06.02.12, 12:00
IISD
The International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) is a Canadian-based, public policy research institute that has a long history of conducting cutting-edge research into sustainable development.
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02.02.12, 12:18
Bluespace: a typological matrix for port cities
The sea covers more than 70% of the Earth's surface. Now for the first time in history more than half the world's people live in cities and many of the world's most populated conurbations are located on the ocean periphery. Climate change is making littoral zones a potentially productive location for the development of new forms of urban space in coastal cities. Increased urbanisation and the foregrounding of the coastal condition make the association between cities and the sea one of the most important environmental juxtapositions of the 21st century. The aim of this paper is to re-theorise the collision of the public realm and the sea edge, and provide a range of design precedents for this emerging urban space phenomenon. The paper will introduce the concept of 'bluespace' and define a matrix with nine instances of how urban space and sea space combine to produce distinct public space types in port cities. Case studies of each type will be presented and discussed in detail with reference to textual and representational descriptions of the space in question.
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01.02.12, 14:19
A THEORY ABOUT THE CITY AS OBJECT
A series of recent papers (Hillier et al, 1993; Hillier, 1996b, 2000) have outlined a generic process by which spatial configurations, through their effect on movement, first shape, and then are shaped by, land-use patterns and densities. The aim of this paper is to make the spatial dimension of this process more precise. The paper begins by examining a large number of axial maps, and finds that although there are strong cultural variations in different regions of the world, there are also powerful invariants. The problem is to understand how both cultural variations and invariants can arise from the spatial processes that generate cities. The answer proposed is that socio-cultural factors generate the differences by imposing a certain local geometry on the local construction of settlement space, while micro-economic factors, coming more and more into play as the settlement expands, generate the invariants.
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30.01.12, 23:50
WHAT IS PLACEMAKING?
“’Placemaking’ is both an overarching idea and a hands-on tool for improving a neighborhood, city or region. It has the potential to be one of the most transformative ideas of this century.”
-Metropolitan Planning Council of Chicago
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28.01.12, 20:45
WFS2010 SUMMARY REPORT
WFS2010 presented a unique view about how waterfronts could be developed in the future.
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28.01.12, 21:06
THE UPSIDE OF A DOWN ECONOMY
The stumbling global economy, vulnerable energy supply, and loss of confidence in far-flung markets are being balanced by a surge of interest in things local: production of local food, promotion of local businesses, preservation of local character, improvement of public spaces, and perhaps most important, the rediscovery of meaningful ways to belong to a community.
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27.01.12, 12:24
America's Health Threat: Poor Urban Design
Researchers can have revelatory moments in remarkable places—the African savannah, an ancient library, or the ruins of a lost civilization. But Richard J. Jackson's epiphany occurred in 1999 in a banal American landscape: a dismal stretch of the car-choked Buford Highway, near the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
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26.01.12, 19:03
ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN FOR CRIME REDUCTION
REPORT A done for Queensland, Australia in 2007. Works well as a basis for understanding the fundemental issues of this approach towards urban development.
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15.04.11, 10:15
NUDA redefines itself
After four years of operations mainly focused around conferences and academies, NUDA is finally taking the step into becoming a fully operational organisation. NUDA have defined four main focus areas that will be the core of the organisational structure.
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15.04.11, 16:44
PHILIPS GOES INTO PARTNERSHIP WITH NUDA
City lighting and sustainability is one of the key factors NUDA will focus on in the future coming. Energy saving issues, beautification and enhancement of the public life can strategically be done by the use of light.
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