ARCHITECTURE.

At the 2006 Venice Biennale, MAD Architects envisioned the future of Beijing with three proposals. One of their visions was the “Future of Hutongs,” a plan for metallic bubble structures that would pop up in hutongs, or narrow alleys, in the city’s oldest neighborhoods. Now, the first of these bubbles has made its debut in a modest, residential courtyard.

Rapid development in Beijing in recent years has been hard for the city to keep up with, and standards of living in older neighborhoods have suffered. MAD’s hutong bubbles address these conditions as small-scale, adaptable interventions that can grow with the fabric of the city and provide new, positive opportunities in struggling areas. Click Read More for additional information and photos.

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CITY INNOVATIONS.

Perhaps this is an argument for Travel Health Insurance. Though we generally try to avoid ending up in mental health institutions, Nendo’s recently completed clinic in Japan might be worth feigning maladies to secure a visit. The Japanese firm’s design aims to express the clinic’s philosophy of treatment in its architecture. It transforms a patient’s stay into an entirely encompassing experience.

From Design Boom: “The doors that line the walls of the clinic do not open, and ‘ordinary’ parts of the walls open up into new spaces. The consultation rooms are entered by sliding the bookshelves sideways. The door at the end of the hallway opens onto a window; the amount of light in the hallway is controlled by opening and closing the door.” Click Read More for additional information and photos.

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CITY INNOVATIONS.

This Spring, a number of parking meters in New York will no longer service car parking. Instead, they are being repurposed to create much-needed spots for bikes. There is currently just one bike rack space for every 30 cyclists in New York, and as biking’s popularity grows, the repurposing is an inventive, sustainable answer to the city’s changing needs.

Parking meters in the Upper East and West sides; Park Slope, Brooklyn; Riverdale, Bronx; and Ridgewood, Queens are to be replaced by communal “mini munis” on every block. Rather then rip out the old, individual meters, the city will remove and recycle the meter heads, and bend the remaining posts into circular racks. About 225 new bike spaces will be created. By investing in this plan the city will save the expense of tearing out the old meters and repairing the sidewalks, and will make many bikers happy.

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GOOD IDEAS.

The main federal building in Portland, Oregon is preparing for a major makeover that could make it one of the greenest in the world. The General Services Administration plans to install vertical gardens along the building’s 200 foot tall facade as part of a $133 million renovation. The “vegetated fins” will bloom in spring and summer, providing shade, and cutting energy costs for the building by an estimated 60 to 65 percent.

According to project architects Cutler Anderson, the irrigation system will likely use captured rainwater, or grey water recycled from the building’s interior plumbing. Landscaping experts will experiment with vines and other vegetation this summer, and if all goes according to plan, the garden wall will be blossoming by 2013. Written by Elsa Brown

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GOOD IDEAS.

When was the last time you looked at a phone book? For many of us the answer has little to do with looking up a number. With the ubiquity of the internet, the phone book has become an irrelevant form of print reference and unfortunately a prevalent contributor to city waste.

Stop Yellow Waste is documenting the phenomenon of phone books left out on city sidewalks and taking steps to stop this preventable pile up. Their goal is to get phone companies to shift phone book distribution to an opt in model instead of the traditional opt out, and to urge people to opt out now, until the change is made. See photos of discarded phone books sent in from cities worldwide, submit your own, and learn more about paper waste at their website.

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GOOD IDEAS.

Ramón Coronado moved to Los Angeles four years ago. He settled across the street from MacArthur Park, and became quickly aware of the lack of recreational spaces, and overabundance of trash in the neighborhood. In response, Coronado recently completed a 12 week project in which he constructed furniture for children— including a chair, lamp, and swing— out of discarded shopping carts.

Of the relationship between the abandoned carts and LA, Coronodo writes: “Shopping carts exist everywhere and anywhere throughout the city of LA and include themselves as part of LA’s landscape. A shopping cart says a lot about a city. Seeing one on every block adds attention to the poverty and that there is no control of private property.” Coronado’s re-purposing brings new attention to the circumstances of his city; it recognizes the possibility for objects that have been cast aside to transform their environments for the better. Click Read More for additional information and photos.

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GOOD IDEAS.

Manhattan’s morning commute is brutal amid construction. Back to back cars, jackhammers, clouds of dust and makeshift detours are a formula for instant frustration. Construction zones and the urban grid do not mix in function nor form. And, according to the Alliance for Downtown New York, Manhattan construction is increasing. An estimated $30 billion worth of new development is underway at nearly 200 sites below Canal Street.

In an effort to beautify these sites, the Alliance for Downtown New York is partnering with city officials and companies to integrate art projects within the construction zones. While it doesn’t take care of the need for better traffic patterns, it does enhance the visual blight presented by numerous construction sites across the city. As the NY Times reports: ”’The area is experiencing construction fatigue and, for a lot of people, it’s been a jarring experience,’ said Elizabeth H. Berger, president of the alliance. ‘At the end of the day while these are improvements that advance Lower Manhattan, in the short term it’s tough.’ The construction potentially affects about 314,000 people who work in the area, 54,000 who live there and more than 5 million who visit the area every year.” We think the project is fantastic for the city. It’s a notable innovation for an often overlooked problem. Click Read More for additional information.

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