildings and services to keep pace with changing lifestyles, a leading design consultant said at the ULI’s Real Estate Trends conference in London.
For mixed-use development to be truly transformative, it needs a story, panelists said at the ULI Asia Pacific Summit, held June 3 in Tokyo.
Twenty-two real estate developments have been selected as finalists in the 2015 ULI Global Awards for Excellence competition. This year’s finalists represent developments from around the globe, including six in Asia, five in Europe, and 11 in North America.
While the amount of public financing that would be required to stage the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Boston remains an open question, ULI Boston/New England recently hosted a panel discussion focused on how such bids have paved the way for badly needed infrastructure and development projects in other cities.
A project called SubArt is has launched a video campaign to bring the kind of interactive art installations more common in Paris, Taiwan and Montreal to name a few examples to the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system.
ULI has announced six finalists for its global Urban Open Space Award, an annual competition that recognizes outstanding examples of successful large- and small-scale public spaces that have socially enriched and revitalized their surrounding communities.
Jaime Lerner’s Urban Acupuncture delves deeply into urban life and what makes cities tick. Lerner is an architect and planner who served three terms as mayor of Curitiba, Brazil, a city renowned for creative urbanism projects, including its pioneering bus rapid transit system.
ULI senior fellow Ed McMahon conducted a question-and-answer session with John Major, former prime minister of the United Kingdom, about the Olympics, healthy places, and global urbanism. Major is scheduled to speak at the ULI Asia Pacific Summit in Tokyo at this year’s Leadership Dinner.
The car-centric city is becoming a thing of the past, as evidenced by changes in Houston, Oklahoma City, and Charlotte, North Carolina, said panelists at the ULI Spring Meeting, with transportation leaders treating infrastructure as a real estate asset.
Mixed-use projects have the potential to transform urban areas and create long-term value. But as members of a panel at the 2015 ULI Spring Meeting in Houston explained, it is a lot trickier than it might seem to create a successful synergy of uses.
In an Urban Land opinion piece, Mariela Alfonzo, founder of State of Place, argues for the economic development potential for walkability in places like Houston.