archigram, originally uploaded by lists&diagrams

See more Archigram photos and study the Archigram past.

A new island: Hadid unveils radical plan for Bilbao:

The British-Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid has presented radical plans for the city’s neglected Zorrozaurre peninsula, part of a redevelopment that would see it converted into an island.
Once a crucial part of the port, the peninsula, in the estuary of the river Nervión, had been left to decay. With only around 450 people living there and a few small industries left, it seemed to have no part of Bilbao’s glowing future.

While urban renewal and reuse is certainly admirable, a quick google search shows that not all who live on the Zorrozaurre peninsula share Hadid’s vision. See Proyecto Zorrozaurre, Zaha Hadid. Bilbao for a exhaustive series of images of Hadid’s plan and Zorrozaurre Master Plan @ The Pritzker pdf. The Forum for a Sustainable Zorrozaurre is highly critical of the proposed plan (see Creating an Eco-Community In A Post-Industrial Wastelandfish pdf).
Below is a map of the Zorrozaurre peninsula:

The Zorrozaurre peninsula seems to be a cross between the High Line in Manhattan and Hog Island in Philadelphia. While Zorrozaurre is mostly industrial wasteland, not all of the Zorrozaurre peninsula is wasteland; some parts of the Zorrozaurre peninsula are quite picturesque.
What would have been really interesting is if Hadid had inverted the peninsula by using what ills the area most, decaying industry, as a tool for reclamation. One thought which struck me right away is the audacious idea to transform the Zorrozaurre peninsula into a giant filter; a filter which would clean both the river and the surrounding industrial wasteland. Hadid is already going to raise the base level of the new buildings; think of the possibility of living over a natural filter, be it a sponge or a series of reeds. As water passes through the city-filter it is slowly cleansed.
Yellow Tube Sponge Grand Cayman, B.W.I. by Professor Brad Rence
Submerged aquatic vegetation, Louisiana by TerryMcT
Thus the city would act as a massive reparative device, slowly cleansing the countryside of toxins which past industry and citizens inflicted upon the land. Now this massive industrial-ecological complex doesn’t necessarily require Archigram-type installations and technology. However, those 500 citizens who live in the Zorrozaurre peninsula already inhabit a territory which is the figural negative space of a massive industrial complex which has run its course. It would be all too fitting to use this negative industrial space as an archaeological foundation in order to clean the ills of that decayed industry.
Archigram Seasidebubbles

St Pancras, originally uploaded by gregnugent

Speaking of St Pancras, see other St Pancras Station construction photos by the same photographer.

The miracle of St Pancras and slideshow:

St Pancras was destined to be connected to the continent ever since the day in 1877 when Sir George Gilbert Scott’s magnificent station and hotel were finally declared complete. And next month that destiny will finally be realised, when the Queen launches the terminus into the world of 21st-century high-speed European rail travel. From November 14, Eurostar trains will writhe out from under the station’s unforgettable train shed roof through new tunnels and £5.8bn-worth of newly forged engineering works to reach Paris Gare du Nord in just two-and-a-quarter hours.

Smogr’s previous St Pancras coverage.

• Good Design, Happy Cats? (above)
• SimCity adds global warming to the mix
• On NYCTA’s change to contactless toll system: Requiem for a MetroCard
• Sydney’s Ocean Pools
• Why vote on the issues? Vote based on your favorite logo
• The Stylish Terrarium: Decorating Under Glass
• After Years of Being Out, the Necktie Is In – note that it is only in and cool when it is a choice

Check out this, old by internet time, map featuring only the names of the street: London’s Kerning.

When Right-Wing Attacks Backfire

Continue reading “When Right-Wing Attacks Backfire” →

Suburban Sprawl, originally uploaded by Joe_13

In The Atlantic Monthly Virginia Postrel has an article, A Tale of Two Town Houses, about two distinct models for successful American cities, which both reflect and reinforce different cultural and political attitudes. Furthermore,

The Dallas model, prominent in the South and Southwest, sees a growing population as a sign of urban health. Cities liberally permit housing construction to accommodate new residents. The Los Angeles model, common on the West Coast and in the Northeast Corridor, discourages growth by limiting new housing. Instead of inviting newcomers, this approach rewards longtime residents with big capital gains and the political clout to block projects they don’t like.
…
The unintended consequence of these land-use policies is that Americans are sorting themselves geographically by income and lifestyle—not across neighborhoods, as they used to, but across regions. People are more likely to live surrounded by others like themselves, creating a more-polarized cultural map. In the superstar cities, where opinion leaders congregate, the perception is growing that the country no longer has a place for middle-class life. Yet the same urban sophisticates who fret that you can’t live decently on less than $100,000 a year often argue vociferously that increasing density will degrade their quality of life. They may be right—but, like any other luxury good, that quality commands a high price.

It is a very interesting article, but Postrel is completely wrong concerning constricting housing market in the Northeast, especially New York City. Granted, New York City is an edge case, but I can’t throw a rock without hitting a residential development in NYC. All up and down the Northeast Corridor urban cores are repopulating and density is growing. In the last six years, the Boston-NYC-Washington Corridor added over 1.59 million residents.
Postrel’s point about the difficulty of building new housing in the Northeast Corridor has merit. Yet, both Los Angeles proper and NYC the limiting factor is geography: Manhattan is an island and LA is a series of valleys. NYC is rapidly populating parts of Brooklyn and Staten Island creating dense pockets of high rise buildings next to tenements. While Los Angeles is a product of its history and zoning, a series of monochromatic suburbs, I was just in Dallas, and there was little measurable difference between the suburban wasteland of the LA Valley and DFW. Postrel’s comparing Dallas/Ft. Worth to Los Angeles noting that DFW was a place where things got done and cheaply are interesting, as if housing prices aren’t intrinsically bound to irrational concepts of “livability.”
See also Big-Media-Matt’s take on Zoning Ourselves to Death.

matchbox5.jpg, originally uploaded by COOP666

That’s right, Matchbox Collector’s Catalog, 1969. (Via Draplin via Coudal, via Coop)
Design can be fun, too.