Urban Design - Blog Posts

Chicago Front Yard

Here is an illustration of a summertime small traditional front yard stone landscaping.

Natural Stone Pavers - Traditional Landscape

I want to see an adventure story set in medieval Bologna

Or Assassin's Creed

The city of Bologna in the 12th-13th century - the closest we can get to a medieval skyscraper city; because nobles used to build high towers as a symbol of power and also for offensive/defensive purposes, at one point there were around 100 such towers.

Keep reading

The wood siding could age badly unless it's well-treated, but otherwise cool.

The wood siding could age badly unless it's well-treated, but otherwise cool.

A look inside the world's first underground park, the Lowline

Over the weekend a test lab for the world’s first underground park opened its doors to visitors in New York. Housed in the former Essex Street Market building in Manhattan, it is the first step toward making former NASA engineer James Ramsey's idea for the Lowline a reality. His plans for the Lowline propose transforming a disused trolley terminal into a subterranean park using innovative solar technology.

I think it’s a cool engineering experiment but if he really is pursuing this to give green spaces to under served urban communities, then proposing it to be built in LES is fallacy. That area already has parks close by and is inhabited by at least the upper 30% (economically) of the city. What would be spectacular is if the technology they’ve developed for channelling sunlight could be used in subway stations that people already use. Plants and sunlight there would make the lives of millions of commuters across the subway network so much better. This disused trolley place should be made into an urban farm me thinks :)