Do You Rule the Sewer?

I've been remiss in posting about the interesting WPA 2.0 competition and it's alluring tagline: "whoever rules the sewers rules the city" as I was debating about entering because it is just amazingly compelling in idea. So alas, due to summer and time constraints (I know, lame, but I'll explain later) I'm passing on the opportunity. A recent nudge from the folks at CityLAB reminded me that I hadn't ever posted about the competition itself. (They were also nice enough to pass along one of my posts that was referenced on their Facebook page)


:: image via WPA 2.0 Facebook Page

A summary statement from the organizers at CityLAB:

"With the Recovery Act on the minds of everyone concerned with the future of our cities, cityLAB, a UCLA urban design think tank, is providing a unique opportunity for designers worldwide to contribute infrastructure proposals that re-envision the new American metropolis. Beginning with a competition that encourages designers to "take back the streets," WPA 2.0 sets the stage for a new generation of Working Public Architecture.

The competition will be followed by a symposium at the National Building Museum in November 2009. In Washington, cityLAB will convene leading researchers, practitioners, and policy-makers to expand the enlivened discourse on urban infrastructure and promote implementable options that imagine our physical environment as more livable, more beautiful, and more sustainable."

It's pretty awesome that the competition site itself is the Infrastructure Matrix, which includes a number of typologies including a language of points, lines, landscapes, and ecologies. For instance, the idea of 'Stormwater' is broken into the following elements:

POINTS

detention basins
retention basins
rain gauges

LINES

spillways
stormwater sewers
levees
dykes
seawalls
crib structures

LANDSCAPES

spreading fields
river management

ECOLOGIES

beach storm hazard mitigation
wetland storm hazard mitigation
climate control
windbreaks

This breakdown had me curious, and quickly led to a a reference to Stan Allen (one of the star-studded jurors) and his book "Points+Lines: Diagrams and Projects for the City" I saw this recently and it reminded me to mention a new blog by Nico Wright called MicroGeography, where he references the book as an investigative strategy for the competition. I haven't read it, but this post alone made me want to pick it up sooner than later.


:: image via MicroGeography

Although I'm sitting this one out, I'll be watching closely to see what comes out of the first round - and follow up with the second phase as well. Good luck!

Bat Yam 2010

I posted here about the 2008 Bat-Yam international biennale of landscape urbanism, and was pleased to get an email annoucing the upcoming 2010 version focusing on Urban Action. The Bat-Yam Biennale functions as a laboratory through which attitudes in and towards urban space are examined. A variety of sites throughout the historic city of Bat-Yam are on the table for ideas... a chance to participate in the ephemeral.



The 2010 version, Urban Action, will focus "...on the tension between the temporary and the permanent, between the planned and the experienced. The Biennale examines the occasionally tense relationships between the city’s attempt to create order through long-term plans, and the everyday chaos that is the product of that process. Our goal is to encourage spaces and situations that function from within the state of a given temporality, drawing energy from this very flexibility.... The Biennale will examine whether it's possible to encourage urban situations that use temporality and change as their raw materials. The Biennale asks whether the state of temporality can become a statutory classification. Urban actions will strive to change patterns and attitudes, promoting partnership of the residents with the city. The Biennale also redefines relationships between residents, planners, stakeholders and the municipality."



There is an open call for entries on the site... and if the last version is any indication, the project interventions will be innovative and inspirational. Check it out here.

Paradigm Shift?

I was frankly a bit thrilled by this little news nugget on Designboom announcing that uber-firm West 8 had replaced Frank Gehry for the the Miami Lincoln Park project. "The 2.5 acre park will serve as an entrance to the gehry designed new world symphony scheduled to open in january 2011. it will also provide an outdoor venue for concerts and expansive green space. "


:: simcoe wavedeck (toronto) - image via Designboom

The article mentions fee and other issues, but who knows the real story. Sign of the times...? Well maybe it just makes sense for a landscape architecture firm design the park. But I still had to laugh on the inside a bit.