Category Archives: Urbanism and planning

Growing dull in Denver

Posted on April 6, 2015 by David Brussat

I clicked with no small degree of excitement on ArchNewsNow.com, the piece by a Denver architect about insipidity in the Mile-High City. “Denver Is a Great City, So Why the Bad Buildings?” asks Jeffrey Sheppard. Denver is experiencing the sort … Continue reading →

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Development, Preservation, Providence, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

Return to the establishment

Posted on April 4, 2015 by David Brussat

It appears that tradition has begun its long march back through the institutions, at least in Britain. Oliver Wainwright’s latest piece in the Guardian, reprinted in Architectural Record, is “The Tories’ New Design Guide Backs Tiny, Unlivable, Backward-Looking Homes.” It … Continue reading →

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Save the bad public spaces!

Posted on April 1, 2015 by David Brussat

The Project for Public Spaces, in New York City, has sent out an alert regarding a new public program: “U.S. Government Announces Campaign to Save Historically Bad Public Spaces.” At first I thought this was just another silly April Fool’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Humor, Preservation, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

Things we’ve left behind us

Posted on March 31, 2015 by David Brussat

Hats off to Cliff Vanover for sending this glorious photo, a timely reminder of the things we’ve left behind us. One we know will return next winter. The others … well, some day beautiful buildings will come back into fashion.

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Last wooden bridge in Prov.

Posted on March 30, 2015 by David Brussat

In an excellent online post for the Providence Journal, photographer Sandor Bodo notes the demise and, more recently, the removal of the last wooden river bridge in Providence. It is called “Documenting the fall of Providence’s last wooden river bridge,” … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture History, Book/Film Reviews, Development, Preservation, Providence, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Yemen, we hardly knew ye!

Posted on March 29, 2015 by David Brussat

Jules Pitt has sent to TradArch an extraordinary photo of a town in Yemen, which he notes is in the news. So it is. I suppose the civil war there (now it’s a civil war; what has it been these … Continue reading →

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Surprise! Walkers can drive

Posted on March 28, 2015 by David Brussat

City Lab has an article by Eric Jaffe called “Toward a Simple and Universal Law of Pedestrian Behavior” that belongs in the files of the Department of Redundancy Department. Not that it isn’t interesting. To a flâneur like me, anything … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Uncategorized, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

The secret lives of scalies

Posted on March 26, 2015 by David Brussat

Scalies, according to Alissa Walker’s excellent report on an exhibit out in Berkeley, “The Secret Lives of Little People in Architectural Renderings,” are the little people in architectural renderings. That’s the term used by professionals. Scalies. They are mainly there … Continue reading →

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Art and design, Development, Humor, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Heidi’s chilly new neighbor

Posted on March 26, 2015 by David Brussat

Kudos to Gizmodo.com not just for the inspired montage above but to its correspondent Alissa Walker, who reports that starchitect Thom Mayne has announced an evaporating glass slab for poor Vals, Switz. At 80 stories and 1,250 feet in the … Continue reading →

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Art and design, Development, Other countries, Providence, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Kunstler’s City Beautiful

Posted on March 20, 2015 by David Brussat

James Howard Kunstler, author of The Geography of Nowhere and The World Made by Hand, and coiner of the word “crudscape,” knows all too well what we as a civilization have wrought since we won World War II. In many … Continue reading →

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