Constructed Thoughts: Built | Unbuilt
December 26, 2008
December 25, 2008
Words as Signs
Historically, words have been in use to effectively communicate, seduce and be persuasive. In today’s technologically advanced and visually obsessed world, they have taken over our lives and have become bits and bytes that pixelate our imagination. Reading is constantly confronted by seeing and scrolling... while words float over and across the screen enticing to draw our attention or distract us from reality as they bend every form of what is real. But still, however treacherous they may/can be, as designers, we will always use them to seduce, persuade or dissuade; but more than anything else, never lose sight of the fact that they are 'visual' and graphic and can be used not only to tell stories but to also paint them....
Some Buzzwords published in NY Times with illustrations by Jessica Hische are worth checking:
http://www.nytimes.com/ref/weekinreview/buzzwords2008.html
Some Buzzwords published in NY Times with illustrations by Jessica Hische are worth checking:
http://www.nytimes.com/ref/weekinreview/buzzwords2008.html
December 23, 2008
December 19, 2008
December 18, 2008
Places Journal: A Forum of Design for the Public Realm
Pratt's Graduate School of Architecture and Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment (Professors Meta Brunzema and Viren Brahmbhatt) have introduced an innovative course on sustainable neighborhood planning in Bedford Stuyvesant, which will also inform further planning and implementation by the Pratt Center for Community Development and others.
December 17, 2008
December 16, 2008
Urban typography and the legible city....
Visual clutter? Positively enticing. Profoundly interesting....
Urban typography and the legible city....
A Typographic Survey of the City of London from Michael Bojkowski on Vimeo.
Urban typography and the legible city....
A Typographic Survey of the City of London from Michael Bojkowski on Vimeo.
December 13, 2008
New York Housing Chief Is Chosen for Cabinet - NYTimes.com
We need an urbanist, not another technocrat or a bureaucrat.. at HUD... Over the past years, HUD has been a marginal player to effectively guide urban policy or projects... let alone housing. HUD is a good idea that didn't work... doesn't work. Specially now, with sustainability (green collar jobs?!) at t's core, urbanism needs to be redefined with housing foreclosures issue at one hand and unemployment/financial crisis at the other...
New York Housing Chief Is Chosen for Cabinet - NYTimes.com
New York Housing Chief Is Chosen for Cabinet - NYTimes.com
December 5, 2008
Why Do They Attack Particular Cities | Terrorist Attacks on Mumbai
Mumbai: A Divided City
I was in New York, not in Mumbai when terror struck that city over the past few days… I was in New York on 9-11 when terror struck New York, standing right next to Seven World Trade Center and still feel the terrifying vibrations under my feet when the first tower collapsed. I am separated by vast seas and muted grief from Mumbai but the events I watched live on my laptop and TV made me feel as I did on 9-11. Mumbai and New York are separated by the silence of that grief and the unspoken words: we feel the pain.
I am an architect in New York, and a world citizen with close ties to Mumbai. I belong to the same human tribe that inhabits this planet and calls one city home versus the others. We all have that dubious relationship with the city, others and ours. At times that relationship is a love affair and at other times, it is reproachful. I understand very well why that may be so, however, am at a loss when the latter is taken to extremes and cities are targeted for violence and are wounded. I understand, cities are symbolic of their political, social and economic structures and Mumbai is not an exception. Like every other city, Mumbai has its shortcomings, inequities and chaos. But it also has its vibrancy due to those dichotomies that produce tense dynamics. Then, there is the global context that defines Mumbai and New York like many other cities as ‘targets’, as sites of atrocities. On one hand, we as humans are better connected than ever before in the history of mankind, however, events like these reminds us of how far apart we are from each other.
Mumbai is a divided city, so is the world.
I was in New York, not in Mumbai when terror struck that city over the past few days… I was in New York on 9-11 when terror struck New York, standing right next to Seven World Trade Center and still feel the terrifying vibrations under my feet when the first tower collapsed. I am separated by vast seas and muted grief from Mumbai but the events I watched live on my laptop and TV made me feel as I did on 9-11. Mumbai and New York are separated by the silence of that grief and the unspoken words: we feel the pain.
I am an architect in New York, and a world citizen with close ties to Mumbai. I belong to the same human tribe that inhabits this planet and calls one city home versus the others. We all have that dubious relationship with the city, others and ours. At times that relationship is a love affair and at other times, it is reproachful. I understand very well why that may be so, however, am at a loss when the latter is taken to extremes and cities are targeted for violence and are wounded. I understand, cities are symbolic of their political, social and economic structures and Mumbai is not an exception. Like every other city, Mumbai has its shortcomings, inequities and chaos. But it also has its vibrancy due to those dichotomies that produce tense dynamics. Then, there is the global context that defines Mumbai and New York like many other cities as ‘targets’, as sites of atrocities. On one hand, we as humans are better connected than ever before in the history of mankind, however, events like these reminds us of how far apart we are from each other.
Mumbai is a divided city, so is the world.
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