To promote the new “Flying Snoopy” ride during the park’s 10th anniversary this March, Universal Studios Japan has Marcie, Lucy, Charlie, Snoopy and Woodstock crossing the street just like the Beatles did for the cover of Abbey Road. But it’s particularly interesting because the designer used perspective to create the unique effect.

If they really wanted to do this correctly though, Lucy should be barefoot.

Spotted on the Wooster Collective and the High Definite.

These images may look Photoshopped, but they’re not. They’re the work on French artist Philippe Ramette, photographed by his collaborator Marc Domage.

Great images. Via Whudat

I’ve been in Sao Pualo, Brazil for the past month and have been captivated by the street art here.
My Portuguese is non-existent, so if any readers out there could help me with translating some of these phrases — or explaining the context of some of the images, I’d appreciate it!

Update: Thanks to ana australiana for the translation help!

Folks might be interested in a similar article I wrote when I was in Buenos Aires, Argentina a few years back.

I recently visited Detroit and got the chance to check out the Heidelberg Project, an ongoing, block-long outdoor art piece created by Tyree Guyton.

Started in 1986, the Heidelberg Project (named so because it originally constructed on Detroit’s Heidelberg Street) began as a political protest against the decay of the neighborhood Guyton grew up in. The projects consists of found materials adorning abandoned houses, trees and empty lots, often covered with Guyton’s signature brightly colored polka dots.

Says DetroitYes,

Throughout the years controversy grew between the artist and the city who held title to many of the abandoned properties on Heidelberg. The decorated houses, which first become a tourist attraction and then won the artist international acclaim, carried an implicit criticism of the City of Detroit’s failure to seal, demolish or maintain its properties.

The City has twice demolished parts of the project due to complaints that the piles attracted animals and posed a safety and fire hazard. But the project remains in its diminished form.

Despite its critics, the project has gained an international reputation and won numerous awards. In 2004, the project was part of the Shrinking Cities exhibition in Berlin, and, in 2008, the project was one of 15 projects representing the United States at the 2008 Venice Architecture Biennale.

Said Guyton in this article by Model D Media,

It’s all about the people, who deserve a better community and a better world. In my own way, I’m trying to make that happen.

It’s a strange experience to walk through a neighborhood, dozens of blocks wide, that is completely depopulated, while a mere 1/2 mile away, tens of thousands of people are watching a game at a Major League Baseball stadium. But that was my experience in August 2011, when, walking home from work, I took a different route and found myself in the middle of the Brewster-Douglass Housing Projects in Detroit. I was there as part of my job as Traveling Faculty on the International Honors Program’s “Cities in the 21st Century” semester. We were about to embark on an exciting four and a half month trip, traveling and studying together in Sao Paulo, Brazil; Cape Town, South Africa; and Hanoi, Vietnam. Detroit marked the beginning of the program, where we got to know each other and figure out how we best could work together. Our time in Detroit also marked our first case study in learning how to “read a city” which is, in essence, a form of primary research based on observation and interviewing that helps us compare different urban spaces.

Once home to thousands of residents, including celebrities like Diana Ross and Smokey Robinson, these commanding Brewster-Douglass towers now sit empty, surrounding by fallow fields and the remains of security fences, picked bare by scavengers. Other cities across the country have given up on Modernist, “towers in a park” public housing, criticizing them as isolating, unsafe and often poorly constructed. So the abandoned state of the Brewster-Douglas Housing Projects isn’t what makes them significant; in fact, what makes them significant is their commonality. Across this city, emptiness is a neighborhood trait. Single-family homes, apartment buildings, schools, train stations, factories — all sitting empty, modern ruins hinting at a time when this was a much larger, much busier city. How did this come to be?

Detroit has gotten a good amount of press recently for its declining population and wilting industrial base. As a native Midwesterner, I’m drawn to Detroit’s plight. My hometown of Cincinnati has faced similar hardships, with a shrinking urban core, a declining population and a loss of industries and good jobs to the suburbs and beyond. So-called Rust Belt cities in the region are all struggling with a new reality of fewer people, fewer jobs, and more vacant buildings and land.

Despite its similarities to other Rust Belt cities, Detroit is still an exceptional place, if only for the incredible scope of change that’s happened in the city over the past 50 years. Detroit was the powerhouse of the 20th Century. The birthplace of Fordism, Detroit grew rapidly in the early 1900’s, as people flocked to the manufacturing plants in the area. The Ford Motor Company famously promised wages at an astounding $5 a day, attracting the country’s best mechanics. General Motors, Chrysler, and American Motors too established their headquarters in Detroit, and, to stay competitive, also offered well-paying jobs for those with mechanical skills. Detroit soon became the center of the automobile industry, leading to rapid and expansive urbanization. This growth brought tremendous wealth to the area, something that’s still reflected in the architecture of that era. According to Stephen Vogel, former dean of the University of Detroit Mercy School of Architecture, an astonishing 80% of all war materials produced during World War II either were made in Detroit, or in Russia using Detroit engineers. During this boom period, 2000 new workers flocked to the city every day, looking for work. By 1950, the city’s population had surged to over 1.8 million people.

The industrial might of Detroit helped win the war, but the city’s postwar fortunes rapidly declined. Whites began to flee to the surrounding suburbs, and, over time, great parts of the city fell into decline. Tax breaks were given to businesses to encourage them to move the suburbs. Freeways built in the 1960’s cut through African American neighborhoods. Federal Housing loans were denied to non-whites, further increasing spatial segregation. Cold War fears didn’t help. According to Vogel, Federal officials worried that an atomic strike at Detroit would cripple American industry, so conscious efforts were made to decentralize the nation’s manufacturing and spread factories throughout the country. Civil disturbances – caused in part by the loss of employment – and cross-district busing further exacerbated white flight. By 1960, the population of the surrounding suburbs surpassed the population of Detroit for the first time; by 2000, they would be three times as large as the city itself.

Since the beginning of the population decline, the city has many numerous attempts to rebuild. One prominent example is the Renaissance Center, once the world’s largest private development. Conceived by Henry Ford II and other leaders of the early 1970‘s as a way to revitalize the downtown area, the “city within a city” instead absorbed demand for office space, leading critics to say that the project actually helped spur blight elsewhere in the city. In the 1980’s, the city built the People Mover, an elevated, automated transit system with a limited run through Downtown Detroit. This system has been criticized as hindering the recovery of the city. The system is inefficient, costing over $3 per passenger mile, and critics say it takes funds away from the less glamorous but more efficient city buses, which run less than $1 per passenger mile.

(Image courtesy of Dan Pitera, Detroit Collaborative Design Center, via Greg Pasquali)

Despite these and other interventions intended to stimulate growth and boost investment, Detroit experienced 40 years of continuous population loss. The city now has only 40% of the population it had 50 years ago. In a geographically large area — Detroit is the size of San Francisco, Boston, and Manhattan combined — the population loss has led to a sense of emptiness and decay. Kurt Metzger of Data Driven Detroit supplied some bleak statistics. Detroit has some 79,000 vacant homes, while some 20,000 people are leaving the city annually. Detroit was hit especially hard by the recent economic crisis: the city had 60,000 foreclosures between 2005 and 2010; this, combined with the decades of population loss, has led to a stunning 40 square miles of vacant land in the city.

These shifts have left a city in financial and social peril. Unemployment is staggering; the City has recently suggested the number might be as high as 50%. Economic conditions reflect social conditions — some 78% of births in the city are to unwed/single mothers. The long-term stresses of the fleeing of the city’s tax base has finally caught up, leaving the city in dire financial straits. In early 2012, the city was facing a possible emergency intervention from state officials. Under a new Michigan law, any city with significant financial shortfalls faces the imposition of a state-imposed emergency manager, who has the power to control budgets, sell off assets, de-certify public unions, and even to dissolve the city itself as an entity. While Detroit has yet to be subjected to such indignities, the question remains: what should Detroit – the ultimate ‘shrinking city – do?

Recent official, formal efforts to rebuild and revitalize the older, formerly densest parts of the city have met with mixed success. There are some bright spots in downtown Detroit: the Tiger’s Comerica Park attracts sizable crowds and has revitalized small patches of retail near the park. But after the game, most fans drive back home to the suburbs, leaving the downtown empty. Many new redevelopment efforts have been criticized as being piecemeal and focused on high-profile projects, like stadiums and business centers, ignoring the vast swaths of land with empty and dilapidated buildings. Detroit recently began allowing casinos within the city, which Vogel calls a sign of “desperate people doing desperate things.”

The current government planning response to the declining population has been the amorphous ‘Detroit Works‘ project. The project will ostensibly call for the removal of city services to those neighborhoods that have faced the greatest population loss, with the idea that ‘shrinking’ the city is the appropriate response to Detroit’s new reality.* Mayor Dave Bing has made the program his signature policy initiative, saying that the only way to make the city more functional is to consolidate residents into Detroit’s most viable neighborhoods. The plan, however, has been criticized by community activists for being vague in how it would be implemented and unclear in its full intentions. Those remaining in depopulated neighborhoods are often the ones with the least resources to relocate. How these people would be supported or compensated has yet to be clarified.

Despite the city’s numerous struggles, Detroit has its successes. The surplus of housing has allowed for the country’s highest homeownership rates. For all the negative media attention Detroit receives, you’d never guess there would be a thriving farmer’s market a mile away from downtown that’s been around since 1841. The immense Eastern Market is a huge community resource, attracting 40,000 shoppers on Saturdays.

The city also benefits from a thriving civic activist community. Citizen groups have played an important role in working to revitalize the city. Our group was hosted by the Arts League of Michigan (ALM), housed in the historic Virgil H. Carr Cultural Arts Center. This beautiful Beaux Arts building was constructed in 1895 as the home of the Harmonie Society, a musical society of German immigrants. The club was a place offering fine dining, tavern, card rooms, bowling alley, lounges and musical events. Oliver Ragsdale, Jr., President of the ALM, gave us a tour of the building, showing off the nice details here and there before getting to the big “wow” finish — a still-unrestored theater on the buildings third floor. It’s a magical place, begging to be brought back to its old glory, and Oliver has made that his life’s mission.

Detroit has seen a recent influx of entrepreneurs, driven to take advantage of the cheap real estate and low start-up costs. Students met with a panel of young entrepreneurs who are creating new and exciting projects in Detroit. Emily Doerr recently started Hostel Detroit, aimed at not only providing an affordable place for visitors to stay in Detroit, but also to offer educational tours of the city. Kelli Kavanaugh started Wheelhouse Detroit Margarita Barry started ‘I am Young Detroit‘, aimed at highlighting these young entrepreneurs. While entrepreneurs will certainly not be able to employ the numbers of those who used to be employed in the manufacturing industry, they can play an important role in changing the dominant narrative of the city as a place devoid of opportunity.

Art is another thriving scene in Detroit. Artists have been attracted to the city for its affordability and artistic legacy. Detroit has been an important hub for diverse musical styles, including blues, gospel, jazz, pop, R&B, rock, hip hop and techno. Visual arts play an important role in making social commentary. One famous example is the Heidelberg Project, an ongoing, block-long outdoor art piece created by Tyree Guyton. Started in 1986, the Heidelberg Project (named so because it originally constructed on Detroit’s Heidelberg Street) began as a political protest against the decay of the neighborhood Guyton grew up in. The projects consists of found materials adorning abandoned houses, trees, and empty lots, often covered with Guyton’s signature brightly colored polka dots.

There are others who want to turn the emptiness of the city into an asset. The city already has more public green space per person than any other city (some 1200 square feet per person). And green spaces are not just parks; they can also be productive landscapes. The city has seen tremendous interest in urban farming, as both long-term residents and newcomers are looking to capitalize on cheap, available land. And many of these new farmers are looking to go beyond community gardens; rather, they are petitioning the city to operate large-scale, commercial farms, right in the heart of the city.

Katheryn Underwood of the Detroit Planning Department said that the City is trying to engage with and support these farmers, mostly because they provide much-needed jobs. But she points out that introducing urban farming in the city, by its nature, can lead to conflicts with current residents. She notes that farms and residential areas don’t play nicely together; think of the pesticides, compost, and animals that are part of farm life, and its easy to see why they don’t always sit well with residential areas. And while Michigan’s Right to Farm Act protects existing farmers from complaints from new residential development, Detroit is facing the opposite problem: the need to protect neighborhoods from farms. Until the Farm Bureau amends the Right to Farm Act to allow urban farming, the numerous, large-scale farming efforts in the city are currently illegal.

Still, given enough political will, large parts of the City could be made remade as productive landscapes. Perhaps when the towers of Brewster-Douglas Housing Projects are gone some day, that land could be put to good use growing food. No matter what the future holds for Detroit, the region has at least one ultimate long term advantages; the Midwest abounds in fresh water, sure to be a vital asset in a thirsty 21st Century cities.

There are glimmers of hope for this shrinking city. Recent census data suggests that while Detroit is still extremely segregated, its slowly shifting towards integration as blacks are moving to the suburbs. The area has seen small pockets of growth along river and Woodward corridor. The vitality of the Eastern Market, the drive of Oliver Ragsdale, and enthusiasm for the city by the young entrepreneurs all show that Detroit can still be a vibrant and inspiring city. Dan Pitera, Director of Detroit Collaborative Design Center, made the case for Detroit in his inspirational opening speech, asking students to think of Detroit as a dinner party. Say you invited 50 people to your party, but only 25 show up. What would you do? Would you sit around and mope, feeling sorry for yourself? Or would you, as Dan said, “throw the best damn party you can”?

It’s a time capsule of manifest destiny. Watch the South in the 1860s, where there’s no activity due to the Civil War. Land rushes and gold rushes are apparent, as are the expansion of railroads. Do you spot anything interesting?

Link to the video on Vimeo via boingboing. For the full description of how Derek created the visualization, check out his website.

Bangkok is the cultural, political and economic capitol of Thailand. This bustling metropolis, currently growing by 100,000 residents per year, also faces an uncertain future on a warming planet. The city itself is shrinking below sea level 4“ per year even as sea levels rise. The city’s current development path means building on any and every plot of land available, including the water-logged marshes and mangroves that exist throughout the city’s sprawling landscape. How should a city of over 9 million people cope with such challenges?

S+PBA, a Bangkok based Architecture firm founded in 2005 by Ponlawat Buasri and Songsuda Adhibai, created an architectural proposal to address Bangkok’s very watery future. Their design proposes embracing the city’s watery future.

….Bangkok is still laboring under a very ante-diluvian mindset where flooding is considered a crisis and not a constant. Bangkok has always been flooded and the latest apocalyptic predictions only suggest that flooding will return with increased consistency.

Once the city is submarine, can we even call this phenomenon flooding? Flooding implies a passing phase rather than a fixed environment, and yet, at the current juncture, water is much more predictable than land. In order to initiate a Post-Diluvian perspective that designs for water we must abandon the Metropolis in favor of the Wetropolis, and Architecture in favor of Aquatecture.

Towards a Post Diluvian Future will propose a Post-Diluvian prototype community that transforms principles from Thailand’s centuries old traditions of flood-conscious aquatecture into a contemporary, sustainable and visually stunning Wetropolis.

These kinds of large scale, fantastical developments certainly raises plenty of questions: how will people get to work? Is it economically feasible? How will the structures age? How will they be maintained? That said, Bangkok is not without precedence for daily living on water; see for example, the Damnoen Saduak Floating Market. People in the city already commute by water taxis. Can large-scale urban habitats on the water be that far off? While this proposal may be fanciful, the residents of Bangkok might be the kind of people who could make it work.

All images courtesy of S+PBA. See my previous post on Bangkok here.

Andy Hemingway is a Houston-based photographer who took these great “light painting” shots at an abandoned garage. I love the “ribbons of light” effect.

Link via notcot