Activist Architect. Blogger: Redirection. Unbuilt. Publishers Volume #39: Urban Border April, 2014 Click here for the preview!
CONTINUITY IN ARCHITECTURE. “Preston has a picturesqueness of outline and a suggestion of spaciousness from a distance which distinguish it from most Lancashire cotton towns.”1 The Twenty-First Century city is a combination of two different ideas; the traditional city of streets and squares, and the modern city of isolated elements surrounded by parkland.
The traditional city is really composed of spaces, which are lined with buildings. So, for example, the primary street within an urban environment is a long thin space through which people travel, which is bounded by structures that face onto this space. The shapes of the buildings are somewhat deformed to accommodate the pure nature of the street, and thus it is the space which is the predominate element of the composition. The city-in-the-park is the opposite; isolated buildings set with open land, thus emphasising the building rather than the space, which just surrounds the structures in an ill-defined manner. The Architecture of Fear. Eye candy. The Antiplanner. A recently posted video on YouTube shows traffic at an intersection in Ethiopia.
Thousands of cars cross the intersection, many turning left or right, while pedestrians make their ways across the street. There are no traffic signals, yet it seems to progress swiftly and smoothly. Ironically, someone commented on the video page, “this is what driving in America would be like if the Tea Party had their way: no traffic signals, no signs, no speed limits–pure anarchy.” Design with Intent. TESSELLAR > Blog.