wow!

quoted: tridges are - maybe unsurprisingly - a rare breed of bridge which are - again unsurprisingly after cleverly dissecting the name - notable by the presence of 3 spans rather than the usual 1. basically they're bridges which are Y-shaped instead of I-shaped and are usually found at confluences where 3 land masses need connecting.

quoted: Cities grew tremendously in the hundred years between 1860 and 1960, and infrastructure was the foundation for that growth. Trains, streetcar lines, streets and highways allowed inhabitants to rush around with relative ease. As infrastructure filled past capacity and congestion became bad, the public had faith that the experts would solve the problems by constructing new infrastructure - always more capacious and more technologically advanced.

Quoted: The mutual dependency of city and suburb is both physical and psychological. City dwellers and suburbanites need each other to reinforce their own sense of place and identity despite ample evidence that what we once thought were different places and lifestyles are increasingly intertwined and much less distinct. The revenge of the suburb on the city wasn’t simply the depletion of its urban population or the exodus of its retailers and office workers, but rather the importation of suburbia into the heart of the city: chain stores and restaurants, downtown malls, and even detached housing.

brand new blog based on research work of masters of architecture course at the university of technology sydney.

Quoted: The post-traumatic urbanism research project is dedicated to thinking through urbanism in the aftermath of conflict via architectural practice. Certain questions can only be raised through the proposition of a design project. Architecture as a mode of spatial research works to redistribute a field of possibilities that is unique to other modes of inquiry, in this regard it is a unique mode of provocation.

Quoted: There is no significant development without cost, no social transformation without trauma. How to deal with urban trauma is an urgent problem. The rapid transformation of cities, nations, economies and the attendant risks of political instability and environmental damage make demands on the profession that cannot be ignored. The complex question we face is how to mediate the demands of development with the fragility of the situations we find ourselves in. In this sense, the role of the architect with regards to trauma is not to prevent or heal but to assume complicity for its production, that is to act without innocence.

longass first post. looks like it's going to be some pretty invested reading. =)

Quoted: This is the first post in a series that will explore the possibility of developing some new conceptual tools through which to think through urban design. Blind spot is the first concept in a sequence that will include: attractor, bifurcation, black box, body, canalisation, cascade, cohesion diagram, double articulation, entrainment, friction, front, meshwork, organ, porosity, suspension, damping, exception and interruption. As part of a long standing project that is nearing completion, these words are meant as a bastard dictionary of urban dynamics that appropriate terminology from diverse sources in order to try to redistribute the set of questions we take for granted around the urban.

part 1 of 4 >>>

Quoted: I've been reading a lot of articles lately, and as wrong as it may sound, it seems as though poor is the new black in the Western World. Now I don't mean more people are becoming poor, because that's obviously true, but it seems that lately a lot of professionals have drawn inspiration from the condition.

<<< part 4 of 4.

Quoted: For one reason or another, the aesthetics of poverty have slowly begun to permeate mass culture. Whether through an innovative housing model, a warehouse loft, or an abandoned mansion, there is something compelling about using what we have and turning that abandoned space into something functional and beautiful.

Quoted: Pipe Light is an installation on an abandoned house in São Paulo, Brazil by French-Brazilian architects Triptyque.