January 2011
12 posts
5 tags
Snow and the City
This winter, it seems, one thing in particular has had a huge impact in many urban areas in the northern hemisphere: snow.
New York (by Danica Lo) The Big Apple has already seen some 36 inches (0.9 m) of snow.
In Helsinki, the snow has been making headlines too. Some people have died falling from the roofs while cleaning them from snow. Some have died from the snow falling on them. Some...
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Behind the Current
To take a closer look at the most current city now in turmoil, “its life, culture, politics, and society of modern Cairo”, there are a couple of books, Cairo Cosmopolitan by Diane Singerman and Paul Amar and Cairo Contested (Singerman). Available from the American University in Cairo Press.
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Swampy Places
I can’t remember, if I had heard of the self-described “bootleg artist” Swampy before, but I recently became an instant fan by seeing some photographs from his adventures in the man-made world. Most of the time Swampy travels, assumably quite lightly, by cargo trains all across the Americas. (He even went to Ciudad Juárez, the city I wrote about earlier) I think he spoke to...
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Eating in the Fish Harbor
So after a successful ride in autumny London Design Festival 2010, the woodsy establishment HEL YES! comes to search for its roots and finds shelter in Kalasatama, one of the former harbor areas in Helsinki that are being redesigned.
This time HEL YES! is in operation Jan 22 - 5 Feb, at Kyläsaarenkatu 14. Unfortunately it’s again fully booked. Maybe a signal, that the restaurant...
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The Bad City?
Ciudad Juárez in Mexico, across the border from El Paso in Texas, is one of the most violent places in the world, apart from actual war zones. The combination of drug cartels, poverty and corruption has led to high rates of murder and a culture of brutal violence in the city. Connected to the prevailing poverty, is the fact that most of its industrial operations are maquiladoras, economic free...
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The Lure of the Modern Exotic (And the Urban...
Climat de France, a 5 000 apartment complex, Algiers. (photo by Franco Panzini, 2008. via CCA)
I noticed that the CCA (Canadian Centre for Architecture) in Montreal is hosting an interesting lecture by Maristella Casciato and Inderbir Singh Riar, on the 20 January titled The failure of the modern neighbourhood. I haven’t been to Canada, yet, but I’ve looked into some publications by the CCA...
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Along the Design St.
Yesterday, our team won an honorable mention in a competition for refurbishing an industrial street with design, in Herttoniemi, East-Helsinki. In our proposal we tried to discuss the importance of embedding design and creativity into local manufacturing, thus generating a culture of design, instead of just creating visual forms that are called design in the environment. While it was very nice...
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Urban Mechanics
Proposition for the revamping of the Theatre Square in Athens, by Point Supreme. (via bustler.net)
In retrospective, the ideal city has gone through many changes… Roman to medieval, Renaissance, classical, industrial, modern… I don’t, however, think that urban design or other forces that change the physical urban environment are in essence things that constantly evolve for the better. Behind...
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On Laundry
A lavanderia at night, Venice, Italy.
Where I live, there are no laundromats. So for me, the self-service laundries in the streets around the world are one of the most interesting retail spaces there is. I also admit to having a very (city-)romanticized view of them. My favorite ones are the really utilitarian ones, with big windows and no extra services. Sometimes you spot an immaculately...
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