Urban planning is one of those things people don't realize they can relate to. Everybody understands cities, so why can't they understand how they are planned? Well, there's really no reason. Urban planners -- steeped in the inner workings of the urban world -- probably aren't the best to try to communicate this idea. So bring in the artists.
Art
The Art of Civic Engagement
In Starksboro, Vermont, planners are using storytelling and community art projects to get at the heart of what matters to residents.
Burlington Free Press
What To Do With Unused Phone Booths
This project offers a new idea about how to make use of dead phone booths.
Blade Diary
New Topographics
A photography show in 1975 is credited with changing the way artists looked at landscape, shifting towards looking at the built environment with a less romantic viewpoint. The original show is back on tour and opens at the LA County Museum of Art.
artinfo.com
The Role of Artists in the Creation of Public Space
Public space plays an important role in cities. Essential to creating good public spaces, according to this commentary from The Nation, is the art community.
The Nation
Friday Funny: Suburban Fantasies
With names like Aspen Grove and Sunrise Park, you might mistake these suburb designs for the real thing. But something's not quite right in artist Ross Racine's birds-eye views of imaginary suburbs.
The Infrastructurist
Digital Experiences in Public Spaces On the Rise
The rise of smart mobile technology is increasing the demand for digital interactivity in public spaces. Marketers and artists are obliging.
Advertising Age
Stepping Forward on Abu Dhabi's Art Island
Construction is underway on Saadiyat Island. The atoll off the coast of Abu Dhabi is seen by developers as a new artistic oasis in the middle east. But some question whether the plan will pay off.
Telegraph
Building Communities With Legos and Plastic Bottles
GOOD Magazine follows planner James Rojas as he engages a community in the act of planning in his own particular fashion, using everyday objects and building blocks.
GOOD Magazine
The Burgeoning Art Center of Africa
Cape Town, South Africa is developing into the cultural center of the continent, according to this piece from Travel + Leisure.
Travel + Leisure
A Musical Experiment in Public Space
This piece looks at a public art project that placed 30 pianos in public places throughout London in an effort to encourage more public interaction.
The New York Times
St. Louis Opens New Art Park
Two vacant lots in downtown St. Louis have been revived as an urban art park, featuring works by world-renowned artists.
ArchNewsNow
A Blueprint for the Arts in Salt Lake
Part of a new master plan for Salt Lake County includes prescriptions for new cultural and arts sites distributed throughout the county, providing a blueprint for creating a network of cultural hubs within and around Salt Lake City.
The Salt Lake Tribune
Rebirth Through Art in Abandoned Detroit
This piece from NPR looks at what artists are doing in Detroit to snatch up abandoned homes and convert them into community centers and art spaces.
NPR
Miami Transformed By Art Festivals
This article from the Miami Herald looks at the annual art fair Art Basel and how it transforms the city -- temporarily and permanently.
The Miami Herald
Architectural Mashups
Belgian photographer Filip Dujardin combines photos of wildly different buildings into new constructions of impossible architecture.
BLDBLOG
Searching for Subversion in Boston
Sun, 09/28/2008 - 11:29
I've always wanted, but never quite had the cred, to go to Burning Man. Instead, I went to this year's rendition of National Park(ing) Day
in the hopes that it would provide a reasonable, if diminuative, substitute in temporary
parks across the country. Creative minds can do a lot with 180 square
feet, especially when there are straight-laced passers-by to shock and
paradigms to subvert.
Underwriting Fun
Tue, 05/22/2007 - 11:23
“We underwrite fun,” says Naomi McCleary, Manager of arts for the Waitakere City Council, one of the municipalities that make up the Auckland (New Zealand) metropolitan region. She is referring to the practice of involving artists in the thinking and creation of public places, buildings, streets, bridges; they take an equal seat at the table from conception to completion. According to Ms. McCleary, the results are remarkable. Fun is a partner of beauty and happiness, it is a means toward the creation of objects and places that are beautifully usable. Around the world it is possible to find municipalities that are underwriting this kind of fun, but for every found opportunity, we have several more that are lost.
