cities Archives

Programming Cities

28 December 201821 January 2006 by kazys

Social Fiction presents a provocatively-titled workshop: Programming Cities. From the description: “Programming for Cities” is a workshop that reinforces a long existing link between code and architecture.

“Many fine buildings can be reduced to a few lines of code, and a quick glance backward in time shows that is a consequence of architectural theory.

This workshop will start with a short but broad overview of this longstanding connection between programming and architecture. After this the basic elements (about 6 of them) of programming will be discussed. The main part of the workshop will be consisting of a hand-on approach to design a city from code.”

This sounds like a fascinating project… If only there were more!

Technorati Tags: architecture

Travel Time Maps

28 December 201816 January 2006 by kazys

I recently ran into an interesting weblog, Computing for Emergent Architecture, “an experimental weblog by the staff, students and alumni of the MSc Virtual Environments / Adaptive Architecture & Computation at the Bartlett School of Graduate Studies, University College London.” It seems like while the US is still stuck in the “new forms, new materials” model of architectural design, the British are leaping ahead toward using programming to build adaptive, and emergent architecture. One recent post discusses a tube map planner they’ve programmed in which the temporal distance between stations is represented spatially. The result is a kind of real time homonculus map of the city. The “Travel Time Tube Map” itself can be found here.

At City of Sound, you can view a map of the Europe in which real distances seem shorter thanks to high speed trains. The map is from Barcelona: The Urban Evolution of a Compact City, by Joan Busquets, published by the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
Technorati Tags: architecture, cartography, cities, emergent architecture

The Seven Wonders of the Modern World

28 December 201811 January 2006 by kazys

In response to a call for the Seven New Wonders of the World, BldgBlog presents some incredible suggestions. To these, I would certainly have to add Quartzsite, Arizona, which I hope to visit again in the next two weeks.

Technorati Tags: tourism, wonders

Richard Sennett On Flexibility, Difference and Withdrawal

28 December 20189 January 2006 by kazys

Urban sociologist Richard Sennett explores the conditions of contemporary capitalism. I see in this an essay a foundation for network culture. Contemporary flexible employment, he observes, discourages temporary workers from putting down roots or engaging with their communities. Difference, Sennett recognizes, is not the same thing as [[alterity]]. Today, whether under the guise of identity politics or as a part of the cultivated eccentricity of consumption that makes up the Long Tail, Sennett writes, we are retreating behind a wall of difference and disengaging from our environment. See his essay on Capitalism and the City. Technorati Tags: capitalism, cities, network city, network culture, publics

Chicago at the End…

28 December 20187 January 2006 by kazys

Just what is going on in my hometown of Chicago? Over at Archidose, I discovered the grim news that Berghoff’s is closing and Marshall Field’s will become a Macy’s. Gosh, the Windy City sounds as bad off as New Orleans. Just kidding. Sort of. Well, not really.

Technorati Tags: chicago, chowhound, cities, eating, memory, shopping

Looting New Orleans, This Time for Its Architecture

28 December 20186 January 2006 by kazys

I just discovered treehugger.com, a fantastic site claiming to be about the “green lifestyle” but also about much more. Pawing through the back entries, I noticed this post pointing to a Wall Street Journal article on the ongoing looting of New Orleans’s architectural heritage. Read the article here.

Technorati Tags: architecture, cities, historic preservation, new orleans

Deleuze at War

28 December 20182 January 2006 by kazys

The New York Times carries an article today looking at the border wall between Israel and the West Bank. The piece reveals the influence of Brigadier General Shimon Navez on the Israeli strategy. Navez, it turns out, is influenced by Deleuze, the Situationists, and George Bataille, among others and is advocating that although the wall be removed, air surveillance be used to achieve control on the West Bank. But as the pro-Israeli and anti-theoretical New York Times tends to do, the article tantalizes with this information but doesn’t go far enough. The article also briefly touches on the criticism of Eyal Weizman, one of the most important writers in architecture today. Read the article here. Read an interview with Weizman by Sina Najafi and Jeffrey Kastner at Cabinet Magazine.

Broadband 2.0’s Consequences for Cities

28 December 201828 December 2005 by kazys

Over at my netpublics research blog, I have a lengthy post reflecting on the consequences of broadband 2.0 for cities.

If you are interested in the consequences of telecommuting, the future of wired and wireless connections, or have just bought overpriced property in a run down area of the city (read: get out now), take a look.

A Frozen New Orleans

28 December 201818 December 2005 by kazys

While at Logan airport, the cover story of the most recent US News and World Report caught my eye. Heating costs are already well above their record levels of last year. Is this the economic disaster that the Northeast and Midwest have been waiting for, pushing the economic rebounds of these regions back into the sort of death spiral the endured in the 1980s? The article also warns that scarce fuel could impact electric generation in the Northeast and, most ominously, calls into question the stability of New York City’s aged steam generating system, suggesting that a winter failure could be devastating. Concludes the article: “Former Central Intelligence Agency chief Jim Woolsey, now active on energy issues, argues that parts of the city ‘could resemble a frozen New Orleans.'”

Under Cornell in 1994

28 December 201811 December 2005 by kazys

I dug up an old post that I wrote the other day. Not only is it evidence of just how long I’ve been on the Internet (actually, it’s not, I’ve been on the Net continously since 1989 and at least to some degree since 1987), it contains some good suggestions for tunneling, in case you ever wind up in the Cornell area.