A very, very interesting series of architecture and urban planning articles published in The New York Times Magazine on June 8th 2008. Please take your time in reading them, they’re well worth it!
- “Face Value”: In the new cityscape, keeping up the facade is what matters. And that’s the job of Front Inc.
- “Crowded House”: A firm based in Rotterdam solves the problem of too many people on too small a planet by tunneling down, packing tight and making pigs fly.
- “The New, New City”: Shenzhen and Dubai may have outstripped Paris and New York as civic models. But can an instant city ever feel like the real thing?
- “Guerilla Gardening”: Reclaiming green space one anarchic, get-your-hands-dirty, grab-a-flat-of-perennials-and-a-trowel act at a time.
- “A Lot-Ek Solution”: How a New York-based architecture team turned the detritus of urban life into a design virtue.
- “Metropolis Now”: How yesterday’s film sets became today’s cities.
- “Man with a Plan”: The former mayor of Bogota, Colombia, talks about the world’s best-designed cities, the problem with private waterfronts and why sidewalks are essential for democracy.
- “The Exigent City”: Increasingly, refugee camps have become de facto cities, and cities have become extended refugee camps. Is there a place here for architects?
- “Urban Digs”: Bernard Tschumi, the noted architect of such famed urban projects as the Parc de la Villette in Paris, lives on Chelsea with his wife in a 4,800-square-foot loft he designed himself.
- “The Silence Generation”: Technology adapts to eliminate the clatter of the city life, one person at a time.
(Source: Nicolas Marier)