URBAN OMNIBUS

... is online finally.

Urban Omnibus is an online project of the Architectural League that explores the relationship between design and New York City's physical environment: revealing the choices shaping the city, encouraging conversation, inspiring innovation.

It already features a walk through nyc with Richard Sennet or has some articles in the 'act local' section about urban farming.

EXOTIC URBANISM

new MONU out now.
related

AUGMENTED ECOLOGIES (or singing plants)

Archinet's new feature ShowCase presents exciting new work from designers representing all creative fields and all geographies.
Guido Maciocci's Augmented Ecologies is debuting. Here is a short summary:
The integration of biological and technological systems in the design of an interactive human interface is explored through an installation where plants rigged up with sensors provide a kinesthetic user experience based on movement, touch, sound and light. Human interaction with the system affects an algorithmic projection and soundscape.
Sonic Plants: When stroked these technologically augmented plants talk back with musical
120 second interaction: 2 virtual flocks interact within 3d space to define the light-scape of the installation space via a projection. The aesthetic is a result of the triangulation of the co-ordinates of each entity in the flock and ghosting of the video output.

Guido Maciocci, the developer of this projects sees the future application in Augmented Landscapes:

The deployment of biotechnological interfaces to mediate habitation of outdoor urban spaces is explored conceptually within the context of my thesis project situated on the Chatham Waterfront, Medway, UK. In this project spatial and ecological conditions emerge from the deployment of a modular surface that responds to the surrounding context in it's variations of modular density, scale and intensity of folding. The surface is deployed so that the directionality of the modules attenuates surface flow (flood waters, precipitation, surface flow from the city) allowing diverse microhabitats to emerge between the modules. In time the landscape will gradually be populated by local species according to varying soil conditions created by the surface.

Once populated biotechnological interfaces can be deployed on a large scale to transform the landscape into a vast kinesthetic garden. Habitation of the landscape is based on one's own movement and tactile relationships with the space. Pressure sensitive turfed areas respond to footsteps, long grasses chime to be stroked, artificial scents are diffused through the air at the tap of a leaf whilst vast arrays of LED's change colour in response to your movement.

interactive landscapes and really great representation. thrilling!

all images via Augmented Ecologies

JUST ANOTHER HYDRO VISION

near-shore aqua-culture, Image by N.E.E.D

The winning entry from the South Street Seaport - Re-envisioning the Urban Edge competition is "an aquaculture-driven floating park, inlaid with combinational modules of public indoor programs." by N.E.E.D.
Imagesby N.E.E.D
"South Street Seaport," writes N.E.E.D., "has always been closely connected with infrastructural industry of the city. Being a port and a market for fish, it actively switched its urban structure according to development of transportation modes and storing methods of goods. To continue this historical trajectory of being a highly responsive urban district, the project proposes a fish farm(works), where the future of aquaculture actuates the next transformation phase of the area."Imagesby N.E.E.D
Thanks to pruned and Bustler for the images.

related posts:
on urban agriculture here, here and here and recently on aqua-culture

! MAP THIS ! #8 - SHRINKING CITIES

World Map of Shrinking Cities from 1kilo on Vimeo.

Shrinking cities is a project (2002-2008) of the Federal Cultural Foundation, under the direction of Philipp Oswalt (Berlin) in co-operation with the Leipzig Gallery of Contemporary Art, the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation and the magazine archplus.


Moving Datas from 1kilo on Vimeo.

Thanks to Digital Urban for the link

HYDRO VISONS

A project already discussed a lot a few month ago, but worth to remember: the hydro-net vison for San Francisco 2108 by IwamotoscottArchitecture. See related article on Inhabitat.
The architect's Flickr photo set also provides a deeper insight into to project.
While this project takes advantage out of natural processes by growing seaweed, algae and chanterelle mushroom the atmospheric physicist Carl Hodges believes that salicornia will be the natural resource for future energy supply.Salicornia is a crop nourished by ocean water that holds the potential to provide food and fuel to millions. See related article 'The man who farms with the sea' by LA Times

21st CENTURY SOCIALISM

VENEZUELA'S CHAVEZ BUILDS SOCIALIST UTOPIA
Just outside of Caracas, in the mountains in a patch of land called Camino de los Indios leftist President Hugo Chávez is building a new metropolis from scratch.
Caribia, the first of about a dozen "socialist cities" that is intended as a utopia of sorts, where all residents will participate in community affairs and grow crops such as carrots and coffee on patches of countryside that will surround their homes.
The city is bulldozed out of the tropical forest and will be populated with the denizens of Caracas's overcrowded slums. It would be a beautiful place, with shopping malls, parks, schools and enough neat four-story apartment blocks to house 100,000 people.
But where does socialism fit into this oil-rich nation where the rich-poor divide is as palpable as anywhere else in Latin America? Chávez has a name for it: 21st Century Socialism. Caribia embodies Chávez's vision that socialism and the intensely capitalist society of Venzuela can sit comfortably next to each other.
"Our goal is that there is no inequality, that everyone has an equal voice," says Rafael Lander, the vice minister of planning in the government's Ministry of Popular Power for Housing and Habitat. It's part of the government's push for adequate housing for Venezuelans, one of several "missions" for the poor that have been financed largely with oil wealth. But this socialist city is not just any old housing project. It will boast its own radio station and newspaper. The community will be ecologically sound and self-sustaining. There will be parks, a university, and medical clinics. The most important feature, planners say, is the 10 or so community councils that will be organized around groups of housing complexes. Residents will hail from high-risk neighborhoods, says Mr. Lander. When the program was announced, the local media quoted Chávez as saying: "The socialist cities are ecological cities for the family, for the people … not for consumerism."

The Washington Post article on Chávez' vision says:

In launching this extraordinary project, which he hopes will be the first of many around Venezuela, Chávez joins a long list of rulers who have dreamed of converting nature into orderly living space for the masses. Among them are Stalin, Mao and Romania's Nicolae Ceausescu -- but also the more benign Julius Nyerere, the Tanzanian president who, back in the 1970s, thought it would be a good idea to move 5 million of his countrymen into cookie-cutter villages partly financed by the World Bank.
Like all of these men, Chávez acts on an ideology that anthropologist James C. Scott of Yale has called "high modernism." In his brilliant 1998 book about the phenomenon, "Seeing Like a State," Scott explored the peculiar mix of good intentions and megalomania that has driven one unchecked government after another to pursue the dream of a reconcentrated populace: "a strong, one might even say muscle-bound, version of the self-confidence about scientific and technical progress, the expansion of production, the growing satisfaction of human needs, the mastery of nature (including human nature), and above all, the rational design of social order commensurate with the scientific understanding of natural laws."

and further:

Architecturally and ecologically unsustainable, high modernist projects always collapse of their own weight sooner or later. As Scott writes, "the history of Third World development is littered with the debris of huge agricultural schemes and new cities . . . that have failed their residents." Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union fit that assessment also, as visitors to Germany's Eisenhuettenstadt, begun in the 1950s as Stalinstadt, can attest. Designated "the first socialist city on German soil" by East Germany's Communists, it was plunked down next to an immense steel mill and commanded to thrive. Today, the depressed city is hemorrhaging residents.

But Chávez, the tribune of Venezuela's poor, is not listening. He is thinking big. He is like previous high-modernist authoritarians, who, as Scott writes, "regarded themselves as far smarter and far-seeing than they really were and, at the same time, regarded their subjects as far more stupid and incompetent than they really were."

CAIRO...

...A CITY WHERE YOU CAN'T HEAR YOURSELF SCREAM::image via flickr

There was an interesting article about Cairo's noise level in the New York Times recently.
"We’re not just talking typical city noise," the article says, "but what scientists here say is more like living inside a factory."
After five years of study, scientists concluded that the average noise in Cairo from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. is 85 decibels, a bit louder than a freight train only 15 feet away. But this 85 dB is only the average across the day and across the city. At several locations it is far worse. There the noise often reaches 95 decibels, which is only slightly quieter than standing next to a jackhammer.
::image via flickr

In general terms, the noise is a symptom of an increasingly unmanageable city, crowded far beyond its original capacity, officials at the National Research Center said. The main culprit is the two million cars, and drivers who jam the city roads every day.

But also, Egyptians like to live loud, preferring community to private space, mourning a death and celebrating a wedding with a good dose of noise. Muezzins call from loudspeakers in the minarets of thousands of mosques in the city...

The number of inhabitants is increasing, so are the honking horns and people which don't even realize that they were shouting not speaking...

BORDER URBANISM

Last week I stumbled over a (not so) new magazine on urbanism. At least it was new to me and is one of few magazines covering issues of Urbanism (Is there any other? Let me know)
From what I read by now, it is worth a closer look. The current issue deals with border urbanism, with articles about border cities of Mexico and the US, Canada and the US, segregated Istanbul, etc. And, of course, Berlin.
More about MONU soon on synchronicity

COW URBANISM

Do you recognize these images from previous posts on synchronicity?
Just found another cow-this time in Liverpool. The Udder Way is a project back from 2005 also featured at the shrinking cities interventions exhibition.
On the 18th July 2005, in the early hours of the morning, 5cows, 5 calves, 3 stockmen and a milking parlour arrived in Toxteth, Liverpool and remained for 9 days.
What do you think you can gain out of a piece of cow dung? Go for the Udder Way's product site.
There you'll find this:

Cow dung - BBQ briquettes for all exterior cooking
Anti wrinkle agent - Skin care- 100%organic cow manureFor strong teeth and fresh breath - Udder tooth polish - 100%organic cow manure ash

FARMADELPHIA

Front Studio's FARMADELPHIA proposes to transform the urban environment by introducing bucolic farmlands into
the city's urban fabric. Farmadelphia adopts the extensive sprawl of overgrown lots and vacant buildings as a source of inspiration while it fortifies and reinforces the ongoing green legacy of Philadelphia.

Philadelphia would become an 'edible landscape', with vast crop fields, and free roaming farm animals.The project would also address – or is intended to address – "the rehabilitation of the existing city fabric by proposing ideas for vacant buildings that would allow the present-day character to remain while creating new uses."Whole sections of the city would be deliberately cultivated. Or, from a slightly different perspective, it's the controlled re-wilding of the city.Some appropriate crops for the proposed agricultural stabilization of the city might include the following, the architects suggest:

—start with low maintenance, easy to grow, and profiting crops; consider perennial crops such as asparagus, shallots, garlic and herb varieties
—other crops include shade tolerant, easy to grow kale, sweet potatoes, lettuce
—other crops that do well in Philadelphia climate: collard greens, broccoli, mustard greens, corn, raspberry bushes
Those plants, in particular, would form a biosystem that could help push the city onto a seven year agricultural plan – after which this newly implanted ecosystem would level off, forming something like a cultivated permaculture.
find out more on Front Studio's website or see the panels here

Related posts: Urban Agriculture

URBAN AGRICULTURE

urban agriculture, urban farming, vertical farming, subterranean farming, guerrilla farming - according to my recent www-cruises it appears that this issue is coming back to discussion. Here is a list of links:

Subterranean Farms of Tokyo by pruned
A subterranean farm cultivated inside a former bank vault beneath a high rise building in one of Tokyo's business districts. Tomatoes, rice, lettuces, strawberries, and other fruits and vegetables, as well as flowers and herbs, are grown in an area covering almost a square kilometer.


Watch out for an Urban Farm for PS1 posted by Life Without Buildings or again from pruned with A Farm Grows in Queens
A proposal by Work Architecture that won this year's Young Architects Program at the P.S. 1 Contemporary Arts Center in Long Island City, Queens.
The eight-year-old competition calls for creating an outdoor social space for dancing and drinking in the summer months.

To organize the space Dan Wood and Amale Andraos, the husband-and-wife duo behind Work Architecture, chose heavy cardboard tubes in part because of the shadows they would cast and because of their resilience. Columns will be bolted together to form a span that rises on either side of a pool like a large V.

Each tube will play its own role. Some will contain plantings on dirt shelves equipped with liner bags to prevent leakage.

There is a fabric tube that people can enter through a curtain where you can 'hide' from the party.

for guerrilla gardening follow this link.

for Vertical Farming go to The Vertical Farm Project or watch this project of Atelier SOA Architectes Paris

Roof Farming in London (via BLDG BLOG)

finally Wikipedia's Urban Agriculture and an article about Food Less Travelled

Posts on farming in Philadelphia and on Algae harvesting in San Francisco will be featured soon, so stay tuned