Chinese Architect Wang Shu Wins Pritzker

A very interesting Chinese architect won this year's Pritzker (the Architecture Nobel Prize). His name is Wang Shu and he is dedicated to tradition, craft, and innovation. He has deeply studied the nature of chinese craft as well as the structure of the traditional Chinese city.  These inquires have provided a springboard to address the rapid changes occurring now in China.  And searching for new ways to bring meaning and authenticity to the making of places.   What is so compelling about his work is that he is able to use a contemporary design language that acknowledges the past yet is clearly forward looking.

I hopefully will see his work in China in the coming weeks or months! He practices in Hangzhou and went to architecture school at Southeast University in  Nanjing where I will be teaching! There are many articles on him but this is one good one:

http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/theskyline/2012/02/a-pritzker-prize-for-chinese-architect-wang-shu-marks-a-shift-toward-relevancy-.html

This has been making me reflect on the idea of  CRAFT  in Urban Design.  How can a similar reflection on both tradition and innovation inform the making of PLACE at a range of scales.  Craft means more than basket weaving in urban spaces.  It can mean the tectonics of the city and the very structure of a place.  Ultimately these are the essential elements that affect how we experience a place. Bottom up and Top down.   Much more to follow on this idea in the future!!

Communicating about Architecture!

Interesting Article! http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/02/why-dont-we-read-about-architecture/

The Books are Coming!

A printed book of REA work has been ordered and will soon be available.  The online version is up and running at:

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/invited/2465783/7c82a54ebde3a36be592dc8bb47ce36e812529dc

Enjoy!!

To Rail or Not to Rail

This past week there has been much debate about the lack of funding for the Rail option to Boulder County promised in the Fastracks project. Prices have more that doubled!! See this article about the recent meeting: http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_20024328. As a long time advocate of rail, TOD, transit, I am in some ways disappointed but truth be told I have always had some ambivalence about the rail option to Boulder. As an 8-year commuter to Denver on the BX express bus it is hard to make the case for a billion dollar investment to basically meet that level of service. The media says that the travel time may decrease from 45 to 41 minutes after rail!! Typically bus does not get the level of associated development that you get from rail: fixed tracks spur development whether for high speed, commuter, light rail or street car. Portland is held up as the TOD holy grail in this regards especially after the redevelopment spurred in the Pearl District thanks to the introduction of a streetcar.

This is however a beautiful case of one size does not fit all. As a commuter option, the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) is incredibly efficient and "right-sized" for the situation. The amount of infrastructure investment including bridges, HOV, lanes etc makes it a fast and easy way to get along the US 36 corridor. A fledgeling TOD has even evolved at the Broomfield Events Center although it suffers form the TOD's on the Southeast Corridor Light Rail: only half a TOD can be built thanks to the adjacent highway. I may take the Bus to Radiohead in a few weeks!!

Which leads to places ... the nice thing about rail is that when it is situated in the heart of a community it can be a catalyst for dynamic places. There was some real opportunity in Louisville and Boulder to make that happen. For this to be most effective though, it should really be a NODE. The Transit Center is really at an edge so one wonders how much it can really be a catalyst for East Boulder. Even with the adjacent parcels developing, the rail line itself forms a barrier to a robust sense of community there. Without the rail, should the Transit Center really be in that location from an urban design perspective?? Table Mesa PNR should really be a TOD but suffers from the same problem.

The challenge then is to leverage BRT investments to link Boulder County and use it make real places. Perhaps they are place holders for next gen streetcars on major transit corridors that link dynamic centers, and start to really tie the region together. One can only hope!

Sustainable Urbanism Seminar - Paris wins!

I am teaching a seminar at University of Colorado at Denver on Sustainable Urbanism to graduate students in Urban Design, Architecture, Planning. One of the big questions is ... what does sustainable urbanism even mean. What is sustainability? Why urbanism? One of the explorations I am interested in is the idea of SCALE: what approaches are optimized at what scale? Often, issues are conflated where a clear examination of optimization for a particular aspect of sustainability is not considered. This includes what is the best scale to explore a whole number of issues. A team presented last class comparing a number of dense cities and examining the pros and cons. these included NYC, Paris, Hong Kong, and Denver. While a theme of the seminar is that Density is "good", it was shown that there is not a linear relationship between Carbon Footprint per capita and density. While Hong Kong and Manhattan have higher densities, Paris (still quite dense) has the lower Carbon Footprint per capita. While that may be attributable to the amount of nuclear power in the French grid it it s also true that of the four cities it is not hard to argue that Paris is the most livable and humane. Good news for those who think that density, livability, and sustainability are not mutually exclusive! More to come on the seminar in future posts

And so it begins ...

This blog is an opportunity to provide a critical voice about issues of urbanism and architecture locally (in Colorado), nationally, and globally.  It is meant to include a broad range of issues around our built environment - highlighting issues of sustainability, place, culture, design, and related topics.  While an aspect will be highlighting the work and process of Richard Epstein Architecture, it has a broader scope to provide an ongoing commentary about the issues of our day as they relate to human settlements.  It is a place for information and exchange, with guest bloggers, links, observations, and analysis. And so it begins ...