panmesa: everyone brings something to the table

"The time of the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves! Banish the word struggle from your attitude and your vocabulary. All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for." - Hopi Elders

[hifructosemag]

French artist Astro takes flat urban surfaces and creates passageways into the void. Using shadows and light, calligraphy-inspired designs and winding curves, the artist’s optical illusions are made for public consumption. More on HiFructose.com.

[publicartfund]

We love seeing how other cities use public art. 

[architectureandfilmblog]

“An advanced city is not a place where even the poor move about in cars, rather it’s where even the rich use public transportation

Enrique Penalosa

CITIES ON SPEED: BOGOTA CHANGE (2009)

[humanscalecities]

DEMOCRATIC BY DESIGN How Carsharing, Co-ops and Community Land Trusts Are Reinventing America Gabriel Metcalf

Americans have, since our founding, participated in a variety of alternative institutions–self-organized projects that work outside the traditional structures of government and business to change society. From the town meetings that still serve as our ideal of self-governance, to the sustainable food movement that is changing the way we think about farming the land and feeding our families, these secondary structures have given rise to many of our most exciting and important innovations. Yet most people still know little about them, even as their numbers and their influence increase. In today’s climate of widespread economic inequity, political gridlock and daunting environmental challenges, we sorely need a fresh approach to social and political change. In Democratic by Design, Gabriel Metcalf sketches out a strategy that starts with small-scale, living examples of a better society that can ultimately scale up to widespread social transformation. Using examples like car-sharing organizations, community land trusts, credit unions, workers co-ops, citizen juries, community-supported agriculture farms, mission-driven corporations, and others, Democratic by Design shows how alternative institutions can be the crucial spark for a broad new progressive movement.

[dezeen]

Naturalist exhibition in Russia aims to reconnect city dwellers with nature »

[sprawlnation]

These Parks Are Reclaiming Ugly Urban Underpasses as Public Space

Manhattan’s rails-to-trails High Line sparked a global trend of turning old transit infrastructure into parks. But a new breed of public spaces aren’t waiting for the transportation around them to stop running—they’re transforming the ground below the still-active elevated tracks.

[mas-studio]

From 1975-1980 Activist Adam Purple Built a Circular Urban Garden in New York that 'Knocked Down' the Surrounding Buildings

Still from Adam Purple and the Garden of Eden / Harvey Wang and Amy Brost In 1975, artist and social activist Adam Purple, known for his permanent purple attire, looked out his window in the crime-ridden Lower East Side of New York City to witness two children playing in a pile of rubble. Struck

(Still from Adam Purple and the Garden of Eden / Harvey Wang and Amy Brost)

In 1975, artist and social activist Adam Purple, known for his permanent purple attire, looked out his window in the crime-ridden Lower East Side of New York City to witness two children playing in a pile of rubble. Struck by his own memories of a childhood spent barefoot in rural pastures and forests in Missouri, he suddenly wished these children could feel the dirt beneath their own feet in a safe, debris-free environment. Almost immediately he began work on the Garden of Eden. (Colossal)

Adam Purple and The Garden of Eden from Harvey Wang on Vimeo.

[nextcityorg]

A Radical Design Movement Is Growing in New Orleans

What happens when activists, architects and artists team up to change their city?

City zoning that supports fair housing is boring. Very few people want to jump into a casual conversation about the best way to manage blight or reduce verbal street harassment. Unless you’re with friends, it’s next to impossible for a discussion about Confederate monuments or race and policing to become anything but inflammatory. (If you need evidence of that, refer to the comments section below any online article attempting to deal with those topics.) Yet these issues of urban justice can’t be left to trolls, or even politicians, to hash out — not if we want to see progress in our cities. Change will only come as a result of public awareness, dialogue and, ultimately, political pressure.

So, the question becomes a simple one: How do we get people to pay attention?

https://nextcity.org/features/view/urban-design-activism-socially-engaged-art-design-as-protest

[extramadness]

More quotes here

[solarpunks]

Art Students Transform an Electrical Tower into a Stained Glass Lighthouse

Back in 2010, a trio of art students from Klasse Löbbert in Germany took it upon themselves to transform a boring electrical tower into a translucent, stained glass installation. Titled Leuchtturm (Lighthouse) the urban artwork in Hattingen, Germany was conceived by Ail Hwang, Hae-Ryan Jeong and

More grist for your “beautiful infrastructure” mills.

[hyperallergic]

Every year near the start of fall, huts pop up around New York City for a week to serve as temporary places of gathering for practicing Jews. These sukkahs are built during the religious holiday of Sukkot, and while many New Yorkers likely encounter them, few actually enter the spaces, which are traditionally used for families to sleep or eat in. This year during Sukkot, a vibrant, mobile sukkah will traverse New York City’s five boroughs, inviting anyone — regardless of religious affiliation — to step inside and experience a moment of tranquility. Artists Danielle Durchslag and Ryan Frank, who make up Assembly Required, have created “A Wandering Sukkah,” a custom-designed, sculptural sukkot standing tall in the bed of a truck that is now visiting various sites around the city, open to all who wish to enter.

Step Inside New York’s Wandering Sukkah

[sunlitrevolution]

HOW TO MAKE AN ATTRACTIVE CITY

We do often talk and discuss what good design principles for cities should look like. But we often get lost in details and visions. Maybe we are feeding more our brains instead of the needs of people which are living in those places. Watch that following clip by the “The school of life” and get inspired especially to become more an active part in your community for getting things done right in the way of creating urban areas of pleasure instead of monotony.

[oahficw]

Øya Bygård was a mini farm open between August 12th and 15th at Norway’s largest music festival. As well as music, the festival has environmental and sustainable food leanings, resulting in the creation of this spot “for people to hang out and enjoy their food.” The farm was more than just a biodegradable cafe, hosting installations representing and explaining the ecological cycle, as well as expert workshops on the topic of food production. 

[humanscalecities]

Design, When Everybody Designs. An Introduction to Design for Social Innovation By Ezio Manzini

[sunlitrevolution]

Growing Together: Seattle Food Forest Is a Beacon of Hope

Seattle’s Beacon Food Forest has inspired the surrounding community and rehabilitated the local ecosystem. As it expands, America’s first edible urban forest brings members of the richly diverse neighborhood of Beacon Hill together as they have connected through growing and sharing food with one another.

The Beacon Food Forest started in 2009 as a final design project for a permaculture design course. The 7-acre site is located in the Beacon Hill neighborhood to the west of Jefferson Park, 2.5 miles from downtown Seattle. According to Beacon Food Forest’s site, “A food forest is a gardening technique or land management system, which mimics a woodland ecosystem by substituting edible trees, shrubs, perennials and annuals.”

[startwithaseed]

Fruit trees produce food, but also provide shade, keep greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere, improve water quality and may even deter crime. Advocates say they also have a longer lasting impact on communities than vegetable beds. 

“When you plant lettuce, you produce food for today, which is great, but when you plant a tree, you’re feeding people tomorrow,” says Nina Beth Cardin, director of the Baltimore Orchard Project, a program of the Baltimore non-profit Civic Works. The orchard project has planted thousands of apple, serviceberry, pawpaw, fig and pear trees on public and private land around Baltimore. City officials, striving to meet a goal of increasing the city’s tree canopy, have been providing starter trees to Cardin’s group, which in turn helps churches and schools plant and learn to maintain fruit trees.

[startwithaseed]

(via Urban Food Forests Make Fruit Free For The Picking | 90.5 WESA)

[alexinsd]

People from across America gather in DC this fall to proclaim walking as human right.

We may think of it as a slow activity, but travel by foot is quickly being recognized as an effective prescription for health, a convenient means of transportation, a great way to meet people, a smart strategy for saving money and a lot of fun.

[stadslente]

Daan Roosegaarde bicycle path is made of thousands glowing stones inspired by the painting ‘Starry Night’ from Vincent van Gogh. The path charges at daytime and glows at night. Here innovation and cultural heritage are combined in the city of Nuenen NL, the place where Van Gogh lived in 1883. Giving new means to the term ‘street art’…