Posts filed under “Urbanism”
Planet of Slums by Mike Davis
The scale and velocity of world population increase over the last fifty years has been unprecedented in human history. Urbanisation, with over a billion people living in cities has become the key signature of this growth, with the urban population for the first time greater than in the country. These facts are startling, if common [...]
World’s Most Expensive Cities
Helsinki is no.10 most expensive city on the planet in the twice yearly report, though its clear using New York and therefore the American Dollar puts European cities automatically at a price disadvantage. However the story of the top 10 is expensive European cities and I think that’s pretty accurate, and that comparisions between Euro [...]
Carry On
Finnish Designer Timo Niskanen was runner up in a design to design a shelter in a cart. It enables a homeless person to carry around his belongings with him and have somewhere to sleep at night. He got funding and has brought his design onto the streets of Helsinki. It is a great way to [...]
Europan 9
The Competition for every aspiring starchitect, and everyone else, just launched again Europan9 is here. European urbanity, sustainable city and new public spaces are the main themes. Finnish Europan has some interesting sites in Espoo, Vantaa (both in greater Helsinki) and Kotka on the South East coast which is redeveloping. Is there a potential tie-in [...]
Greater Helsinki Vision 2050
A new international competition for planning Helsinkis’ future has been launched. It’s scope and scale is massive and it’s not often you get the chance to reimagine a Capital city like this. The Competition briefing information alone is a great repository of information about Helsinki and indeed the Baltic. Visit greaterhelsinkivision for details also see [...]
I amsterdam
I love Amsterdam. I lived there for two years, and fell in love there. The city is a fantastic backdrop to life which contains wonders for anyone and everyone, from the cross eyed French teenagers stumbling out of their coffee shops we sometimes bumped into outside our front door to rich retired couples shopping for [...]
Kiruna
The Town of Kiruna in Sweden is cracking apart. Like an earthquake in slow motion the ground near Kiruna cracks and sinks in an ever widening circle which is beginning to tear apart the city. A huge Iron ore Mine to the west of the town has caused the earth to subside around the mine [...]
Dongtan The Worlds First Eco City
With China facing an urbanisation of 300 million people in the next twenty years, it will not only face a massive expansion of its current cities but will have to build some 3 to 400 new cities to do this. Along with India, the rate of growth, urban change, and industrialisation will dwarf anything seen [...]
The Centre of Helsinki
Where is the centre of Helsinki anyway? Hesingin Sanomat does a quick study to find out. Speaking for myself before I lived here it was under the Stokmann clock. But if I had to choose a single place to stand now the decision would be harder, you would probably see me walking round in circles [...]
Delirious Helsinki
How do we consume the city? The city street is a place of action and interaction and hidden meanings and signs. Part of the beauty of the street is the history and art there is to read like a book but which is mostly ignored by the passer by. Anyone who has read Baudelaire or [...]
Lifestyle Park
Espoo may be getting a spa,hotel, movie centre, multipurpose arena, and 270m long indoor ski-centre in one if Evata can get the backing for this scheme. Another mega-commercial project around the outskirts of Helsinki. See the helsingin sanomat article .
NAI for New Orleans
The NAI has an exhibition on now about the New Orleans flooding in which 6 design studios collaborated to propose ideas for the rebuilding of new orleans . They were MVRDV , UN Studio, West 8, Huff + Gooden Architects, Morphosis, Hargreaves Associates. They also seems to have recently aquired the back cataloge of OMA’s [...]
Helsinki Planning
Helsinki city planning departments english website has an interesting flash video covering the four current major urban building projects within the city at Arabia Waterfront, Pikku Huopalahti, Ruoholahti and Viikki. This gives a good overview of current urban strategy, architectural work and planning in the city. Planners are not my favourite profession exactly but what [...]
Density in cities
A wise old man once told me, if you’re looking for someone to have sex with, you live in the city; if you’ve got someone to have sex with, you live in the suburbs. Sometimes I think it may be as simple as that. the article this quote is from is actually about density in [...]