Beyond the Mall: Creating Authentic Town-Centers and Transit Hubs
Community Architect
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1w ago
 Invited by ULI to speak about the potential of a failing mall in Baltimore County to become a successful Transit Oriented Development (TOD), and appointed to a Redevelopment Authority which includes a 100 acre failing Mall, motivated me to outline what it takes to transform a mall into an attractive mixed-use, a town-center, or a TOD. A label is no substitute for substance  Traditional town center: Frederick Maryland (Photo: Philipsen) Popular labels for the efforts of transforming failing malls include "Mixed use" "town center" and "transit oriented development" (TOD). All ..read more
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Towards a New American Downtown
Community Architect
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1M ago
Amazon's is requirement to work from the office will not solve the problems of the American downtown that blew up with Covid, the need for cities as places of interaction and innovation notwithstanding.  “Amazon is reinforcing the importance of its headquarters’ location in Seattle and signaling that its mission to embrace and foster innovation is not a spatially distributed endeavor but a socially dependent activity tied to a place” (Uwe Brandes, Director  Urban and Regional Planning Georgetown University). The issue isn't "the city" but the American Downtown Brandes is right, innov ..read more
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Is Enlightenment Passé? How Knowledge Can Survive Fear, Irrationality and Rumor
Community Architect
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1M ago
This article explores whether the quest for knowledge is the motor of civilization and if knowledge depends on growth. It addresses current cultural pessimism vs the value of rationalism and the scientific method and culminates in some optimistic vision for the future.  “The future is open. It is not predetermined and thus cannot be predicted – except by accident. The possibilities that lie in the future are infinite. When I say 'It is our duty to remain optimists”, this includes not only the openness of the future but also that which all of us contribute to it by everything we do: we ..read more
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Impressions of Hong Kong
Community Architect
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3M ago
The international chapter of AIA had its annual conference this year in Hong Kong. The conference included presenters from around the world as well as many tours to experience the city and the Territory.  I spent a week there. The below impressions are necessarily limited. Towers, mountains and the sea Whether seen form the water, the street or above, Hong Kong is foremost the experience of the vertical: A packed men-made space surrounded by green and jagged mountains. Two physical verticalities, the one attention seeking at day and night, the other serene and seemingly eternal. Tow ..read more
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Does Smart Technology Make Us Less Resilient?
Community Architect
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4M ago
 “We’re often easily distracted by the idea of something new and flashy, but then we learn it’s quite hard to deliver on those promises, and while we’re chasing something flashy, the problems become more entrenched and it becomes harder to deal with them.” (Shoshanna Saxe, Civil Engineer University of Toronto) The oops moments of smart technology  A neighbor has a NEST thermostat installed for his home with the result that his heat pump is working at all times all year long while mine remains often comfortably shut off. Why: In spring or fall when it is crisp in the morning the smar ..read more
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Fighting the Air Conditioning Doom Loop with Innovation & Common Sense
Community Architect
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5M ago
A quantum leap in cooling technology is needed The International Energy Agency (IEA) says that cooling is the fastest-growing single source of energy use in buildings. Without massive change, the IEA projects that global energy demand for cooling will more than triple by 2050. This increase alone is about how much energy the entire U.S. uses currently uses per year.  An additional problem is that the ubiquitous  hydrofluorocarbons used for refrigeration everything (buildings, cars, trains, buses, trucks, food and medications) are much more potent greenhouse gases ..read more
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Joyous Architecture in the Time of Solitude - A Book Review
Community Architect
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6M ago
Vishaan Chakrabarti, The Architecture of Urbanity: Designing for Nature, Culture, and Joy (September 24, 2024), Princeton Press. Vishan Chakrabarti  wrote this book in the time of the pandemic which he describes as "space and time ruptured". He diagnoses humanity as "uprooted" and attributes the "fractious condition"  to climate change, the pandemic and the ever increasing divide between rural and urban. With this he hits a nerve. His remedy is connectedness and joy which he calls a basic human need.  Chakrabarti's latest book will be available in bookstore in Se ..read more
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Unfinished by Design - Embracing Open-Ended Architecture
Community Architect
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7M ago
Notions of time and incompletion in architecture tap into two interrelated themes in which I am interested. The first is about designing for expansion, and the second is the idea of flexibility, something that was latent in historic typologies, but that was also expanded on in the 1960s in a more self-conscious way. (Nader Tehrani, architect, about the Spanish Venice Biennale pavilion titled “unfinished”)  Lisa Oregioni - Non-Finito Recently I had the pleasure to discuss the "Architecture of the Unfinished" with the architect Lisa Oregioni who has made the unfinished, the non-finito a top ..read more
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Architects in Washington DC: Diversity, AI and a Kerfuffle
Community Architect
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8M ago
AI- The Convention and the face of AIA A AIA selfie sculpture at the entrance to the convention center (Photo: Philipsen) AI making an architect’s dream come true: Just put in the project address and AI will draw the project parameters with the correct setbacks, building heights and massing. That was one of the promises in one of several hundred sessions in which architects gathered to hear the latest and greatest affecting their industry. Under the title "Decoding the lastest AI software in Architecture-a categorized exploration" Al Dram in person and Niknaz Aftah, via live video tri ..read more
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The Chesapeake Bay - A Complex Eco-System Explained
Community Architect
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9M ago
From the Ice Age to sprawl First there was a huge meteor impact, then at the end of the ice age a giant glacier melting. Beavers damming streams and creating wetlands, a bounty of huge oysters, 100' schooners transporting the lumber that came from swampy woodlands being converted into tobacco farms, finally massive sprawly shoreline development and a huge load of sediment reshaping the waterway in many ways.  LandSat image of the Chesapeake Bay (full length) Few will consider any of this when they catch a glimpse of the Chesapeake while their plane is banking towards the BWI air ..read more
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