a curious city

Great overview of New York City’s digital roadmap by Mashable’s Todd Olmstead.

nycdigital:

citymaus:

The High Line, designed by James Corner, will be extended from 20th St. to 30th.

At 26th Street, there will be an overlook onto 10th Avenue. The rectangle steel frame was designed to echo the billboards that once lined the railroad. When viewed from the street, the structure, called “The Viewing Spur,” will frame park visitors, creating something of a living advertisement for the High Line.

The High Line, which opened its first section two years ago, has fast become a world-famous park and saw more than 2 million visitors last year. The design, which Corner created in collaboration with architecture firm Diller Scofidio & Renfro, exemplifies urban reuse by turning an abandoned elevated freight train track into a gorgeous green public park. The park maintains a post-industrial artifact while giving us unique perspective on our surrounding urban landscape.

“We like to think of it as a place where people revel in doing nothing, which is an anomaly for New Yorkers,” Elizabeth Diller told the New York Times. “It has an unscripted, unintended, unprogrammed timelessness. You just get lost in there.”

inhabitat, 03.06.11.

defendneworleans:

The Passivhaus (now called Passive House in North America) standard is usually thought of as a response to temperate or cold conditions, given its German origin. Certainly its annual heating energy limits are not going to mean a lot in New Orleans, where ArchDaily and Design by…

irishboyinlondon:

Well worth the read! Every planner should read his views on the three planning scales (and read his book Cities for People). The on-street, human scale view is the one usually afforded the least amount of time but the most important!

Modern planning should be about life, space, and…