Currently viewing the tag: "design"
I’ve never understood the fascination so many architects have with the “brutalist” style of buildings that some designers loved in the 1960s-1970’s. Even in the haze of youth in architecture school, I found that particular style unattractive, to put it kindly.
I suppose when a style is coined “Brutalism” you should expect that it will [...]
Last month, at the Savannah Book Festival, author Daniel Pink had this to say at the beginning of his talk,
I love coming to Savannah. If you were tied up in a trunk and released in Savannah, it’s one of the few places in America where you would know where you [...]
Parts 1 and 2 of this series dealt with some analysis of public space. What is a well-designed park, square or plaza? What makes some work and others not as much? Why is this even important?
The obvious next question is – what can be done about it? Knowing what we [...]
Though tempted, I won’t write a soliloquy today on the many virtues of street trees. Others have done so better than I, including Allan Jacobs, who wrote in the book Great Streets, “Given a limited budget, the most effective expenditure of funds to improve a street would probably be on trees.”
Some of my colleagues [...]
That’s what I thought yesterday, while spending a few minutes sitting in Orleans Square. Even with a horrendous piece of urban renewal on half of the square (the Savannah Civic Center), it still resonates as one of many wonderful oases of public space in this charming city.
Sidebar – has there [...]
When I was a kid, I used to sketch out designs for futuristic cities in my notebooks. Complete with domed arenas, skyscrapers and fantastic highway intersections, they looked a lot like, well, a lot like this:
This is current-day downtown Atlanta, as seen from a hotel in Midtown.
Atlanta, like so [...]
For years, many of us in the planning and real estate world have been talking about the mismatch between supply and demand in housing. That is, we’ve been building a very limited type of housing for decades (single family houses on a medium to large lot) well in excess of what the demand actually is [...]
EXT: A NEIGHBORHOOD CORNER STORE
A lively setting: people walking, talking. Store owners chat with customers on the sidewalk.
EXT: A NEIGHBORHOOD CORNER STORE
20 years later, same location. A lonely street: buildings boarded up or turned into low-rent uses. Few people seen walking around. Generally dismal.
It’s a common theme or scene in so [...]
A quick interlude between college football games:
Today’s Wall Street Journal has a front page article describing one man’s efforts at rebuilding in Japan, following the tsunami earlier this year.
What struck me more than anything were the images of his temporary store. See below:
In the urban planning profession, we talk a lot about the importance of public transit. At any given public presentation or meeting, you’ll hear people talk incessantly about how we need to offer real alternatives to driving, and how all development should make itself either accessible to transit or transit-oriented.
Unfortunately, that’s where a lot [...]
Today we have a guest post from Eric Brown, of Brown Design Studio. Eric is a long-time New Urbanist, based in Beaufort, SC. He can be found at www.brownds.com
One of the biggest challenges facing our cities and towns is to deal with the sheer amount of suburban repair work needed. 50+ years of suburban [...]
Road construction. Just the thought of it drives most of us a little batty. What route will I take? How much longer will it take me? Can I time it just right so I don’t get stuck? Sadly, for those of us in the field of urban planning, or its related disciplines, road construction is [...]
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