Captain Plan→it

infinitemachine: Map of the Day: The City of Galastan by...

Tue, 14 May 2013 16:30:43 -0400

Map of the Day: The City of Galastan by *Blaidd—Drwg

HEY EVERYONE!

Mon, 13 May 2013 17:02:41 -0400

Sorry I went MIA, but I am now a GRADUATE! Last weekend I recieved my Bachelor of Science in City & Regional Planning from The Ohio State University. President Obama was our commencement speaker, too. It was fantastic.

Now, I’m starting grad school in a few weeks! I’m sort of a PhD student. As in, my department accepted me into the PhD program, but, despite graduating OSU with a 3.4, my GPA from a school I left in 2009 before taking 2 years off was terrible, so the graduate school itself only admitted me as a masters student. Because, you know, 2 1/2 years at OSU isn’t proof enough that I’m better now. So, after 2 semesters (including summer) of having a 3.0, then I can reapply to the PhD program. However, I’ll be taking PhD classes anyway and working on my Urban Design & Behavior concentration, so for all intents and purposes I’m considering myself a PhD student. My professors have all congratulated me and seem to be considering me one as well, so that’s what counts!

SO. Any other PhD students on here? Or anyone who already got their PhD? If so, shoot me a message here, or let’s be twitter buds (@ameyawarde), as I will be using twitter a lot for my PhD journey from now on!

APA Conference this weekend!

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 18:50:20 -0400

In Chicago!

Anyone else going? I’ll be there, and I got hired on as a student blogger covering the conference on Tuesday!

urbanfunscape: The Pop-Up City is always interested in mobile...

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 16:30:48 -0400

urbanfunscape:

The Pop-Up City is always interested in mobile apps that create new experiences of the city. So when Wikipedia, the most popular source for all things information announced its spatial-debut, we paid attention. Wikipedia recently introduced its GeoData extension. This streamlined, centralized source for geographic information means that ‘mapping Wikipedia’ is about to explode.

TownAhallic: A Web Tool for Getting Addicted to Your City

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 16:30:25 -0400

TownAhallic: A Web Tool for Getting Addicted to Your City:

urbnist:

An upcoming website and app. Sign up for updates. This should prove to be a top notch service.

Let's stop calling the new headquarters for Apple, Facebook and Google "Green": Look at the parking ratios

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 16:30:23 -0400

Let's stop calling the new headquarters for Apple, Facebook and Google "Green": Look at the parking ratios :

urbanrelationsinfo:

Alex Wilson of BuildingGreen, LLC has calculated that for a modern green office building, commuting workers consume 50% more energy than the building itself. For a building like Foster’s Apple headquarters, it could be far more than that. All that design, all that money spent on solar panels and green gizmos to make the building almost net zero energy, just so 10,500 cars can fill its parking lots. It is an exercise in futility and misdirection.

Facebook: 2,800 engineers in the building can park at grade in 1,499 parking spaces, or one space for every 1.86 employees.

Apple Inc.: 14,200 employees and 10,500 parking spaces, or one space for every 1.35 employees.

Google: TBD

UrbanRelations.Info: What Can Northern Europe Teach Us About Building Livable Communities?

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 13:59:12 -0400

UrbanRelations.Info: What Can Northern Europe Teach Us About Building Livable Communities? :

urbanrelationsinfo:

In narrative and in images, Luis Rodriguez discusses the findings of a recent study tour to Germany and Scandinavia to discover the secrets to creating more livable communities.

“An increasing number of community policy makers, planners and residents around the world want…

Photo

Sun, 24 Mar 2013 16:30:45 -0400

massurban: “The Atlantic Cities: How to Make Privately Owned...

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 16:30:47 -0500

massurban:

“The Atlantic Cities:

How to Make Privately Owned Public Spaces Truly Open to the Public

By Emily Badger. Dec 17, 2012

Some of the best privately owned public open spaces in downtown San Francisco are, by nature, a little hard to find. They’re on upper-floor terraces with fantastic views of the city, or in interior plazas of office towers that look from the sidewalk like places where you don’t belong. Part of their charm comes from their hybrid nature: These “POPOS” can be more intimate sanctuaries than traditional open spaces, with office-caliber amenities – leather chairs and potted olive trees – you’ll won’t find in Golden Gate Park.

San Francisco’s 1985 downtown plan required large new office and hotel developments built since then to incorporate such public spaces, in proportion to the size of the properties. But it’s the kind of ordinance that’s been easily thwarted in spirit. As the San Francisco Chronicle’s urban critic John King wrote several years ago, some buildings have embraced their POPOS, “others are more Scrooge-like than welcoming.”

Now, more than 25 years after the idea was first built into San Francisco’s downtown plan, the city is now updating the requirements to reinforce the initial goal of truly opening up private buildings to public citizens looking for a quiet lunch break, a reading nook, or a toilet. That means no more hard-to-read, out-of-the-way Public Open Space signs (King has documented some really disingenuous examples). No more private corporate events in these public spaces. No more misdirectional cues on how to find them.”

Image: popos.sfplanning.org

tactful-cactus: Storylines London’s iconic tube map is...

Sun, 17 Feb 2013 16:30:21 -0500

tactful-cactus:

Storylines

London’s iconic tube map is transformed into a pit-stop journey through classic styles of storytelling, with the individual tube lines turned into genres and sub genres of literature. The depths of the Northern Line are made over into the aptly named Horror Line. The Bakerloo Line coursing past Sherlock Holmes’s Baker Street becomes, of course, the Crime & Mystery Line. And the pink trajectory of the Hammersmith & City is converted to the Romance Line. Each Storyline features a range of illustrations bringing to life both classics and mavericks from that theme, with a genre-defining work lurking at each journey’s end. Stations falling on intersecting Storylines get a sub-genre cross over. Many many days and weeks were spent researching and crafting this piece.

Why cities should choose crowdsourcing

Sat, 16 Feb 2013 16:30:41 -0500

Why cities should choose crowdsourcing :

ablankenship:

Crowdsourcing is not like outsourcing. As a community-based initiative, crowdsourcing fosters ideas and strengthens communities by bringing neighbors and strangers together for a shared enterprise. New York City has begun using this model to influence change with its government initiatives and…

transatlanticurbanism: Now that’s efficient. More of these...

Fri, 15 Feb 2013 16:30:32 -0500

transatlanticurbanism:

Now that’s efficient.

More of these apartments are definitely needed in places like NYC, London, etc. to keep living in those cities accessible for young people on less-than-stellar wages.

nickkahler: Goddard Group, Ring of Life, Fushun, China, 2012...

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 16:30:41 -0500

nickkahler:

Goddard Group, Ring of Life, Fushun, China, 2012 (via archdaily; archidose; buzznews)

It was Adolf Loos that said that architecture and art can only coincide under two programmatic distinctions, both of which are inherently “functionless”: the tomb and the monument. The history of building these “functionless monuments” is older than recorded history, and indicative of the creative human nature of building itself. The fact that we now consider such construction “iconic,” perhaps due to its design by the Goddard Group and not a “starchitect,” is fairly irrelevant. Icons are signifiers of importance, and like many mid-sized Chinese cities (read massive metropoleis in China that do not include Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and perhaps Macau or Guangzhou), Fushun is in the midst of an identity crisis relative to its population (compare with similarly-sized cities of international fame such as Vancouver, St. Louis, and Havana). We should not be afraid of the creation of identity in places that have yet to establish it, but we must process critically the function of “iconic” structures for their cultural relevance, sustainable impact, financial implications, and architectural polemics. Ultimately, the issue of cost is moot as well, since the China Pavilion at Shanghai and St. Louis Arch vastly outweigh them in that category. The crux of this criticism is that we now know about Fushun and are intellectually stimulated by the problem they confront: another indication of the succès de scandale.

A mother and her 2yo hit by a car, suspected DUI

Wed, 13 Feb 2013 16:30:39 -0500

A mother and her 2yo hit by a car, suspected DUI:

citymaus:

According to officers, the collision happened just before 12 p.m. at Sunset Cliffs Boulevard and West Point Loma Boulevard.

Police said a mother was bicycling with her toddler, who was riding in a car seat strapped to the back of her bike, when a suspected DUI driver in a sedan clipped their bicycle from behind.

The sedan kept driving, and the bicycle was dragged a short distance.

Police said a Good Samaritan helped to pull the bike from the vehicle. The toddler suffered moderate injuries but was conscious when officials arrived at the scene.

nbc san diego, 03.12.12.
via bikesd.

doesn’t say if she was riding on the road or sidewalk. sounds like on the road? no bike infrastructure on either of those streets. i wouldn’t ride a bike with a 2yo in the back in that area. sidewalk would definitely be safer except for all those bumps at corners. brave, though.

hope this news piece gets publicized enough that OB residents start demanding safer streets and increased DUI enforcement. (but it happened in the daytime?!)

THIS. My kid just turned 3 and he rarely ever rode in his bike seat because I never felt safe enough to ride around with him in there, as there are no bike lanes around these parts. :(

nickkahler: Aerial of Karlsruhe, Germany, 2012

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 16:30:39 -0500

nickkahler:

Aerial of Karlsruhe, Germany, 2012

Photo

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 16:30:31 -0500

"In the absence of informal public life, living becomes more expensive. Where the means and..."

Sun, 10 Feb 2013 16:30:27 -0500

““In the absence of informal public life, living becomes more expensive. Where the means and facilities for relaxation and leisure are not publicly shared, they become the objects of private ownership and consumption.””

- Ray Oldenburg | Project for Public Spaces (via thenewthirdspace)

fuzzyimages: Travel times from different era’s. Could you...

Sat, 09 Feb 2013 16:30:47 -0500

fuzzyimages:

Travel times from different era’s. Could you imaging taking weeks to cross the country when today, depending on mode, it can be done in hours?

zainabmphotography: - Roads of Islamabad

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 16:30:30 -0500

zainabmphotography:

- Roads of Islamabad

pag-asaharibon: San Francisco Eco-District Plan Could Transform...

Thu, 07 Feb 2013 16:30:33 -0500

pag-asaharibon:

San Francisco Eco-District Plan Could Transform South Of Market Forever

Last month, the San Francisco Planning Department released a framework for the city’s first eco-district, taking an oft-ignored area of a city and reorienting it toward community-driven sustainability with a focus on innovative uses of public space.

The report looks at the possibilities for the Central Corridor Eco-District, a region inside San Francisco’s rapidly developing South of Market neighborhood. SocketSite notes this will be the first district of its kind in San Francisco.

The Planning Department defined the neighborhood as a “patchwork quilt” that is “characterized by its mix of land uses and is comprised of undeveloped, under-developed and developed land owned by different property owners implementing development projects under different timeframes.”

It’s an area in which the city is expecting exponential growth—about 10,000 units of new housing and 35,000 new jobs. By labeling it an “eco-distrcit,” the city hopes to bring a focus on sustainability into the planning process for how the neighborhood is expected to expand.

Some of the ways in which the the city is looking at guiding the neighborhood’s growth include engineering the foundations of all the new buildings to going into the area to collect and store groundwater for non-potable uses, taking advantage of the highway to college rainwater and using the space under the highway for sustainable infrastructure projects such as a local energy generation plant.

The money for the study comes from a grant by Caltrans to create a new vision for the community surrounding the northern terminus of the California High Speed Rail line—the Transbay Terminal.

The full plan for the district is expected to be completed next fall.