Contemporary Communities
CONTEMPORARY CITIES and the Complex Array of Forces Affecting Them_Anna Roos
On the Roofs of Community_Sabrina Puddu
– Nam Dam Homestay and Community House_1+1>2 Architects
– Bamboo Sports Hall for Panyaden International School_Chiangmai Life Architects
– Community Center in El Rodeo de Mora_Fournier – Rojas Arquitectos
– The South Yard_Advanced Architecture Lab + Atelier UPA
– Library and Sheltered Workshop_CeZ Calderan Zanovello Architetti
– House of Music in Pieve di Cento_Mario Cucinella Architects
– Prader Grocery Store_Messner Architects
– The New Scout Hut and Village Hall_Sophus Søbye Architects
– Substrate Factory Ayase_Aki Hamada Architects
– Blue Barn Theater & Boxcar 10_Min|Day
– Impluvium Community Center in Reinosa_RAW / deAbajoGarcia
– Media Library in Thionville_Dominique Coulon & Associés
– Marinilla Educational Park_El Equipo Mazzanti
– Dongyuan Qianxun Community Center_Scenic Architecture office
– Enabling Village_WOHA
– Media Library in Tbilisi_Laboratory of Architecture #3
Contemporary Communities
CONTEMPORARY CITIES and the Complex Array of Forces Affecting Them_Anna Roos
At a time of unprecedented urban migration with an estimated 1.5 million people per week (!) moving to urban centers, it is imperative to analyze what makes communities thrive. The people who decide how and where new cities are built and how they function impact millions if not billions of peoples’ lives in fundamental ways. Urban planners sometimes seem to forget that cities are not just stagnant physical objects, but are rather complex, evolving, living systems. It must be remembered that a city equals a community of people not a bunch of buildings. This should not be forgotten in the rush to get buildings built to earn a quick buck. There is no point in planners behaving like demi-gods, looking down from an elevated vantage point with grand idealistic projects that end up being uninviting and soulless.
We need to remember the dire failures of the so-called urban renewal projects that took place in cities all over America, starting in New York and spreading like a cancer to Detroit, Denver and dozens of other cities in the 1950s and 1960s only to be torn down a decade later. They were literally so unloved, indeed detested by those who lived there, that they crumbled. Shiny utopian dreams turned to depressing dystopian nightmares—a tragic and shameful waste of peoples’ lives and public resources. We need to look carefully at why these projects were so disastrous for the people who lived there. In order to avoid creating inhospitable ghettoes, we need to think about the relationship of city to building, building to sidewalk, sidewalk to street, and street to public realm. By revisiting journalist and activist Jane Jacobs and her savvy observations of urban life in New York, we are given cogent insights into what makes cities thrive in all their inexhaustible wonder.
Contemporary Communities
CONTEMPORARY CITIES and the Complex Array of Forces Affecting Them_Anna Roos
At a time of unprecedented urban migration with an estimated 1.5 million people per week (!) moving to urban centers, it is imperative to analyze what makes communities thrive. The people who decide how and where new cities are built and how they function impact millions if not billions of peoples’ lives in fundamental ways. Urban planners sometimes seem to forget that cities are not just stagnant physical objects, but are rather complex, evolving, living systems. It must be remembered that a city equals a community of people not a bunch of buildings. This should not be forgotten in the rush to get buildings built to earn a quick buck. There is no point in planners behaving like demi-gods, looking down from an elevated vantage point with grand idealistic projects that end up being uninviting and soulless.
We need to remember the dire failures of the so-called urban renewal projects that took place in cities all over America, starting in New York and spreading like a cancer to Detroit, Denver and dozens of other cities in the 1950s and 1960s only to be torn down a decade later. They were literally so unloved, indeed detested by those who lived there, that they crumbled. Shiny utopian dreams turned to depressing dystopian nightmares—a tragic and shameful waste of peoples’ lives and public resources. We need to look carefully at why these projects were so disastrous for the people who lived there. In order to avoid creating inhospitable ghettoes, we need to think about the relationship of city to building, building to sidewalk, sidewalk to street, and street to public realm. By revisiting journalist and activist Jane Jacobs and her savvy observations of urban life in New York, we are given cogent insights into what makes cities thrive in all their inexhaustible wonder.
