Brent Toderian in Planetizen — 10 Keys to Making A Great City Plan

One of the most interesting and complex challenges a city planner can be a part of, is the creation of a new city-wide plan—particularly one for an ambitious municipality that truly wants to change business-as-usual. Over my career I've worked on many city plans, both here in Canada and outside of North America. Read more: 10 Keys to Making A Great City Plan | Planetizen: The Urban Planning, Design, and Development Network

10 Keys to Making A Great City Plan! My top @planetizen article this year. #BrentsTop10 #3 https://t.co/bzWSWloien pic.twitter.com/jaMl51upea

— Brent Toderian (@BrentToderian) January 3, 2016

Women in Design: An interview with Johanna Hurme of @546arch @spacingvan

Post by The Sidewalk Ballet.

From @TheCurrentCBC — How to design cities for an aging population‬ @Penalosa_G @KGreenbergTO

Post by The Sidewalk Ballet.

Small Container Transformed Into a Home @ExpandIsbu @ArchiDaily @Homesthetics

Post by The Sidewalk Ballet.

Dublin Cyclehoop Bike Hangar will be installed in mid-January. @DCCbeta

Post by The Sidewalk Ballet.

Rotterdam Markthal goes supersized in psychedelic ‪#‎marketplace‬ @guardian

Post by Nanaimo Commons.

From Price Tags — Arthur Erickson on False Creek development – 1983

Fascinating Jack Webster interview with Arthur Erickson in 1983, discussing the development of B.C. Place (when it was a proposed megaproject to be developed by the Province) for which he was the consulting architect. Renderings start at 9.45. (A very-80s Dave Podmore, head of planning for B.C. Place, shows up – that’s him pictured.) Full post at: Arthur Erickson on False Creek development – 1983 | Price Tags

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The (amazing) density of Barcelona Eixample @cnunextgen

Post by CNU NextGen: The Next Generation of New Urbanists.

This Thursday: Built City @MOV — Cornelia Hahn Oberlander and Friends

Post by The Sidewalk Ballet.

From @TechCocktail — 6 Ways to Become Your Own City Planner

The trend is that governments are not only opening up data, but also their urban planning and budgeting processes. Public participation is taking on a whole new look. Local civic advocates are stepping up as collaborators who are well-versed in details once reserved for professionals. Wait – what? That’s right. Civic leaders around the country are tackling the normally staid topics of urban planning and traffic engineering on their own terms. Read more: 6 Ways to Become Your Own City Planner

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From @architectmag — @snohetta and @DIALOG Release #Calgary Central Library Designs

Post by Nanaimo Commons.

— @BrentToderian in @planetizen — Tall Tower Debates Could Use Less Dogma, Better Design

It's the debate about tall buildings, possibly the most polarizing argument in CNU circles (arguably even more than the lingering traditional vs contemporary architecture debate), and maybe in urbanism circles in general.

In previous posts and talks, I've discussed the importance of what I call "density done well." It might be impossible to discuss the controversial issue of density (still referred to by some politicians as “the d-word”) without discussing height. In fact, height is often more polarizing and controversial than density itself. Height and density have a relationship, one that can be over-simplified or mischaracterized, but they aren’t the same thing - you can have density without height, and yes, you can have height without density. Read more: Tall Tower Debates Could Use Less Dogma, Better Design | Planetizen: The Urban Planning, Design, and Development Network

From @LeanUrbanism — Lean Sprawl Repair – Mall Retrofit

The past decade has seen the demise of hundreds of shopping centers and malls. Out of roughly 1,000 enclosed malls in the US, approximately 30% are dead or dying. In places of weak recovery and population loss, malls may languish for years, negatively impacting the surrounding suburban communities.

Malls are sprawl types that are normative and repetitive, and the tools for their repair can be the same. In places of economic and population growth, malls will be retrofitted into urban cores with multiple uses: offices, residential, live-work units, and hotels that will rebalance the existing retail space.

Municipalities, developers and planners need new ways to utilize and adapt such underperforming commercial properties. Having already outlived their lifecycles, these properties can provide inexpensive space for business incubation and/or affordable housing that has become scarce in recent years, as downtowns and inner-city neighborhoods have experienced a redevelopment renaissance. Read more: Lean Sprawl Repair – Mall Retrofit | Lean Urbanism

Twitter List — Architecture, Design

Tweets from https://twitter.com/1sidewalkballet/lists/architecture-design

From FastCoDesign.com — How Better Design Could Save Pedestrians' Lives

In the wake of public outcry over a spate of pedestrian deaths earlier this year, New York City officials announced that they would adopt a "Vision Zero" policy. Modeled after a Swedish concept introduced in the late '90s, it sets a goal of absolutely no traffic fatalities in the country. Sweden has reduced its road deaths by half since 2000, becoming one of the safest places in the world when it comes to traffic deaths. A total of 264 people died in traffic in the country last year. By contrast, 176 pedestrians were killed in traffic in New York City alone last year.

Mayor Bill DeBlasio outlined his proposals for achieving Vision Zero in mid-February. They include lowering the citywide speed limit from 30 mph to 25 mph and stepping up enforcement for moving violations like failing to yield. Controversially, although DeBlasio has insisted it's not part of citywide plans, police have ramped up their efforts to rein in jaywalkers: according to theNew York Times, the department issued 215 jaywalking tickets in the first month and a half of 2014, compared with 27 issued in the same period last year.

Roads in Sweden are built with safety prioritised over speed or convenience. Low urban speed-limits, pedestrian zones and barriers that separate cars from bikes and oncoming traffic have helped. Building 1,500 kilometres (900 miles) of '2+1' roads--where each lane of traffic takes turns to use a middle lane for overtaking--is reckoned to have saved around 145 lives over the first decade of Vision Zero. And 12,600 safer crossings, including pedestrian bridges and zebra-stripes flanked by flashing lights and protected with speed-bumps, are estimated to have halved the number of pedestrian deaths over the past five years.

How Better Design Could Save Pedestrians' Lives | Co.Design | business design

From Metropolis Magazine — Game Changer: Alastair Parvin's WikiHouse

The brain behind WikiHouse, an open-sourced platform that promises to remake the field. Is it a threat to the primacy of the architect, or a glimpse into our digital design future? Read more:

Game Changer: Alastair Parvin - Metropolis Magazine - January 2014

RT @SketchUp: Our favorite part of the WikiHouse project is that it's a wiki. Case in point (via @SketchThis): http://t.co/CStIdmxFZY
— TheSidewalkBallet (@1sidewalkballet) January 23, 2014

RT @WikiHouse: Just stumbled across this brilliant video (note the super model to music sync) http://t.co/KoMlxBE5qT #WikiHouse @wikihousefr
— TheSidewalkBallet (@1sidewalkballet) January 23, 2014

From NYC Department of City Planning — Active Design: Shaping the Sidewalk Experience

The Department of City Planning has produced the two-part publication Active Design: Shaping the Sidewalk Experience and its supplement, Shaping the Sidewalk Experience: Tools and Resources as a study focused on the critical public space network –sidewalks. The documents present the work not from the perspective of those who drive past sidewalks or of those who construct them, but of those who actually use them. It is the point of view of the pedestrian—the person inhabiting and experiencing the sidewalk—that has been prioritized. Active Design: Shaping the Sidewalk Experience uses the conceptual framework of the “sidewalk room” to grapple with the complexities of the policies, players, and physical form of shaping the pedestrians experience of this space. More including pdf files of the complete guides: Active Design: Shaping the Sidewalk Experience - New York City Department of City Planning

From the National Film Board — Highrise: The Towers in the World, The World in the Towers

Interactive views from the global highrise. A 360° National Film Board documentary by Katerina Cizek. You see them all over the world. Concrete residential highrise buildings are the most commonly built form of the last century. On the outside they all look the same. But inside these towers of concrete and glass, people create community, art and meaning.  An Emmy-winning, multi-year, many-media, collaborative documentary experiment at the National Film Board of Canada, that explores vertical living around the world. More at: Highrise

City of Toronto Urban Design Awards

From the forward — The Toronto Urban Design Awards present an opportunity every other year to pause, take stock and recognize the work we are doing, collectively, to create a great city. The city, after all, is expressed and emerges in the places and spaces that we experience and share in common, and the way we design these places has the potential to enhance our connectedness to each other, to both the past and the future, and to the environments that sustain us. When we get urban design right, the massing, placement, and detail of our buildings enhances the public realm and both enables and enlivens our experience of the city as pedestrians. 

Jury Report PDF here.

A TED Talk Inspires Government Change in North Vancouver

In his TED Talk, Dave Meslin wondered: What would happen if Nike advertised sneakers in the same way local governments announced important information — with long, bland, black-and-white newspaper ads filled with jargon?

“Apathy as we think we know it doesn’t actually exist,” said Meslin, a local organizer in Toronto. “People do care, but we live in a world that actively discourages engagement by constantly putting obstacles and barriers in the way.”

Across Canada, Natasha Letchford — a Deputy Municipal Clerk in North Vancouver — stumbled on Meslin’s talk on Facebook. She found herself highly inspired, in part because she wanted to prove it wrong.

“One of reasons I went into local government was because I truly believe that I make a difference. So when Dave Meslin said that government is in some ways trying to deny people an opportunity to involved, I disagreed with him on that,” she says. “I took it as a bit of a challenge.”

“We in local government get so focused on making sure that the water’s turned on and making sure that the garbage gets taken away that when it comes to something like statutory notices … it becomes ‘that’s just the way we’ve always done it.’”

As she puts it, “We’re not going out of our way to deny people the opportunity to understand what’s going on. We just weren’t making the time to re-think our standard statutory notices.”

Just before Letchford watched this talk, the senior executive team in North Vancouver’s city hall had asked employees to think about year-long projects. So Letchford decided to update North Vancouver’s notices and signage. Read more at: A TED Talk inspires government change in North Vancouver | TED Blog