#urban-design

#urban-design

The project will stitch new housing, ground-floor retail and artist space into a canalfront esplanade, with about a quarter of the apartments locked in as permanently affordable.

Hotels are no longer just places to lay one's head. They've become multifunctional environments comprising an ever-expanding set of services, catering to different types of clientele.

The selected proposal was described by the jury as 'exemplary,' highlighting its capacity to balance formal clarity with sensitivity to context while establishing a dialogue with the existing Sainsbury Wing.

Cyclist Jake Missen branded the redesigned stretch of Bedford Avenue 'an absolute warzone,' emphasizing the dangers cyclists now face as they navigate between parked cars and fast-moving traffic.

Cambridge, Massachusetts, ranked first in Niche.com's annual rankings for healthiest places in the U.S., excelling in health care access, environmental quality, and community feedback.

The design team combined the requirements for an accessible bridge and a small pavilion into a single structure, creating a unified architectural gesture that supports both movement and gathering.

The project took six years from initial strategy to completion, with the design evolving from form-first to function-driven, and finally to a moderately diversified approach.

Prada has unveiled new scaffolding on its building, currently undergoing renovation, that covers its facade in rippling layers of semitransparent Prada-green scrim paper. The result is a beautifully nuanced design solution that turns what's typically a functional safety requirement into a moiré urban dreamscape that becomes a visual extension of Prada's brand.

Singapore has a special way of blending old traditions with modern life, especially evident in its historic neighborhoods like Chinatown, Little India, and Kampong Glam. There, colorful shophouses, temples, and mosques sit alongside cafes and boutiques, while long-standing food and craft traditions remain part of daily life.

A bench in Bristol installed facing a brick wall has aroused local curiosity why put it there? BBC West commented that it joined other perversely placed seating: a bench in Shirehampton facing a derelict building and one in Wedmore facing a hedge. Bristol city council explained that when it plants a planned tree, the bench will provide a shady spot to rest on a steep hill, but promised to review the placement.

This past week in New York City, fifteen inches of snow fell and more than twenty-two hundred snowplows pushed it away. Twelve thousand miles of sidewalk were shovelled. Two hundred and nine million pounds of salt were spread, and, after it got really bad, two hundred thousand gallons of calcium chloride, a chemical ice melt, were deployed. Sometimes the work you do leaves its mark; sometimes it doesn't.

Across this week's broader architecture news landscape, a central theme emerges around the advancement of civic architecture conceived as open, publicly engaged infrastructure, with cultural and institutional projects increasingly designed to strengthen their relationship with the city and everyday urban life. At the same time, renewed global attention turns toward Africa, where large-scale transport infrastructure and the conservation of modernist landmarks reflect interests in the region and the reassessment of the continent's architectural heritage.

In an attempt to assuage concerns that the proposed four-story building to replace the shuttered Western Plywood warehouse at 2600 Harrison Street in the Mission is incompatible with the "design, scale and mass" of the neighborhood, Kerman Morris Architects has redesigned the project. The new design reduces the street-level wall along Harrison, includes a more open Production, Distribution & Repair (PDR) space, and adds an area with benches and raised planters along the street.

Unlike most popular sports, the origin of basketball has a precise year and creator: it was invented in 1891 in the United States by Canadian physical education instructor James Naismith as an indoor sport for athletes at Springfield College during the winter, after the end of the football season. The sport quickly expanded beyond U.S. borders, being included in the Olympic Games in 1936 and achieving international popularity after the Second World War.

Text description provided by the architects. In the heart of Marmilla, architect Martino Picchedda transforms the village's main entrance into a poetic urban threshold. The design evokes the timeless forms of the Giants' Tombs while celebrating the Sardinian landscape's identity through corten steel, local stone, and light. Here, history and contemporary design converge, creating a welcoming space that tells the story of place and people.

Jiaxing High-Speed Rail New Town Cultural Center sits at a key node in the city's water and landscape network, with open waterfronts to the north and west and major roads to the south and east. Conceived as the City Living Room and Eye of the Town, it anchors the community core, surrounded by residences, schools, and the hospital. It aims to provide the public with a high-quality, all-day accessible experience.

It's hard to think of two more fundamental social needs than a) not being forced to relieve yourself on the street and b) not having other people relieve themselves on the street yet the public toilet is an ignored and vanishing public amenity. The British Toilet Association reports that 40% of public toilets have closed since 2000 Victorian facilities in particular attract developers, not least because their dignified buildings endure: solidly built, centrally located and still embedded in the daily flow of the city.

Coming Together features examples from more than 60 U.S. cities, both large and small, highlighting lessons learned and opportunities embraced in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic as communities adapt to lasting changes in work, housing, mobility, entertainment, and recreation. The exhibition is currently open to the public and will remain on view through Fall 2026.

My hope is that this new community building and George Street public plaza will become a cherished destination in Sydney's city center, a generative place for people to connect, recharge, reflect, and take a pause from the rhythm of a fast-transforming city.

Like many American cities, the streetscape in downtown Brooklyn was for a long time very heavy on the street: a great place to park a car or drive through. But over the past 20 years, the area itself has gone from being a 9-to-5 shopping and business district to one where a growing number of people live 24-7. Since 2004, more than 22,000 housing units have been added to the neighborhood, changing its character so much that its old streetscape just wasn't cutting it.