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Some great ideas for public seating here:
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The boring benches installed in urban areas around the world are purely functional: you take a seat for a little while, and then you leave. But why shouldn’t public furniture be visually interesting, comfortable and even interactive as well? These 14 chairs, benches, loungers, tables and more often double as art objects, with designs that consider a wide range of needs.
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public_space seating benches urban_design cities furniture

So true.
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Streets and parking can take up as much as a third of a community’s land, and designing them solely for the comfort of people in cars, and then only for the most congested hour of the day, has significant ramifications for the livability and economics of a community. Under the planning and engineering principles of the past 70 years, people have for all intents and purposes given up their rights to this public property. Streets were once a place where we stopped for conversation and children played, but now they are the exclusive domain of cars. Even when sidewalks are present along high-speed streets, they feel inhospitable and out of place.
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street_usage urbanplanning cities public_space

Lots to think about in this article by Michel Mossessian. Excerpt:

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It is necessary to create models that encourage public ownership and public authorship. One such model is public art - but not public art which creates purely decorative objects (the model of "the statue in the square"). Aesthetic values can be harnessed to communicate social and environmental concerns. A model such as the "New Patrons", developed in France, in which community members are directly involved in the commissioning of art works for public spaces - be they public squares or hospital waiting rooms - act to meditate between different members of a community and encourage shared ownership.
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public_space michel_mossessian urbanism urban_planning

Upcoming September conference in Norway on waterfronts and public space.
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The important themes of the conference include creating “Multi-use Destinations”, forging an “Architecture of Place”, expanding the idea of accessibility and the role of transportation on waterfronts and the important potential impact of markets on local economies.

* Creating “Multi-use Destinations” on Waterfronts: Multi-use destinations define what a city is about and are the premier public spaces in a city that attract and highlight the local assets and unique talents and skills of the community. The combination of uses – educational, cultural, retail, and commercial – are open and available for visitors to freely partake in and are accessible physically, and in terms of how they are perceived. Successful multi-use destinations are always changing because they are flexible enough to easily adapt to different times of day and year and they are proactively managed to take advantage of these differences.

* Forging an “Architecture of Place”: In many ways, iconic buildings have defined the past 50 years of modern architecture in cities. However, as cities and waterfronts evolve, a new idea of design is emerging called an “architecture of place”, which indicates that cities will become more livable, sustainable and authentic in the future. Public institutions such as museums, government buildings and libraries will become important anchors for civic activity that host a broader range of activities than they currently do and a new type of design will support that quest.

* Expanding the Idea of Accessibility and the Role of Transportation: In the last 100 years cities, (particularly waterfronts), have been defined by transportation decisions that were geared largely in favor of the car. The result is a system of streets and highways that reinforce a design ethos that is more about seeing or viewing rather than participating in communities. However, we are now seeing a massive shift in cities throughout the world where peo

project_for_public_spaces multi_use_destinations public_space waterfront norway stavanger conference

Some interesting ideas articulated at the two-day Forum on multi-use destinations, held on Granville Island in Vancouver (organized by Project for Public Spaces).
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-Public multi-use destinations like Granville Island have proven to be most successful, and we should replicate them more often. Why do we spend so much money on new developments that don’t work and that don’t attract people?

-Don’t lead with design. The design of multi-use destinations should be to create a “setting” for the uses that are occurring and that emphasize the products and the authentic aspects of the place.

-The importance of government learning to say “yes” to new ideas and developing stronger more trusting relationships with the private sector.

-“If you think you’re done, you’re finished” – Developing spaces that are flexible and that “manage themselves.” In other words, ongoing and innovative management is key to create vibrant multi-use destinations.

-“The magic is in the mix.” We are moving beyond the simple concept of “mixed use” toward a technique of development that builds authentic places through establishing settings and uses that are intimately related, interconnected and interdependent. True sustainability comes from the relationships between uses, tenants, and the organizations within a place.

-Find creative funding strategies to keep rents low, attract a range of tenants and incentivize the presence of tenants who may not produce a lot of money for the site, but who bring a lot of foot traffic and are invested in the area.
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project_for_public_spaces vancouver granville_island multi_use_destinations public_space

Great article about policing, police power, and street safety.
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Depending on police to solve all crime problems is equivalent to depending on emergency room doctors to be primary care doctors --- it's expensive, it's not their job, creates a culture reliant on catastrophe to get any attention, and much better if we prevent the catastrophic stuff from happening in the first place.

Crime prevention and public safety happens in many ways. "Safe streets" don't just happen because people with guns, nightsticks, menacing stares, and power trips are always threatening to beat some teenagers into submission.
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And:
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I said that "public safety" as currently configured is a "male-centric" solution for a reason.

If you take a step back, the friction you see between the police and gangs is essentially a bunch of older guys barking at young guys. Mayor Villaraigosa, Chief of Police Charlie Beck, City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana, less there's something we don't know about --- all guys. Gangleaders, gang members --- usually all guys too.

I don't notice too many women involved in these public safety conversations, unless they are UCLA Urban Planning Professor Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris.

Subject to more threats of attack, women, along with seniors, children, and the disabled would have a better idea of "safer streets" than males. Architect Doug Suisman once said that the best measure of a safety of a public space is to see how many females to males are in a certain area. The more females, the more successful.
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And
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Creating safer streets means lowering the speed limits on streets. When cars exceed 20 mph, the pedestrians and cyclists become uneasy. It's no wonder, because 85% of individuals will die if struck by a motorist cruising along at 40 mph.
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policing safety street_life streets los_angeles gender cars public_space

"Urban designer and artist collaborations: what value do they bring?"
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The event did not focus on ‘how to do’ public art, but rather aimed to stimulate debate and throw up challenges to what some are coming to regard as a too-often standardised way of creating public spaces.
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public_art artists urban_design collaboration public_space rudi

Brief article on the benefits of public benches on city sidewalks, and that T.O. has too few of them. Interestingly, this is something that has been bugging me for a while about Victoria, too. Too often, there is literally NO WHERE to sit, even on d/t streets with broad sidewalks. As soon as the street is out of the tourist district or off Government, no more benches. No benches on Fort or on Yates, two streets that are wide and generous in other respects (and the sidewalks are wide enough on Yates, although mingy on Fort). The comments on this article are useful, too.

thestar christopher_hume toronto cities amenities public_space street_appeal street_usage sidewalks

Article about the "Broadway Boulevard" project, which will take some of current automobile lanes and turn them into public seating/ parks and bike paths. The project stresses the importance of wresting public space back from cars, for public/ pedestrian/ non-vehicular use.

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“Broadway is not famous because there are a gazillion cars going through it,” she said. “We’re trying to have the public space match the name.”
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nyt nyc broadway traffi_calming public_space urban_parks urban_design

File this under "life imitates art"? There's a fascinating battle happening in LA over whether or not Sonny Astani, businessman and developer, should be permitted to install a new kind of LED-generated image, 12 stories above the street and 14 stories tall, on the side of his 33-story condo building currently under construction in downtown LA.

The inspiration? Opening scenes in Blade Runner of downtown LA, showing "a skyscraper-sized advertisement portraying a Japanese woman smiling before popping a snack into her mouth. Astani says an image, such as that of a flying sea gull, could now even travel from one building to the next."

I have to admit this sounds really cool, but I can see why many factions in LA would oppose this, too. We're all familiar with the really bright illuminated advertisements -- even Victoria has a small version of one, installed outside the arena on Blanshard at Caledonia. It's bright, too bright. But Astani proposes a much more modulated, artistic, and dimmed level of lighting. If the images could look as subtle -- yet powerful -- as Blade Runner's, it could work, but there's no garantee, that if permitted, subsequent developers would follow in that "artistic" style.

Another aspect is this: the proposal, if it's art, also calls into question just how intrusive public art should be in public space. Does it have a right to be so intrusive as to be impossible to ignore? Can I, as a citizen, be obliged to register public art -- and admittedly, it would be impossible not to register this project?

Is part of what captures my attention/ imagination regarding this project its uncanny fusion of subtlety and assault, packaged as visual stimulus?

Another question: is this an art form that expresses a corporate and anti-pedestrian city ("...neighborhood anchored by Staples Center and L.A. Live, the hotel and entertainment complex that includes the recently opened Nokia Theatre"), fitting for LA where people don't walk anyway (but just wait: it'll show up soon enough on the very v

astani advertising billboards outdoor_installations public_art public_space los_angeles

Here's a sobering article on the general hysteria over "terrorism," which has resulted in getting street photographers arrested or detained or questioned. Anyone seen taking photographs, especially covertly or seemingly so, is likely to get in trouble these days. But how can you be a good street photographer if you don't conceal just a little bit the fact that you're taking photos in the first place? You want that candid moment, right?

freedom paranoia photography public_space street_photography terrorism

Mobile City asks all the right questions (in this case, about video glasses, a visual sort of iPod or Walkman device). Eg.: "...it’s another addition to the array of media to shield off private media consumption in public places. Just like the Walkman/iPod earbuds privatized personal music listening, these glasses may do something similar for watching video/TV. The same ol’ question arises again: what does this mean for publicness of places?"

What does it mean for the publicness of places? Or, alternately, what does it mean for polite anonymity, for protective anonymity? At what point does privacy become just a big too ...aggressive and impolite for civic intercourse?

anonymity cities privacy public_space technology

This is the article that accompanies the video (also linked to today). It's about the three finalists in the competition to redesign T.O. waterfront along the Jarvis Slip. Best quote: "Though the three finalists are all quite different, in their own way each takes conventional notions of public space and carefully turns it upside down. This is exactly what Toronto's waterfront needs."

christopher_hume jarvis_slip public_space toronto waterfront

The Toronto Star put up a video of Christopher Hume explaining the 3 finalist contenders for re-making Jarvis Slip, a T.O. d/t lakefront public area.

This makes me think of how important speech (vs. the word as read) is when thinking about any issues, and of how important the speaker is (his/her manner/ abilities at conversation). Hume has done an excellent job on other videos posted to the Toronto Star, explaining the city's architecture for downloadable walking tours.

architecture christopher_hume jarvis_slip public_space toronto video waterfront

"Love it or hate it, the ROM Crystal signalled the return of ambition to our architectural stage" -- Christopher Hume on the change(s) in the role of buildings, public architecture, and public perceptions around the values of public space.

architecture christopher_hume cities museums public_buildings public_space toronto urbanism

Adam Nossiter reports on the St.Charles line (downtown/ French Quarter / uptown connector), back in action in New Orleans. Many useful references for public space, urban fabric connections, lived history experiences. (via CEOs for Cities blog)

adam_nossiter new_orleans public_space streetcars transit

fred_kent public_space urban_parks urbanplanning