Category Archives: Urbanism and planning

Better lights for Providence

Posted on February 6, 2015 by David Brussat

Not long after starting to write about architecture in 1990 I would occasionally hector the city fathers in Providence to use sodium vapor bulbs in downtown’s historic lamps, as was and still is done on Benefit Street. That, I thought, … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Art and design, Providence, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , | 22 Comments

Design a living planet

Posted on February 5, 2015 by David Brussat

One of the delights of blogging is the ability to insert a couple of paragraphs from what you’re reading as you go along. So here’s another set, on pages 144-45, from Design for a Living Planet, by Nikos Salingaros and … Continue reading →

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Stewardship at Downton

Posted on February 1, 2015 by David Brussat

Steve Lawton sent to the Practice of New Urbanism list a few choice lines about recent scenes from Downton Abbey. He notes the care with which an aristocrat addresses the proposals of a developer, circa 1922 (I think), to build … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture History, Development, Preservation, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

The Times eyes Charleston

Posted on January 30, 2015 by David Brussat

The ship of state is famously hard to turn. One oped criticizing modern architecture does not a candidate for membership in the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art make. The New York Times remains a stalwart of the establishment on … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Development, Preservation, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

The Mehaffy/Salingaros way

Posted on January 29, 2015 by David Brussat

Here is a set of related passages from my early reading in Design for a Living Planet: Settlement, Science and the Human Future, by Michael Mehaffy and Nikos Salingaros. I will offer a more comprehensive review when I’m done reading … Continue reading →

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The landscapers’ gentility

Posted on January 27, 2015 by David Brussat

The American Society of Landscape Architects plans to turn its headquarters, on Eye Street in Washington, into a “world-class” Center for Landscape Architecture. Shudders ran up my spine as I saw the article that said so, by an anonymous contributor … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

A few words about breasts

Posted on January 21, 2015 by David Brussat

It would be shameful if Blaine Brownell’s essay “The Disruptive Nature of Architectural Innovation” in Architect, the voice of the AIA, were the last word on disruption as a strategy of innovation in architecture. He complains that “experimentation in architecture … Continue reading →

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Kennedy Plaza reopens

Posted on January 20, 2015 by David Brussat

Kennedy Plaza reopened this morning. Bus passengers are waiting in the newly sanitized bus hub. The view above shows the blank sterility achieved by its redesign. Wind-swept vastnesses of unused space greet us now, no longer the elegant Art Nouveau … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Art and design, Development, Providence, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments

See London before the Fire

Posted on January 18, 2015 by David Brussat

Six students (of history? architecture? illustration?) have produced a 3½-minute video imagining what London before the Great Fire of 1666 must have been like. The animation is lifelike but the buildings are figments of their historical imaginations, variations of the … Continue reading →

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Potent rowhouse poetics

Posted on January 17, 2015 by David Brussat

The three sets of rowhouses that I posted in “Survey: Your preferred row” a couple of days ago elicited from William Carroll Westfall among the most evocative lines I’ve read on the differences among types of architecture. He refers to … Continue reading →

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