Land reclamation in Hong Kong

Hong Kong. Photo credit: wired-destinations.com

An introduction of the interesting article by Mark Huppert and Marc Weigum for metropolismag.com:

¨Our interdisciplinary team, supported by the Runstad Center at the University of Washington, recently went on a research trip to Hong Kong. We were there to view the city through a multifaceted lens, looking to identify success metrics and their outcomes within the built environment. This led us to interview a diverse array of government decision-makers, private developers, investors, consultants, planners, policy-makers, and community representatives. The themes that emerged from our conversations were not quite what we expected in this intensely capitalistic city containing the most skyscrapers in the world. The glittering towers and pulsing streetscapes are on a foundation that is not quite what it seems. Hong Kong, from what we could tell, is at a monumental tipping point.

The phrase “land reclamation” is commonly used to describe the process of creating new land from sea, riverbeds or, as Webster’s puts it, from “wasteland.”Since most people associate the word reclaim with taking something back, it seems odd to use the word reclamation when it’s about creating land from something useful like the ocean or a harbor. In the case of Hong Kong, the land area wasn’t originally taken BY the sea for someone to take back, but it was certainly taken FROM the sea in order to develop something of greater economic value. It’s all a matter of perspective.¨

Central Hong Kong Island via Government House, photo: usageorge.com

Keep on reading:

http://www.metropolismag.com/pov/20110425/from-reclamation-to-renewal

Beaumont-l'Eglise. From The Dreams

Beaumont-l'Eglise. From Panoramio.com

"Beaumont is composed of two villages, completely separated and quite distinct one from the other—Beaumont-l'Eglise, on the hill with its old Cathedral of the twelfth century, its Bishop's Palace which dates only from the seventeenth century, its inhabitants, scarcely one thousand in number, who are crowded together in an almost stifling way in its narrow streets; and Beaumont-la-Ville, at the foot of the hill, on the banks of the Ligneul, an ancient suburb, which the success of its manufactories of lace and fine cambric has enriched and enlarged to such an extent that it has a population of nearly ten thousand persons, several public squares, and an elegant sub-prefecture built in the modern style. These two divisions, the northern district and the southern district, have thus no longer anything in common except in an administrative way. Although scarcely thirty leagues from Paris, where one can go by rail in two hours, Beaumont-l'Eglise seems to be still immured in its old ramparts, of which, however, only three gates remain. A stationary, peculiar class of people lead there a life similar to that which their ancestors had led from father to son during the past five hundred years.

The Cathedral explains everything, has given birth to and preserved everything. It is the mother, the queen, as it rises in all its majesty in the centre of, and above, the little collection of low houses, which, like shivering birds, are sheltered under her wings of stone. One lives there simply for it, and only by it. There is no movement of business activity, and the little tradesmen only sell the necessities of life, such as are absolutely required to feed, to clothe, and to maintain the church and its clergy; and if occasionally one meets some private individuals, they are merely the last representatives of a scattered crowd of worshippers. The church dominates all; each street is one of its veins; the town has no other breath than its own. On that account, this spirit of another age, this religious torpor from the past, makes the cloistered city which surrounds it redolent with a savoury perfume of peace and of faith."

From Chapter II of The Dream (Le Reve) by Emile Zola

Read The Dream at Project Gutenberg:

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/29004/29004-h/files/9499/9499-h/9499-h.htm

A street of puzzles

Illustration by arch. Matteo Pericoli

When my writing is not going well, there are two things I do in the hope of luring the words back: I read some pages of books I love or I watch the world. This is my view when I am at home in Nigeria, in the port city of Lagos. An ordinary view, with houses close together, cars crammed in corners, each compound with its own gate, little kiosks dotting the street. But it is a view choked with stories, because it is full of people. I watch them and I imagine their lives and invent their dreams.

The stylish young woman who sells phone cards in a booth next door, the Hausa boys who sell water in plastic containers, stacked in wheelbarrows. The vendor with a pile of newspapers, pressing his horn, his hopeful eyes darting up to the verandas. The bean-hawker who prowls around in the mornings, calling out from time to time, a large pan on her head. The mechanics at the corner who buy from her, often jostling one another, often shirtless, and sometimes falling asleep under a shade in the afternoon.

I strain to listen to their conversations. Once I saw two of the mechanics in a raging but brief fight. Once I saw a couple walk past holding hands, not at all a common sight. Once, a young girl in a blue school uniform, hair neatly plaited, looked up and saw me, a complete stranger, and said, “Good morning, ma,” curtsying in the traditional Yoruba way, and it filled me with gladness. The metal bars on the window — burglary-proof, as we call it — sometimes give the street the air of a puzzle, jagged pieces waiting to be fit together and form a whole.

AUTHOR: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is the author, most recently, of “The Thing Around Your Neck.” Matteo Pericoli, an artist, is the author of “The City Out My Window: 63 Views on New York.”

From: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/12/04/opinion/20101205_Windows.html?scp=9&sq=pericoli&st=Search

The Haussmann block, as seen by Emile Zola

An example of the Haussmann block. From http://agingmodernism.wordpress.com/

"The Haussmann block excluded, at least from its centre, all the diversified activities that coexisted there previously in the same way as the urbanization process excluded some activities from the centre of the city. Often only those activities connected to housing could find space within a block, whose character derives, as we have noted previously, from social needs. This did not cause great difficulties to the inhabitants, because the block became fragmented and most of the buildings were inhabited by a homogeneous  population.

If we take up again the distinctions made earlier between the perimeter of the block, which is in contact with the street through the facade of the buildings, and its centre, we realize that this functions only as a back space where some street activities (stables, sheds) are still located there. This arrangement ensured a distinction between the visible and the hidden parts of housing. The bourgeois building was the place of false modesty -see Zola's Pot Bouille and the thoughts contained in its first pages on "the discreet ostentation" of the facade, which masks the "internal sewer". With regard to working-class blocks of flats, they continued, undoubtedly, to be the theatre of a more open form of sociability and activities that extended the life that took place in the dwelling -children played in the courtyard and family events spilled out from the dwelling."

Paris' blocks. Image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/jaboney/146359192/

Reference: The Block and its Differentiation. In Urban Forms. The death and life of the urban block. Ivor Samuels. P. 128-129.

Pot-Bouille by Emile Zola:

Pot-Bouille is the tenth novel in the Rougon-Macquart series by Émile Zola. It was first serialized between January and April 1882 in the periodical Le Gaulois before being published in book form by Charpentier in 1883.

The novel is an indictment of the hypocritical mores of the bourgeoisie of the Second French Empire. It is set in a Parisian apartment building, a relatively new housing arrangement at the time, and its title (roughly translating as stew pot) reflects the disparate and sometimes unpleasant elements lurking behind the building's new and decorative façade.

Pot-Bouille was first translated into English by Henry Vizetelly in 1886 and Percy Pinkerton in 1895; both translations are available in reprints. There have been other English translations through the years (as Piping Hot!, Pot Luck, Restless House, and Lesson in Love), the most recent being by Brian Nelson for Oxford World's Classics (1999).

William Busnach adapted Pot-Bouille as a play, produced at the Théâtre de l'Ambigu-Comique in 1883.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pot-Bouille

A push to make Nipton (California) a sustainable wonderland

Solar power provides most of the electricity in Nipton, Calif. Gerald Freeman, who bought the town in the 1980s, aims to make it a green hospitality center for traveling nature lovers. (Gina Ferazzi, Los Angeles Times / May 4, 2011)

It´s nice to know that somebody else is doing some effort in the Mojave Desert. I know part of it, usually in our way to Nevada, and, though the landscape could be beautiful, you can feel the emptiness. Here, an excerpt of a nice story by Tiffany Hsu, for Los Angeles Times:

¨Gerald Freeman was prospecting for gold in the Mojave Desert when he stumbled on Nipton.

In 1984, it had become a virtual ghost town. Its sole resident lived in the trading post selling sodas to the occasional wayward traveler who might briefly stop to watch freight trains rumble past on the nearby Union Pacific railroad.

But where most saw desolation, Freeman saw "a little place to make a home" and maybe some money too. The Caltech-trained geologist shelled out $200,000 to buy the tiny, tattered outpost.

For a quarter-century, Freeman struggled to make much of the place, spending roughly $1 million on restoration costs. About 20 people eventually moved into town, most living in recreational vehicles and trailers.

But now Freeman thinks he's finally figured out a way to turn Nipton into a boomtown.

He put up rows of gleaming solar panels, and recently began selling hats emblazoned with the hamlet's new motto: "Nipton, powered by the sun."

It's part of a major push to make Nipton a sustainable wonderland, a green hospitality center for nature lovers headed into the neighboring Mojave National Preserve.

Nipton held an opening ceremony for its new solar generating plant.  

Hermitage House. Artists´residence

The 80-kilowatt solar installation — enough to power most of the town — is 10 miles from Interstate 15 and two miles from the Nevada border. Freeman has also erected five "eco-cabins" based on designs by Frank Lloyd Wright.

In the next decade, Freeman envisions energy-efficient buildings, an organic farm, electric vehicle charging stations and even more solar installations. If the local winds weren't so weak, he'd erect wind turbines too.

Nipton isn't the only U.S. town hopping on the environmental bandwagon. Turbines are going up in Greensburg, Kan., where a tornado tore through in 2007. Soldiers Grove, Wis., moved its downtown out of a flood-prone area and equipped the new buildings with solar energy.

But Nipton has one advantage: Freeman owns the town and can do whatever he wants with it.¨

KEEP ON reading:

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-nipton-20110504,0,912654.story

More pictures and history at:

http://www.nipton.com/

Decorative boards to blend vacant homes into Cleveland neighborhoods

This vacant Slavic Village house has been an eyesore and magnet for trouble. Now it's part of a pilot program that Cleveland Housing Court Judge Raymond Pianka launched to artistically board houses as part of the effort to limit the harm done to communities.Chuck Crow, The Plain Dealer

In a couple of posts, I've been showing the urban problems triggered by the houses left empty. The neighbors' property value is instantly dropped and Cities have no money to keep watching for vandals. 
For example, " a new study suggests that Philadelphia's 40,000 vacant buildings reduce home values by as much as $8,000 and cost the city $20 million per year in maintenance." (Catherine Lucey) http://articles.philly.com/2010-11-11/news/24954008_1_property-values-abandoned-property-vacant-land

To my surprise, Cleveland found a kind of solution, a little naive... here it is:

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Cleveland Housing Court Judge Raymond Pianka is testing a way to board up vacant houses so they don't look like glaring neon signs saying nobody's home.

Pianka brought in a Chicago man who specializes in making plywood to look like doors and windows. He gets vacant homes to blend into the neighborhood and not stand out as eyesores that draw drive-by vandals as well as vagrants and kids.

A $20,000 grant is paying for the program, which involves 22 mostly residential properties and should be done by Labor Day.

Reference:

Excerpt of the post by Sandra Livingston at

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2010/08/program_uses_decorative_boards.html

Robert A.M. Sterns speaks about the history of New York´s apartments

AIA NY Design Awards 2011: Architecture Honor Award Winners

Horizontal Skyscraper – Vanke Center. Shenzhen, China. Steven Holl Architects

APAP Openschool. Anyang, Korea. LOT-EK

Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant.Brooklyn, New York. A triventure of Greeley-Hansen, Hazen & Sawyer and Malcolm Pirnie in association with Ennead Architects

Sperone Westwater. New York, New York. Foster + Partners, Adamson Associates (Architect of record)

UCSF Dolby Regeneration Medicine Building. San Francisco, CA. Rafael Viñoly Architects, SmithGroup (Architect of record)

REFERENCE:

My selection of pictures from http://archrecord.construction.com/news/2011/04/110419-AIA-NY-Design-Award-Winners.asp