Cities of the World

Born of the desire to swim in new york city's rivers, '+pool', the world's first floating water-filtering aquatic facility, will be the largest publicly funded civic project ever.

Three new yorkers have worked with international engineering and design firms such as ARUP to create '+pool', the world's first recreational floating aquatic filtering facility. The layered structure is designed to purify river water, over a half million gallons daily.

Composed of four sections forming the '+', the program is designed to accommodate everyone -- children and adults, athletes and bathers alike. the project is finished 'tile by tile', where each block is inscribed with a name or personal message of a sponsor or group of sponsors who donate over 25 USD.

A number of design firms have drawn up plans for new a Penn Station and Madison Square Garden as part of campaign to rebuild the complex. Renowned studios SHoP Architects, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), Diller Scofidio + Renfro, and H3 were all asked to re-imagine the New York landmarks by the Municipal Art Society (MAS), a nonprofit that campaigns for, among other things, intelligent urban design and planning.

The most radical proposals came from Diller Sofidio + Renfro and SOM, who both submitted wildly complex designs. Their proposal, "Penn Station 3.0" aims to serve "commuters, office workers, fabricators, shoppers, foodies, culture seekers, and urban explorers," with a multi-level complex that's topped by a rooftop public garden. The concept separates out the fast-moving commuters, who are confined to the lowest level, and adds layers of stores, cafes, a spa, and even a theatre, in which people are able to move around at a more leisurely pace. The plan would also see Madison Square Garden relocate to sit alongside the Farley building on 8th Avenue.

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Despite improvements in air quality, four in 10 Americans still live where pollution levels are often dangerous to breathe.

There is no doubt that great strides have been made in air pollution in the U.S. Awareness, stricter legislation and improved technology have all contributed to improved air, land and water conditions. Despite the improvements, four in 10 Americans still live where pollution levels are often dangerous to breathe.

Since the American Lung Association began studying particle pollution, almost all of the most polluted cities have consistently remained among the worst. The ALA’s 2013 “State of the Air” report measures cities based on low-lying ozone pollution, as well as both short- and long-term particle pollution. Based on average long-term particle pollution figures collected between 2009 and 2011, 24/7 Wall St. identified the 10 most polluted cities in the country...

Santiago Chile announced they’re going to become a “smart city” in 2013, and is just one example of a growing number of areas around the globe preparing and modernizing for the future.

In fact demographers have long predicted the mass urbanization of metropolitan areas across the world. According to the United Nations, by the year 2050, 80% of the world will be living in urban areas. The equivalent of seven Manhattan size cities will be built each year until 2050. For these cities to thrive they must use smart technology to its fullest. Let’s take a look at what’s available now and what’s coming down the pipe...

From a solar mansion in China to a floating farm in New York, green buildings are sprouting up in cities around the world. Among their many benefits are curbing fossil-fuel use and reducing the urban heat island effect.

The Science Barge is a floating environmental education classroom and greenhouse on the Hudson River in New York. Fueled by solar power, wind, and biofuels, the barge, which was built in 2007, has zero carbon emissions.

Vegetables are grown hydroponically in an effort to preserve natural resources and adapt to urban environments, where healthy soil, or soil at all, is hard to come by. Rainwater and treated river water are used for irrigation.

The owner of the barge—New York Sun Works—designed it as a prototype for closed-loop and self-sufficient rooftop gardens in urban areas.

Visit the link for more examples of green urban projects and intiatives...

A conversation with the Arizona-based duo behind San Antonio's "Ballroom Luminoso," among other projects...

Joe O'Connell and Blessing Hancock are two Arizona-based artists who specialize in public art. But they're not the type to build your standard metal sculpture on a public plaza.

The duo operates a 14,000-square-foot fabrication facility in Tucson with 14 other artists, designers, engineers and craftspeople, making art out of fabricated metal, acrylic materials, LED lighting, and electronics.

Looking to find new ways for people to live and interact with art, O'Connell and Hancock create design pieces that help define the space they occupy and encourage interactivity. Their most recent project, "Ballroom Luminoso," debuted earlier this year under an elevated highway in San Antonio. Part of a neighborhood improvement plan, the project aims, through design, to bridge the physical boundary created by the I-10 highway, forming better connections between the different ethnicities and income levels in the area.

Resilience is the word of the decade, as sustainability was in previous decades. No doubt, our view of the kind and quality of cities we as societies want to build will continue to evolve and inspire a new descriptive goal. Surely we have not lost our desire for sustainable cities, with footprints we can globally and locally afford, even though our focus has rightly been on resilience, after what seems like a relentless drum beat of natural disasters around the world.

It speaks to the question: what is the city we want to create in the future? What is the city in which we want to live? Certainly that city is sustainable, since we want our cities to balance consumption and inputs to make a footprint that can last into the future. Certainly it is resilient, so our cities are still in existence after the next 100-year storm, now apparently due every few years.

And yet: as we build this vision we know that cities must also be livable. Indeed, we must view livability as the third indispensible—and arguably most important—leg supporting the cities of our dreams: resilient + sustainable + livable.

Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, dedicated to sustainable architecture, has imagined and designed city so compact that nothing is more than a 15-minute walk away.

Dubbed “Great City,” the prototype suggests a Chinese city that might be built in 2021 on the outskirts of Chengdu, a city in the southwest of Asia.

Taking up just 1.3 square miles and 320 acres, Great City could be home to 80,000 people. The project proposes that 15 per cent of the total acreage would be devoted to urban parks and green areas, 60 per cent to buildings and 25 per cent to roads and walkways.

To design the world’s first pedestrian-only city, the architects considered a massive transit centre where public transport would be concentrated...