Urbanism

I just read about the USA and their prison problems and first was quite flashed when I noticed that the State of New York is hoping to sell its old prisons, before I entirely thought about it… As the New York Times explains in their New York Has Some Prisons to Sell You article (which by the way reads like a property description), the ideal buyer is someone who craves space to spread out, and who does not mind a property that has had thousands of guests over the years, what made my day because including me I know several others who could use such huge urban places to transform them into architectural research centers (as BLDGBLOG describes), to create impressing exhibition spaces, urban art centers, youth clubs, etc. ...

I’m pretty sure, some of you already heard about the international Park(ing) Day, right?! The idea behind this interventional project is the create temporary parks throughout the cities around the world, but of course you can build those parks whenever you like… …like Joe Baldwin together with the Altgeld Sawyer Corner Farm did in Chicago back in 2011. For a few hours, he turned nearly an entire Logan Square street block into a 280 square meters urban park: ...

The MIT’s Green Building recently hosted the world’s largest Tetris game! The 90 meters tall academic and research building was designed by noted architect I. M. Pei, whose window facade suited perfectly for a 17x9 pixel Tetris screen… Tetris on the MIT Green Building As The Tech pointed out in a corresponding article, the mysteriously appearing Tetris hack, which was described as The holy grail of hacks was the culmination of over four and a half years of work by an undisclosed number of hackers! The group of hackers used the already installed LED arrays to light up the windows with a variety of colors for the super-sized video game, allowing not just students to play a fully functional game of Tetris on the Green Building! ...

French/German photographers duo Lucie and Simon created with Silent World a great series of deserted places in cities like Paris, New York or Beijing, well-known around the world for the incredible amount of people usually populating public spaces. It seems, the photos capture entirely deserted cities and they make us somehow understand that what makes a city a city is not just the man-made monumental buildings, but the temporary elements within… ...

Stephen Wilkes is not unknown when it comes to astonishing fine art and commercial photography. For more than two decades he has been widely recognized; his photographs can be found in magazines such as Vanity Fair, Sports Illustrated, Time, Life Magazine, and The New York Times Magazine. For his urban photography series Day To Night, Wilkes photographed during one day the same spot over and over again to document the specific daily routine and the places unique flair during day and night. The special thing about those photos is, that Wilkes merged them together in one single image, what allows him to show day and night-time together as it would be one impression! ...

If you start loving to watch lime-lapse videos of metropolises from around the world (here Dubai and here New York & Istanbul), there’s no way to stop watching them… Recently I stumbled upon this very time-lapse video of the Russian capital Moscow. Belarusian photographer and film-maker zweizwei created this beauty around four months ago, using different camera bodies and several lenses. It shows Moscow at its best and is in my eyes, one of the best time-lapse city portraits I ever watched! ...

The Shard tower in London becomes more and more impressing. I remember standing at the foot of it back in 2010, when the ugly construction site just showed a massive concrete spear raising into the sky. Now, two years later, The Shard (also Shard London Bridge or Shard of Glass) proves it is worth being called Europe’s tallest building. With its irregular triangular shape architecture, the dominating glass facade and the viewing gallery and open-air observation deck on the 72nd floor, the 310 meters skyscraper is became another attraction in London after its completion in April. Paul Raftery, architectural photographer, and Dan Lowe, director, have recently collaborated to create a timelapse film showing the final weeks of construction of The Shard tower in London Bridge. It was shot over many days during the early months of 2012, from locations spanning from Greenwich Park to Hampstead Heath and simply impresses! ...

I have a big foible for abandoned amusement parks. One reason - and it doesn’t matter whether the decaying park is located in the US or even in China - is the somehow scary atmosphere of old, often broken attractions, archaic Western buildings and roller coasters. Another reason is, that those abandoned parks, providing never ending impressions, are perfect playgrounds for urban explorers and photographers like me… Kulturpark - A Public Art Project in Berlin In Berlin, a group of cultural developers and activists together with experimental architects from Berlin, researchers from Harvard, and placemakers from the Urban Art Institute plans to re-open the abandoned amusement park Spreepark, located in the sprawling Treptower Park, as a creative camp. The group’s aim is to utilize the process of producing artistic site-specific visions, combined with ideas and memories of publics, to create a grassroots proposal for the park’s future, what sounds like a really great thing for Berlin! ...

Great news from South-Germany: In July 2012, the world’s first real-time architecture competition 72 Hour Urban Action is coming to Stuttgart to work together with local cultural activists! All around the site of the largest urban redevelopment in Europe - Stuttgart 21 - the center of a 30 year heated public debate, 72 Hour Urban Action will be the kick-off of a series of major urban interventions in the city… ...

Imagine a total usual small town somewhere in the heart of Europe (in Belgium actually), a average quiet square with a big red push button and a sign with the text Push to add drama inviting people to use the button. And now watch and… …just think WTF?! ...