March 10th, 2010
Each week we will be focusing on blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We'll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.
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• Planning a bike trip using Google Maps is about to get much easier as the company is set to launch a new bike trip planner service in 150 US cities. According to the Chicago Tribune, the new service will provide cyclists with step-by-step biking directions that "factor in the length of the trip, changes in elevation and even fatigue".
• Is Japan's pictorial green "Running Man" sign more intuitive then North America's lettered red "Exit" sign? In an ongoing series on signage, Slate Magazine weighs in on the international debate over the Exit Sign.
• The Guardian UK hosts a slide show of inventive ways artists and designers have re-imagined the bicycle.
• The Infrastructist Blog details the 10 most expensive transit project of the last decade, including San Juan's 10.7-mile-$2.63 billion rapid transit Tren Urbano line.
• A photo essay on Foreign Policy looks at China's unlikely "golf boom" and the social and environmental stresses the course construction frenzy is placing on the landscape.
picture of Emergency exit sign at the Frankfurt Airport by Markus Tacker
St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador
by plankskate, member of the Spacing Atlantic flickr pool.
March 9th, 2010
HALIFAX - It feels like spring has sprung and to get you in the mood, the King's Student Union, Ecology Action Center and the King's Alternative Food Cooperative Association (KAFCA) are hosting an evening on alternative agriculture. The event will feature a guest lecture by Garity Chapman on the current urban agriculture renaissance in North America, a brief planting workshop and a delicious three course meal.
WHAT: Lecture, Planting Workshop and Free Meal
WHERE: The Wilson Common Room, 2nd Floor NAB, King's College, 6350 Coburg Rd.
WHEN Tuesday March 9 at 7:30 pm
March 8th, 2010
The [Re]Presenting Halifax series revisits historical and contemporary maps, diagrams and other interpretive readings of the Halifax region. See my first post for the full aims of this project and more information about contributing to the series.
HALIFAX - This is a continuation of last week's post about waterfront redevelopment. Similar to the plans presented last week, this post focuses on a plan commissioned for the Metropolitan Area Planning Commission during the early 1970s.
Dubbed Harbour Plaza, this 1971 urban redevelopment plan reimagines the Dartmouth waterfront and ferry terminal. In contrast to the plans for Halifax revealed at the same time, this plan presents the redesign of the ferry terminal as a strategic urban project meant to reactivate the surrounding area. While this proposal never materialized, it shares some similar features to the new ferry terminal and Alderney Landing complex.
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More by Matt Neville
More in Architecture, Community development, Dartmouth, Development, Halifax, Historical, Infrastructure, Public Space, Urban design, [Re]Presenting Halifax, public transit
Co-written by Rachel Caroline Derrah
HALIFAX - Fenwick Tower, the 40-years unfinished, 33-storey butt of the anti-development community's — nay, everyone's — jokes is going through an identity overhaul. And, if all goes according to the proposed plan, it's taking the city with it. For decades skeptical fingers have pointed in the building's direction, naming it a quintessential example of bad development — a living argument against changing Halifax's height restrictions.
But Joe Metlege of Templeton Properties — 7-month owner of the infamous high-rise — aims to "flip that." He sees potential in Fenwick Tower to become an example of development gone right, envisioning fingers across the country pointed Halifax-bound, towards a new precedent in innovative renovation of the Le Corbusier-inspired 'tower in the park' design, which was prevalent in the 1960s and 70s and is widely critiqued for its brutality and context insensitivity.
This Tuesday, March 9th, Templeton's application to amend the Municipal Planning Strategy and Peninsula Land Use By-law to allow for mixed-use re-development of the Fenwick site will come before Regional Council.
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