I am currently working on my first interview for this blog. So, I am gleaning here and there some articles, texts, books, posts for my first and forthcoming (if I consider the interview interesting). This week will end up with a series of articles that I decided, once again, to share. This opens with A text from
The White House Blog and will end up with today (latest) suggestion a Q&A between
MIT news and
Dennis Frenchman. Let us start:
Monday 20 June
The White House announced that
Cities must invest in innovation. This post reminds me what
Ole Bouman tweeted the same day. I can change its tweet in "Cities' contribution to economy is essential'… depending on if/how you'll integrate its population…
Bouman's original tweet — quoting
Androulla Vassiliou, EU Commissioner for Culture talking at Mies Award Ceremony — was 'Architecture's contribution to economy is essential (…).
Thursday 21 June
Ecosistema Urbano continuing the publication of its very interesting newspaper, namely
Ecosistema Urbano Newpaper. You'll find texts, video, etc. The newspaper does not limit to architecture but includes business, technology, travel, etc. —> My suggestion of the day (in terms of newspapers)
Carlo Ratti, of
MIT SENSEable City Lab, was asked, in case you missed it, to write an op-ed on the notion of "
Open Source Architecture."
DomusWeb then
Boing Boing (
Boing Boing, in fact, reviewed the post) posted this entry.
Ratti seeded a wikipedia page on this concept and asked
Paola Antonelli,
Bruce Sterling,
John Maeda,
Nicholas Negroponte, and others to chime in. The
Domus version is:
Here.
The Boing Boing Review.
Climate Change: Last week, I posted some links on
China and its ambition in terms of energy efficiency and climate change. Here is another link:
China says it is committed to low-carbon economy.
Brilliant post by
Thomas Stoney Bryans!!! "
Marketability" this is what we should avoid like the plague if we are very truly concern with sustainability.
No Sex Please we're Architects…
… Apparently in response to (or partially in response to) another brilliant text, that of
Florian Idenburg published in
DomusWeb, that is:
Abstainability.
Wednesday 22 June
Change Observer discusses with industrial ecologist
Eva Gladek on the concept of
Polydome:
The High-Tech Permaculture Metabolic Engine Greenhouse. "
Polydome,
Eva Gladek says, is a concept for a new kind of polyculture greenhouse that achieves very high yields by strategically inerweaving crops and livestock. (…) We developed concept partly in response to the needs of some earlier projects." I tweeted the same day this quotation (of
Gladek) that I would like to share "Cities could become producers rather than consumers" which means "increasing people's connectivity to the food chain, improving food security, helping close nutrient cycles, reducing food miles, etc."
Thursday 23 June
Architecture needs to interact! (I added the exclamation mark) said
Princeton Molly Wright Steenson and
Fred Scharmen for
DomusWeb.
Claire Mookerjee writes a review of
Living in the Endless City that I bought this week.
Alexis Madrigal participates in the
DomusWeb Open Source Design series with this post:
The Architecture of Facebook. If you want the paper version I warmly suggest to get
Domus 948/June 2011 edition. (More of
Alexis Madrigal can be found:
here).
Friday 24 June
Inhabitat posted an interesting article on/titled
Harvard Economist claiming urban farms do more harm than good to the environment. "In sum",
Daniel Blaustein-Rejto writes, "[
Edward Glaeser] argument is that 'Shipping food is just far less energy intensive than moving people'".
Blaustein-Rejto concludes with this question "But isn't the real debate whether we een have to move city people out in order to move farms in?" hum…
The
MIT news aks
3 Questions to Dennis Frenchman on Making Cities Sustainable. To the question: "You've also studied more efficient urban forms globally. What do the parts of cities that are more sutainable have in common?"
Frenchman (Leventhal Professor of Urban design and Planning of
MIT) answers "There have been a lot of impressive demonstration neighborhoods developed (…). They are all higher-density than their surroundings, they all involve good alternatives to the automobile, they are all mixed-use neighborhoods with businesses and schools and more. They are all attached to cities, not in the suburbs. But another characteristic is that they are all designed as communities that encourage people to embrace the energy ideal. They tend to have mixed-use urban streets and public squares and all the old-time things you expect in a livable neighborhood." (…)
