Update on those London Toilets

via bubblejam.net

Update

and another article on the loos in London.
Bloomberg

Active retail, active transit

I was walking around Brooklyn Heights a couple weeks ago and noticed this little entrance beckoning me with a flower seller and food vendors. It turns out it was the Clark Street station for the 2/3 line. A lot of retail for subway stations are underground, and I really liked that this one helped make the entrance inviting before you have to go underground. If you look towards at the back, there's the ticket booth. For people who know this station, maybe it's obvious, but then again, maybe it's something you take for granted. It certainly makes a morning commute much more inviting.

The Anti-McMansion

I loved the examples in this BusinessWeek article featuring the Japanese phenomenon of infill development - really really infill, filling the cracks of the city, essentially. Plots of land are between 300-400 square feet, and they still manage to build a home, with space for parents.

Article
Slide show

via Mocoloco

CB9 and Columbia on Manhattanville

This news is a bit old, but last week I attended the New York APA's event on Manhattanville, where Columbia and CB9 both had a chance to update the planning community on the status of the project. I think that majority of the design proposals that have been circulated have not changed significantly since Columbia made its intentions known.

Some elements of note are: Columbia is seeking a change in zoning for 35 acres in this community, though it is directly developing 17 acres; both Columbia Business School and the liberal arts school will be up there; there's going to be a magnet math, science and engineering high school managed by the Board of Ed, which will start accepting students this coming Fall despite the lack of a physical building; a community benefits agreement is in the works; and eminent domain is still in consideration.

As far as status in the City approval process, it still seemed a bit unclear. Is the Environmental Impact Statement pending? And there was a mention of carbon neutral development on the part of CB9. Though the idea may be well known within the advocacy community, and has definitely reached the decision-makers of private development, this was the first time I've heard about the issue within a specific community development context. Are other community's advocating for this with their respective projects?

Also, maybe this is petty, but this is the glossy vision that Columbia is selling:




And this is the place where people debated it last week.




I hope Columbia is hosting some of the discussion in settings that reflect the importance of the issue, as part of its outreach.

Columbia's Manhattanville proposal
Pratt Center's CB 9 initiative

A new public space for Dumbo

Will Dumbo get a new public space in the middle of one of its streets?

The triangle seems to have gotten a whiff of inspiration from the Gansvoort proposal, though there isn't a big blank structure from a bridge there.



There are many intersections like these around New York, and sometimes it does seem that the City has given up making them useful for people and instead turning them over to cars. Now that there's greater community-based interest in reclaiming these space, the challenge is how to make the triangles provide for people without making them all feel the same.

More on Moses

In anticipation of the next week's event about Robert Moses, here's more on Moses from Ada Louise Huxtable of the WSJ, an older article from Phillip Lopate, and the Karrie Jacobs article that seems to have inspired the event.

On Tuesday, March 20, view the museum’s current exhibition, “Robert Moses and the Modern City: Remaking the Metropolis”, and join Metropolis contributing editor Karrie Jacobs as she shares her views in a compelling talk, “Landscape by Moses.” Jacobs will highlight a number of Moses’s peculiar landscapes and discuss whether or not they have been successfully integrated into the daily life of our city. Refreshments and light hors d’oeuvres will be served. Museum of the City of New York, 1220 Fifth Avenue, NYC, 6:30 p.m. Space is limited. Please respond to: RSVP@metropolismag.com.

Ending "endless sitting"

I don't know if banning sitting is ever really the answer; that's what Berkeley, CA is thinking about doing.

LBC public market

When you think about Long Beach, CA, you don't think public spaces. But here are some shots of the very popular farmers market held every Sunday in the Alamitos Bay Marina's parking lot. Adjacent is a little flea market.






It's a shame that the easiest way to get there is by car. Judging by how crowded the market was on Sunday, the demand is there.

Away

I'll be traveling to the West Coast for work this week. Any ideas on things to do in Portland and LA? Skin + Bones at MoCA is already on my agenda.

A couple of things to check out: the latest on a small NY public space on This Place Is... and I snapped this shot of the Gehry building at night during the snow last week. It's got nothing to do with public space per se, but I like the building - at least the upper stories. I have to go check it out on the ground floor. It was bit of subdued brightness on this little dirty stretch of 10th Ave; and that made me like it.

Art-itechture in public space

I was fascinated to discover the awareness of temporality and the public realm in this Boston Globe interview with Elizabeth Diller, of Diller + Scofidio. In the world of community-oriented development, D+S have a notorious reputation of being star architects: egoists who seek out object building as an end. While Ms. Diller does not espouse community involvement, she talked a lot about experimenting with space, particularly public space, and the desire to continue working in the public realm, on any scale. What do you think?

Found art

Found Streetsy and Banksy and UrbanCurators and New Life to Boarded Up Homes.



Pretty cozy for this snowy day.

Nominations for the Jane Jacobs Medal

"The creation of a Jane Jacobs Medal to honor the activist, author and urbanist was announced today by the Rockefeller Foundation. Awarded annually, Jane Jacobs Medals will recognize two living individuals whose creative vision for the urban environment has significantly contributed to the vibrancy and variety of New York City. The 2007 Jane Jacobs Medal will be administered by the Municipal Art Society (MAS)."

Full details
Nomination form

Nominations due March 2 2007!

Clickies

Who doesn't love a pillow fight in public...LEED for neighborhoods...exploring branding exactly where you expect to see it, at Logo Cities...the particular success of second story retail...Moses, Moses, Moses...and ah, the days when starchitecture was a glint in one's eye.

UPDATE: and one more, a sewing cafe lives in Berlin, via Springwise.

Story of a Street Corner

A little something Jon sent along, by Osamu Tezuka. Tezuka is called the Walt Disney of Japan. He produced this animation in 1962 with his own money. This is called Story of a Street Corner.

Backyard at twilight

Sustainability and corporations

Old news? It's reached the establishment via IHT.

Public Design Competition

"The partnership of Van Alen Institute, National Parks Conservation Association and Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation invites designers worldwide to play a vital role in Gateway National Recreation Area's future by generating innovative, visionary and compelling proposals that celebrate the unique potential of the park as both a significant regional resource and a national environmental treasure.

...

This is an open, international competition that requires the digital submission of anonymous design ideas for Gateway National Recreation Area. Members of a distinguished and diverse competition jury will evaluate the submissions in May 2007. The jury will select first ($15,000), second ($10,000) and third ($5,000) place winners as well as multiple honorable mention finalists ($500). Winning entries will be presented to the National Park Service for potential inclusion in the next planning phase of Gateway's General Management Plan, which is scheduled for 2009."

This Place Is...

I've joined Alexa and Seth over at This Place Is..., a blog Wander over there and browse around. My first post is about how the Willoughby closed street/public square experiment in Brooklyn is faring in the winter weather.

BttN will still be updated. I'm please to be able to have a sibling blog to round out the picture.

LOVE this art

I LOVE this artist's work. There's such an exuberance for the daily public space that we all use without really thinking about it. Remember the name: Caroline Woolard. She's behind this seating:



this subway swing:



You can see updates on her work on her blog.

(via I (heart) public space, design trust blog)

Backyards

This is what backyards look like in a dense, bustling city. Despite the many structures, it's actually pretty quiet back here. But it's never lonely.

Being neighborly

This is part of my walk to the subway every morning. That coffee guy is just fantastic with the cheapest prices around, the guys at the hardware stores are often accepting shipments and joking around, and across the street is the nicest post office store, Post-Al. You can bring whatever you want shipped and they will package it up very nicely and mail it for you. It's about a thousand times better than being at the post office. They also love dogs in that place.



What people often avoid thinking about in this neighborhood are the many people heading out of the shelters every morning, or those who don't make it into the shelters. I was reminded of this, with the pending lawsuit against the homeless people trying to take advantage of the heat vents against the cold, in the Upper East Side. In front of the subway entrance, there's an kind of big air duct, and a quiet guy has been sleeping there these past few nights, since winter seems to have arrived. But no longer - I think these were put in as recently as yesterday. The spikes had a fresh coat of paint.


Note the pre-existing spikes on the pipes next to the vents - a nasty looking trio of no-sits!

People who do know that there are shelters near my apartment often ask me if I've ever been bothered by the folks who need to stay in the shelters. The truth is not even once, and I do see and have to interact with a lot of them, as we have to share the sidewalks and public spaces in our micro-nabe. There are better ways of treating people and our spaces than putting out spikes - literally or figuratively.

graffiti/art

Public art idea for suburban malls?

Apologies for things being a bit slow around BttN of late....the re-design is in process, hurray.

Storefronts, mostly old

This must be a flickr day. If you missed the Gothamist post about forgotten storefronts, the gallery is a must see.

It brought to mind the question, what makes these storefronts more interesting than the average big box. It's fun to look too, as there is such a broad collection.

The comparison may be obvious for some, but note that many of the "lost" storefronts in the gallery defy convention of successful retail merchandising - many of their windows are covered with dingy posters that obscure the interiors and they are dark, definitely under-lit. I would like to think that part of the reason these storefronts are still appealing to our senses (other than the beautiful texture and type afforded by the skillful photography) is that they are human-scale. Windows are at an accessible height. The scale of the store opens itself up to the sidewalk, and therefore pedestrians. Note the many people sitting outside the storefronts in this collection, taking in the street view. I have often walked by the Mars Bar, which is visually impenetrable, yet extraordinarily friendly to the street, so friendly that the BBQ held in front of it is not an impediment, but just part of the street activity and a connection to the bar. I have rarely seen people lounging around a big box, have you? And for those who like to over-police public spaces, this is kind of lounging that you do want.

Just some thoughts in light of the recent NYT article about big boxes retail chains taking over the city.

Community-driven logos

One of my favorite organizations is Architecture for Humanity. I sent around their logo competition to a few design friends, but neglected to post about it here. Then it slipped away until now - the final logos have been chosen. Take a look!

The winner will be announced in the next issue of AfH.

And it looks like AfH will be at MAS (pdf) at the end of January.

(via designboom)

Lincoln Center magic

I got to see the Julie Taymor staging of The Magic Flute this past weekend. The somewhat surreal spectacle on stage was gorgeous and seemed to matched the magical glamour of Lincoln Center itself. I know the actual square was once a disaster area, but lately it seems the square has flourished, perhaps benefitting from the activity that has been growing in the immediately adjacent neighborhoods and the programming that happens in the square during the day.



I love that you can see so many layers of the building's interiors as you approach the entrance. Readers also know that I love what I call the messiness of modern structures when they are well-used by people.

Universal design

I loved this NYT article (by my good friend Lisa). It just underscored the fact that it's difficult to get people to understand that good design, which should encompass universal design principles, should not be an exception, but the rule.

I've been knocked off my feet with a deadly cold, so I didn't get a chance to think back to the panel, on green urban environments. Thanks to all those who came out! It was a full house, and lots of fun.

The universal design article reminded me that as a panel, we didn't get a chance to talk about a lot of things, especially since the discussion seemed to be about green design in general, not about green urban design. Also, I was on a personal kick about not advocating for specific design proposals, and was more focused on the idea that sustainability is a lifestyle decision, so I loathed giving out specific design criteria. However, there are some low hanging fruit, especially for NYC. They include tweaking our roads for people, not cars; adding green roofs (how many times do you go up to someone's roof and are blinded by a sea of silver sealant?), and improving public transit connections. While these are more policy oriented, they impact the ongoing design of the city.

Obviously I'm having panelist remorse, but at least the thoughts are going somewhere.

Speaking of integration of good design, this is a related topic - the terrible state of packaging design for "better" food products.

The hyper-local

Placebloggers

Reading - NYC-style

I saw this guy reading FT right at the southern entrance to Central Park. It seemed very much like he could focus on the paper though there were cabs speeding behind him, horses clumping by, and tourists galore. This is the beauty of NYC, after all.

Time Warner Building's Front Porch

Holiday cheer

It's of course that "dead" week between holidays, which is a very lively week for the city. Now that I'm working in Midtown, I've been meaning to take photos of the new and improved Columbus Circle. I still don't much care for the Time Warner Center interior, but Columbus Circle has come alive, and that in turn has changed the "front porch" of the Time Warner building itself. There's so much activity there now - it's recaptured some of the energy from when Columbus Circle was a crossroads for many.

Happy New Year everyone!

More on luxury loos

Hard to resist. This WC1 loo doesn't qualify as totally public: though anyone can pony up the 5 pounds required for use, I would bet that there are guardians that will keep out the riff-raff.

Two more are coming in 2007, with 10 total luxury water closets by the end of 2008.

Art for the public spaces

Beautiful to look at.

Falling Gardens and Volume.

BTW, we stopped by 11 Spring Street. What a scene. The exterior of the building looked beautiful, but the line wrapped around the outside and there was no way we were going to get in. Also, the poor organizer kept having to run outside and tell people to get out of the street because the show would be shut down by the police. Too bad - the building looks fantastic from the middle of and across the street.

photos from this weekend here and here and older photos here.

This Place Is...

Just found this new-ish blog about "people-centered place design."

TONIGHT! Green Apple Talk on the Urban Environment

It's going to be fun! Buzz Poole has written about design, music and playing cards - what else typifies our pop culture right now? Come on, admit it, you play poker (hearts, bridge) once a week with your hipster friends. If that's your community, hey, I like it. Also, read more about Alex Marshall, I especially liked his reflective pieces on how places are shaped by the way we live, which is one of the many topics the discussion will cover.

Strand Bookstore, tonight, 7PM, FREE.

Number one

This month's post about public toilets generated the highest number of comments ever. There is something universal about number one, I suppose, so here's another innovation in that area to whet the appetite. Victoria, BC is investigating the potential use of night-time public urinals. Sure beats going in the phone booth, a tactic I've seen way too many times in New York.

Where the Sidewalk Ends

Portland, OR tries out "shared space" - and successfully, it seems.

X marks the holidays

Readers of this blog will know that one of my favorites ways to shop is at markets. There seems to be more of them this year - actually, too many of them to go to all. On Saturday, we hit Bustcraftacular with the ambitious goal of crossing three names off our list, a goal thwarted because we were stuck in the aisles as one would be on Sixth Avenue during the Greenwich Village Halloween parade.

Rampant popularity and its implications on my own shopping experience aside, I'm just thrilled that markets have taken hold like this in New York. There are a couple of good markets or market-like settings that are ongoing through the year: The Market NYC and Edge*nyNOHO. (For some reason the holiday markets at Union Square and Bryant Park feel touristy to me.)

Now let's up the ante with street food, especially during this time of year when you are out and about in colder weather and bearing many more bags than average. Yesterday we ate our way through Chinatown: mei fun, egg rolls, hot sweet tofu, milk tea, and pastry balls, all from street or kiosk vendors. Yum! Chinatown is the only neighborhood where I find it easy to do a few courses like that.

Green Apple Talk: The Urban Environment

Don't just read about it: come out to meet and hear a few urbanists bat around the latest on sustainability and the urban environment next Tuesday at the Strand for the upcoming Green Apple Talk. I will be on the panel as well as Alex Marshall, author of Beneath the Metropolis: the Secret Lives of Cities and Buzz Poole, editor of Green Design. The Green Apple Talk series is hosted by best-selling author Bryan Keefer.

Green Apple Talk: The Urban Environment
The Strand
828 Broadway at 12th Street
7PM, Tuesday Dec 12
FREE

Update: In the spirit of the evening, after the panel I'm heading over to the Green Drinks holiday party. It's a full green evening.

(I've been so amiss on this blog because blogger has been so temperamental and I am going through with the re-design! hurray. Thanks for your patience with the semi-silence...)

Chic public toilets

As with many public space elements, Paris trumps New York.


In Paris


In New York (image from NewMexican.com)

Identity overhaul, and a public space story

Postings have been light of late, mostly because I'm considering a small overhaul of the site, one that will hopefully steer BttN closer to my observations of public spaces. For those who are still reading, thanks for tuning in.

Yesterday, the weather was warm enough to have lunch outside. It was even warm enough to sit on a granite bench in front of a water fountain of a large office building on Sixth Avenue. There were two chicken and rice guys on both street corners, and a fruit vendor - all vendors were doing well, with a small line even after 1:30PM.

While we ate with a view overlooking the street, a homeless person decided to go coin-diving in the fountain. The weather was cooperating, I suppose. There weren't too many coins to be had, but perhaps it was also fun to be in water, especially when the sun is out.

This could have been unsettling, and maybe in a less busy downtown it would have induced some general fear if I was the only person near the fountain, but with all sorts of people bustling about, eating lunch, and the vendors "guarding" each street corner, the homeless guy attracted nary a side glance. And maybe because he didn't attract any attention at all, he waded through the fountain and was off without an incident, and a couple dollars richer, in less than a minute.

When he left, a group of young Japanese media types just finished buying their lunch from a chicken/rice vendor. Lunch in hand, they walked the perimeter of the fountain, assessing their sit-down options. By this time, most people had finished lunch and they had several empty benches to choose from. And where did they choose to cluster? Right next to me, the only other person in the area still eating lunch.

Making the best of scaffolding

I like the thoughtfulness that went into this too.

Two is too close for comfort

It's now been several days since I meant to post this!

A fun piece in the NYT about personal space in public spaces.

New York Regional Trends 2006

The Allen Room at Jazz at Lincoln Center. Now imagine the chairs filled with dark suits; now you have a good picture of the event yesterday.

I got to attend part of yesterday's ULI New York conference on "Regional Trends 2006" in the Allen Room in the Time Warner Building - the most spectacular view ever. I got there after lunch, so missed the whole hour on transportation kicked off by Doctoroff. The session immediately following lunch was on capital markets, way over my head. But the other discussions about in-fill development in the urban core and suburban nodes and the discussion called "Industry Leaders" with representatives from Conde Nast, New York Times, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup (because they "create the environment in which we all practice" according to Michael Buckley) were really interesting.

Notably, some of the emerging themes were:

Community involvement is a winner - Everyone agreed that community involvement has become more sophisticated, and that all projects benefit from engaging communities earlier rather than later. This is not altruistic in any way; rather, it is a strategy to keep the process moving smoothly. However, it was clear that the developers were genuinely listening to the community, and they appreciated the fact that communities were better at articulating what they wanted, rather than relying on the knee-jerk adversarial approach to new development. Because of this, developers were more willing to take initiative in engaging the community much earlier in the process, rather than slogging through an outreach/approval process towards the end.

New York Market is dependent on transportation - the booming development districts for the New York region, which is "priced to perfection," will be Queens West and Midtown West, and not so farther afield Jersey City. Developers all agreed that this was largely dependent on the government's ability to build transportation, the public transit kind, as quickly as possible and in collaboration with other city agencies, community groups and private entities. Developers wished that transportation authorities would recognize their greater role in land-use, instead of looking at it from a sole-system perspective.

Transportation in New York is regional - instead of different local groups trying to defend their turf and clamoring for budget dollars in their locality, everyone agreed that all transit and transportation authorities needed to be collaborative and move beyond geo-political boundaries. The Port Authority was one entity that was specified over and over again. Transportation - essentially, connectivity - was a huge factor in determining the viability of new developments, whether residential or commercial space.

A commitment to the environment and sustainability - All developers discussed pursuing some type of sustainability goal, the leading element being any energy-saving mechanism that can be built into the program. EPA regulations are no longer scary, but still a pain in the butt, though everyone recognizes their necessity. Those who are market leaders in pioneering green building acknowledged new technologies available even as their buildings may await occupancy.

All in all, despite the initial premise centered around cap rates, I left the day much more optimistic about the state of development in New York than I have felt before. Sure, the majority of these folks are obviously out there to make a profit, but it's great that they recognize how public and community parties fit together and can benefit while they are making their buck. When you have profiteers talking to their peers about how they are on the side of "Jane Jacobs" vs. Robert Moses and how neighborhoods need to be strengthened and how energy-conservation is their number one priority, surely these are signs that the tides are turning.

Incidentally, I just noticed that ULI's blog is called "The Ground Floor." Drat. We had a project in the works called just that.

Upcoming

A bunch of good events to catch, now if only there were two of me...Green Talk #1 at the Strand Bookstore explores the common ground between eating for pleasure and eating politics (Tues, Nov 14 7PM, free)...Also on Tuesday, MAS's Center for Urban Books hosts a panel, "The Humane Metropolis: People and Nature in the 21st Century" where you can catch Robert Yaro of RPA, a PPSer, NYRP, and a rising star in New York's sustainability movement, Menaka Mohan from the Sustainable South Bronx greenway project (Tues, Nov 14, 6:30 - 8PM, free, rsvp to rsvp@mas.org or 212.935.2075)...and another on Tuesday, 2005 Pritzker Prize-winner Thomas Mayne gives a free lecture at Cooper Union's Great Hall, where he will also be signing copies of Morphosis, his firm's monograph of built projects (a monograph which kept a close friend in LA busy for over a year) (Tues, Nov 14, 6:30)...and next week, yet another panel on Jane Jacobs at the MAS Center for Urban Books (Mon, Nov 20, 6:30 - 8PM, free, rsvp to rsvp@mas.org or 212.935.2075). Now I love Jane Jacobs as much as any other urban humanist, but honestly. The contrarian side of me is starting to get a bit uneasy with the mythologizing.

Update on High Line

Lisa Chamberlain of Polis brings an update on the High Line, gathered while attending a luncheon hosted by the Association of Real Estate Women.

Good Information Design

In planning and design, the communication of ideas is still limited to the media at hand. That media may have gotten more snazzy, like 3-D renderings that "walk" a client through a building, but many ideas still start as a drawing. There is no direct brain wave transferral. So good drawings and layouts are imperative to building a common understanding of a situation, and is the foundation for diversity of opinion.

The one here looks just great to me, especially in how it communicates a narrative, which is how many ideas are sold now. It clearly illustrates the activity described going down to the bottom of Ground Zero, but is lighthanded. Drawing by Hannes Hater who has more examples available on his site.

via Pruned

Only a click away

Conference on Sustainable Urban Design at the U.N. Headquarters...Michael Sorkin sniffs out the oil and dirt...building cities for everyone...Inga Saffron's, Philadelphia Inquirer's arch. crit., blog Skyline Online...Design Trust for Public Space's new blog...and only indirectly related, Olafur Eliasson will have a new exhibit in the windows of Louis Vuitton starting November 9 through January 7. I'll never forget his "The Weather Project" at the Tate Modern that made grey-weary Londoners simply lie down.




Images from urban75

New York's Alternative Transportation

A photo of the NYC Critical Mass from Indymedia, Germany

A fun New Yorker article profiling the many different, eclectic advocates for alternative modes of transportation in New York City.

I happened to be walking down Broadway one night this summer when Critical Mass took off from Union Square. Many of the riders were in costumes or sporting signs, and generally having a grand time, making me wish I had some kind of noisemaker to join in the raucus. Cheering from the sidewalk seemed lame, though I did it. But the many, many police scooters and cars - it almost seemed there was one or two officers for each bike - which were corralling the cyclists made the event eery. I had a flash of how awesome it would be if the officers biked alongside Critical Mass if they wanted to shepherd the bikers. It would be such a different message.

Jane Jacobs vs. Robert Moses

Gotham Gazette's quirky image

Gotham Gazette posted commentary from the most recent Jan Jacobs/Robert Moses debate.

Amanda "Jane Jacobs wins" Burden, NYC Planning Commissioner
Brad Lander advocates a blend of Jacobian and Moses planning

A sprawl chicken vs. egg

Which comes first?

"It has been widely observed that urban sprawl is associated with higher rates of obesity. This observation has led many researchers to infer that urban sprawl causes obesity. The available evidence does not, in fact, permit this conclusion. The higher observed rates of obesity associated with urban sprawl are also consistent with the sorting of obese people into sprawling neighborhoods. In this paper we conduct an analysis which permits us to distinguish between these two possibilities.

Our results strongly suggest that urban sprawl does not cause weight gain. Rather, people who are more likely to be obese (e.g., because they have an idiosyncratic distaste for walking) are also more likely to move to sprawling neighborhoods (e.g., because they can more easily move around by car). Of course the built environment may still place constraints on the type of exercise that people are able to take or the nature of the diet that they consume. The key point is that individuals who have a lower propensity to being obese will choose to avoid those kinds of neighborhoods. What if they are not always able to avoid those neighborhoods because (say) their choice is constrained for financial reasons? Our results suggest that, even then, individuals adjust their exercise and diet to avoid gaining weight. Overall, we find no evidence that neighborhood characteristics have any causal effect on weight."

From a report by University of Toronto, London School of Economics and Unversitat Pompeu Fabra, "Fat City: Questioning the Relationship Between Urban Sprawl and Obesity" (pdf)

Seems like all the more reason to make walking more a pleasure than a chore.