Location: Utah
Website: www.metroresearch.utah.edu
The first decade of the 21st century witnessed a tipping point: For the first time in human history, more people live in metropolitan areas than outside them. The world’s population, which doubled from 3 billion in 1960 to 6 billion in 2000, is projected to reach about 9 billion by 2050 before leveling off. Two-thirds of the world’s population will then live in metropolitan areas. This will stress on the world’s ecological, economic and political systems more so than presently.
The mission of the Metropolitan Research Center is to conduct basic and applied research on the built environment at the metropolitan scale, focusing on key forces shaping metropolitan form such as demographics, environment, technology, design, transportation, arts and culture, and governance. It seeks to expand knowledge in city and metropolitan affairs to improve policy and practice, and educate the general public on important issues facing communities.
The Metropolitan Research Center shares knowledge through events, presentations, publications, a website and media outreach.
The Center is part of the strategic plan of the College of Architecture + Planning. That plan includes reshaping the undergraduate planning degree to be more inclusive of units across the University, launching a nationally accredited Master of City and Metropolitan Planning degree, creating a new Ph.D. in Metropolitan Planning, Policy and Design, and initiating the Metropolitan Research Center.
The Center engages faculty and students from all three degree programs and other units across the University that are natural partners.
Development in the US between 2005 and 2040 will further stress systems. More than 100 million new Americans are expected along with about 60 million new jobs. Two million homes will need to be built each year and non-residential construction may top two billion square feet annually.
The Wasatch Front may double to more than four million people holding 2.5 million jobs. More than three-quarters of all non-residential space existing in 2000 will be rebuilt, as will a quarter of all homes. Nationally, development during this period is projected to exceed in volume two-thirds of everything built today, at a cost of more than $50 trillion; development in the Wasatch Front will exceed $500 billion.
Showing posts with label Ecology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ecology. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
Thursday, February 14, 2013
MIT Center for Advanced Urbanism
Location: International
Website: www.cau.mit.edu
The MIT Center for Advanced Urbanism’s objective is to become the world’s pre-eminent cultural center about the design of metropolitan environments, by articulating methods and projects to integrate separate disciplinary agendas in architecture, landscape, ecology, transportation engineering, politics and political philosophy, technology and real estate through a most eloquent design culture on scales ranging from the complex infrastructural intersection, to that of a neighborhood, on to the scale of an entire regional system.
Urban environments are being planned, designed, constructed, and retrofitted at an unprecedented pace and scale, which often precludes a rational, thoughtful process.
Global economic forces have eclipsed standard paradigms of post-World War II urban expansion and ideas of incremental urban development. New megacities are being built all over the world in record time and often without standard protocols or procedures of the established design and urban planning professions.
c Pressing cultural and environmental concerns are demanding new levels of accountability as we measure ecological performance, energy use, mobility and density relationships, and the deployment of dwindling resources.
These and other factors challenge the intelligence and efficacy of new urbanization forms and existing conventions and typologies for development. We have entered into a new era or urban growth whereby the rules have changed and paradigms of urbanism desperately need recalibration to meet today’s global challenges.
The MIT Center for Advanced Urbanism’s mission comes from four working principles:
- Challenge pre-conceived professional roles and find solutions to real world problems.
- Embrace large-scale design and planning.
- Embrace technology in the design and planning of city form and function.
- Commitment to deliver real world projects and clear paths to solve pressing urban design, architectural, and environmental problems.
MIT’s Center for Advanced Urbanism is framed by six over branching areas of research:
- Territorial Design
We have entered an era of a new scale of design. Whether it is the immensely large-scale development projects underway in areas such as the Gulf and China, or the reconstruction and retrofitting of nation’s existing infrastructure. This presents a disciplinary challenge for designers, as existing techniques are not necessarily suitable or scalable.
The formal and figurative features that we can logically conceive and think of the very large scale need to be reimagined. Research must urgently address and develop new elements that are critical in the instrumentarium of the large-scale designer.
- Changing Systems
As our environment undergoes changes, our cities and their corresponding systems will need to adapt. Urbanism for a changing climate is first and foremost a question of rigorous systems analysis.
In part this is achievable through the integration of so far disconnected disciplines. In so doing, new opportunities arise for analysis such as through connecting datasets that have remained compartmentalized within each specialization.
- Durable Suburbia
The trend we need to expect, hope for, and actively plan for in future urban change of western cities, concerns the gradual densification of our suburbs. Our suburbs are becoming more intensely developed, putting pressure on the existing infrastructures, and as they age, they become progressively dense and more mixed in terms of class, culture and program.
This suburban transformation poses considerable challenges to the existing infrastructure and current mobility systems, and requires a re-think of domestic as well as retail culture in the suburban sphere.
- Resilient Infrastructures
Designing infrastructure for one single purpose is a strategic mistake; instead, such large investments, which are to service society for generations, can be made to serve a variety of different agendas - including not only transportation, but also real estate, ecological diversity, and public space, among others.
Furthermore, a sound infrastructural design permits utility in a variety of completely different circumstances. This is not a call to make infrastructural investments more complex and expensive; but to make them more intelligent and open-ended.
- Technological Urbanism
The steam engine, the car, the elevator, and the AC unit have in common that each contributed to a dramatic transformation in the form and configuration of cities.
We must look to new emergent technologies and their potential impact on the design, planning, and construction of our cities. We must examine the next generation of disruptive technologies and the influence they will have on the spatial order of cities.
- Ideal Cities
Ideal cities have, throughout history, provided templates, forms, and figures of our collective imagination, through which we conceive of, plan, and direct ourselves towards our common future.
It is important that this discursive tradition remain active and that we continue to formulate ideals, hopes, and especially, the forms that correspond to them.
Website: www.cau.mit.edu
The MIT Center for Advanced Urbanism’s objective is to become the world’s pre-eminent cultural center about the design of metropolitan environments, by articulating methods and projects to integrate separate disciplinary agendas in architecture, landscape, ecology, transportation engineering, politics and political philosophy, technology and real estate through a most eloquent design culture on scales ranging from the complex infrastructural intersection, to that of a neighborhood, on to the scale of an entire regional system.
Urban environments are being planned, designed, constructed, and retrofitted at an unprecedented pace and scale, which often precludes a rational, thoughtful process.
Global economic forces have eclipsed standard paradigms of post-World War II urban expansion and ideas of incremental urban development. New megacities are being built all over the world in record time and often without standard protocols or procedures of the established design and urban planning professions.
c Pressing cultural and environmental concerns are demanding new levels of accountability as we measure ecological performance, energy use, mobility and density relationships, and the deployment of dwindling resources.
These and other factors challenge the intelligence and efficacy of new urbanization forms and existing conventions and typologies for development. We have entered into a new era or urban growth whereby the rules have changed and paradigms of urbanism desperately need recalibration to meet today’s global challenges.
The MIT Center for Advanced Urbanism’s mission comes from four working principles:
- Challenge pre-conceived professional roles and find solutions to real world problems.
- Embrace large-scale design and planning.
- Embrace technology in the design and planning of city form and function.
- Commitment to deliver real world projects and clear paths to solve pressing urban design, architectural, and environmental problems.
MIT’s Center for Advanced Urbanism is framed by six over branching areas of research:
- Territorial Design
We have entered an era of a new scale of design. Whether it is the immensely large-scale development projects underway in areas such as the Gulf and China, or the reconstruction and retrofitting of nation’s existing infrastructure. This presents a disciplinary challenge for designers, as existing techniques are not necessarily suitable or scalable.
The formal and figurative features that we can logically conceive and think of the very large scale need to be reimagined. Research must urgently address and develop new elements that are critical in the instrumentarium of the large-scale designer.
- Changing Systems
As our environment undergoes changes, our cities and their corresponding systems will need to adapt. Urbanism for a changing climate is first and foremost a question of rigorous systems analysis.
In part this is achievable through the integration of so far disconnected disciplines. In so doing, new opportunities arise for analysis such as through connecting datasets that have remained compartmentalized within each specialization.
- Durable Suburbia
The trend we need to expect, hope for, and actively plan for in future urban change of western cities, concerns the gradual densification of our suburbs. Our suburbs are becoming more intensely developed, putting pressure on the existing infrastructures, and as they age, they become progressively dense and more mixed in terms of class, culture and program.
This suburban transformation poses considerable challenges to the existing infrastructure and current mobility systems, and requires a re-think of domestic as well as retail culture in the suburban sphere.
- Resilient Infrastructures
Designing infrastructure for one single purpose is a strategic mistake; instead, such large investments, which are to service society for generations, can be made to serve a variety of different agendas - including not only transportation, but also real estate, ecological diversity, and public space, among others.
Furthermore, a sound infrastructural design permits utility in a variety of completely different circumstances. This is not a call to make infrastructural investments more complex and expensive; but to make them more intelligent and open-ended.
- Technological Urbanism
The steam engine, the car, the elevator, and the AC unit have in common that each contributed to a dramatic transformation in the form and configuration of cities.
We must look to new emergent technologies and their potential impact on the design, planning, and construction of our cities. We must examine the next generation of disruptive technologies and the influence they will have on the spatial order of cities.
- Ideal Cities
Ideal cities have, throughout history, provided templates, forms, and figures of our collective imagination, through which we conceive of, plan, and direct ourselves towards our common future.
It is important that this discursive tradition remain active and that we continue to formulate ideals, hopes, and especially, the forms that correspond to them.
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
UrbDeZine
Location: Nationwide
Website: www.urbdezine.com
UrbDeZine is a ‘web-zine’ about regional architecture, design, and culture.
Essentially, this site is about the design of your community, whether that is architecture, urban planning, transportation, historic preservation, ecology, or culture. UrbDezine is designed to provide the fastest and most comprehensive information by being an interactive community forum.
UrbDeZine is for people who are passionate about the design of their community. Submit articles & images to info@urbdezine.com, along with a photo (head shot) and professional biography (limit 5 pgs). Your profile and a link will be included in articles/images selected for publication.
The Author Panel is invitation only but if you are interested in being on the Panel, please submit your qualifications. Qualified and committed article submitters may be invited for inclusion on the Panel.
Article writing for UrbDeZine is an excellent way to influence design for the better, as well as an excellent way for design professionals to market themselves through the web and social media, and improve the SEO of their own websites.
Website: www.urbdezine.com
UrbDeZine is a ‘web-zine’ about regional architecture, design, and culture.
Essentially, this site is about the design of your community, whether that is architecture, urban planning, transportation, historic preservation, ecology, or culture. UrbDezine is designed to provide the fastest and most comprehensive information by being an interactive community forum.
UrbDeZine is for people who are passionate about the design of their community. Submit articles & images to info@urbdezine.com, along with a photo (head shot) and professional biography (limit 5 pgs). Your profile and a link will be included in articles/images selected for publication.
The Author Panel is invitation only but if you are interested in being on the Panel, please submit your qualifications. Qualified and committed article submitters may be invited for inclusion on the Panel.
Article writing for UrbDeZine is an excellent way to influence design for the better, as well as an excellent way for design professionals to market themselves through the web and social media, and improve the SEO of their own websites.
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