Articles

Suzanne H. Crowhurst Lennard

The Matadouro, Porto’s nineteenth century slaughterhouse, abandoned for 40 years, lies between the inner ring road east of the city and one of the poorest neighborhoods, Campanhã. It is a very large site, comprising 29,000 square meters, and encompassing 15 interconnected industrial buildings in the classical style. The Matadouro has been designated a Property of Heritage Interest and is being reinvented as a social, cultural and business center to revitalize Campanhã.

Suzanne H. Crowhurst Lennard

One of the best mixed-use new urban neighborhoods ever built, Tübingen’s French Quarter and Loretto (often referred to simply as the French Quarter), is hardly known outside Germany. While Freiburg’s Vauban and Rieselfeld have received praise in the English speaking planning literature, almost nothing has been published about the French Quarter, despite a comprehensive book in German by the planner in charge, Andreas Feldtkeller¹. This is a great loss for us because it represents an outstanding model of true urbanism. I had the opportunity this fall to revisit the development for the first time in 20 years, and to talk again with Andreas Feldtkeller.

By Suzanne H. Crowhurst Lennard

The Superblock Program is a Barcelona version of area-wide traffic calming found in many Northern European cities, but here in Barcelona it has been tailored to the grid street layout introduced by Cerda in the nineteenth century. Janet Sanz, Deputy Mayor for Ecology, Urbanism and Mobility, will be a keynote speaker on Improving Barcelona’s Physical and Social Health through the Superblock Program at the 54^th IMCL Conference in Santa Fe in October. She will also receive the IMCL City of Vision Award on behalf of Mayor Ada Colau and Barcelona City Council for their work on the Superblocks.

By Suzanne H. Crowhurst Lennard

STRATEGIES FOR INCREASING THE URBAN FOREST

Parks are not the only way to increase the number of trees in the city, and the access to green areas. And indeed, the concept of the park – where it is, how large, what shape, and whether wild or cultivated - needs a little rethinking. Urban waterways, green streets, green buildings, community gardens also provide strategies for increasing the urban forest and access to nature.

On the final morning of the 52nd IMCL Conference, participants and speakers were invited to participate in a Workshop to draw up a concise list of the most important Principles for each of the following elements of Achieving Green, Healthy Cities. Here are their findings:

Pope Francis’ Encyclical is a profound, wise and visionary letter to us all. It is SO relevant for all of us who are concerned with making our cities healthy, just, green, and livable.

By Michael Mehaffy
January 2, 2015

Here is a website that offers a remarkably revealing demonstration of how cities (in this case in the USA) have changed over 60 years.  You can drag the "wipe line" back and forth to make detailed comparisons:

By Kai Bates – IMCL Urban Design Consultant

A recent report on the Landscape Architects Network about a beautiful pop-up beer garden in Philadelphia and a healthy dose of spring weather got us thinking about all of the wonderful beer gardens we have seen around the world. So, we thought it would be fun to put together a little celebration of beer gardens, including their history, some of the best examples, and what their key design elements and benefits are.

By Suzanne H. Crowhurst Lennard, Ph.D.(Arch.), Director, IMCL

For decades, the significance of public urban places and their role in facilitating public life was ignored by those responsible for shaping the modern city. It was only when cities all over the world were inundated by cars and threatened by the loss of the public realm, that the subject was rediscovered by scholars, political leaders and professionals in Europe and North America.[1]

By Suzanne H. Crowhurst Lennard, Ph.D.(Arch.), Director, IMCL

The rapid profusion of high-rise investment condos around the world is widening the gap between rich and poor and leading to a worldwide housing bubble, according to economists.

Global billionaires are demanding sky-high properties as safe real estate investments to store their surplus dollars. As of March, 2014, New York still looks attractive to investors. As Jonathan J. Miller of the real estate appraisal firm Miller Samuel explained in the New York Times on November 4th, 2013, “We’re building the equivalent of bank safe deposit boxes in the sky that buyers can put all their valuables in and rarely visit.”

By Kai Bates – IMCL Urban Design Consultant

In May 2007, the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, announced that the city would be implementing a city-wide low-emission zone (LEZ) that would take effect in February of 2008. The initial plan was to use cameras to photograph license plates of trucks and buses to check whether or not they met European emission standards. Any vehicles found to be in violation would receive a £200 (~$331) fine.

“When colors came out everywhere, a mood of change started transforming the spirit of the people … People started to drop less litter in the streets. They started to pay taxes. They started to feel something they’d forgotten … Beauty was giving people a feeling of being protected. This was not a misplaced feeling — crime did fall.”

In November 2012, architect George Ferguson CBE PPRIBA RWA became the first independent mayor to lead a major city in Britain. He has a bold and innovative vision for his city, and a passion to make Bristol healthy and livable for all.

Finally, talks are beginning on moving the 15-story cruise ships away from Venice’s Piazza San Marco and out of the shallow waters of the lagoon. These floating behemoths loom over Basilica San Marco, giving passengers a sense that Venice, “La Serenissima” is a Lilliputian city spread out for their pleasure. Meanwhile, the draft below water of these 40,000 tonnage cruise ships has forced the Venetian Port Authority to dredge a 10 meter (33’) deep canal across the lagoon to accommodate them.

Shannon McElvaney is the Global Industry Manager of Community Development at Esri, a sponsor of the recent 50th International Making Cities Livable Conference. Shannon is also the author of GeoDesign: Case Studies in Urban and Regional Planning.

Originally published on PlannersWeb by Editor Wayne Senville

Wikipedia Definition:

A road verge, (also verge, boulevard, city grass, devil’s strip, nature strip, parking strip, sidewalk buffer, tree belt, tree lawn, utility strip, parkway, etc.) is a narrow strip of grass or plants and sometimes also trees located between the carriageway (roadway) curb (or road surface edge or shoulder) and the boundary (right-of-way line) of a road.

The land is often public property with maintenance usually being a municipal responsibility; however some municipal authorities require that abutting property owners maintain these areas and also sidewalks.

By Katrina Johnston-Zimmerman

The suburban history of the last century in the United States can actually be said to be relatively short. It wasn’t until after the second World War that automobiles were more widely available and the suburbs became the standard for the “American Dream”. Since then, several developments have appeared which have worked to shape this dominant paradigm on how we live and work.

Constance Beaumont is the Education and Outreach Coordinator at The Transportation and Growth Management Program (TGM), a partnership between the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) and the Department for Land Conservation and Development (DLCD). In this interview she speaks for TGM but also provides her own valuable insight into the many ways we can make cities healthier and more livable for everyone.

Many urban spaces exist in a sort of public/private grey area. They may be technically public, such as an intersection or a parking space on the street used temporarily by a private car, or technically private, such as that stretch of lawn between the sidewalk and street that an adjacent homeowner is tasked with maintaining. A variety of innovative ideas have popped up to challenge these technicalities.

We have become so accustomed to the 20^th century mantra that children need to grow up in suburbia that many would never consider raising a child downtown. Now we know inherent flaws in suburban planning – distances, dangerous streets, monotonous single function zoning, etc – make suburbia unhealthy for children. It is time to reconsider raising children downtown.

Suzanne H. Crowhurst Lennard, Ph.D. (Arch.)

This diagram, suggesting that Singapore is one of the densest and one of the most livable cities in the world, has put the cat among the pigeons and stirred up a frenzied debate. But what does it really show? Firstly, what are they measuring along the “liveability” scale? Is it standard of living, or quality of life? How are the comparable city densities measured, and over what area? Density and high-rise are not the same. Are we supposed to deduce that Singapore, with its tight clusters of inter-connected 50+story high-rise residential towers, should be the model for all future cities desirous of livability? Should Singapore be awarded the crown as the most livable dense city in the world?

The Social Housing district Z.E.N. in Palermo, today re-named “San Filippo Neri”, despite the great name of its architect – Vittorio Gregotti – is sadly famous as one of the most dangerous and “criminogenic” neighbourhoods in Italy.

In early 2011, inspired by the debate about a project I had developed for the Urban Regeneration Quarter Corviale in Rome, a group of people in Palermo asked me to hold a conference on that project in their city. Their goal was to raise awareness about what appears to be a topic of great interest in the world today: namely the replacement of degraded suburbia with "biophilic" neighbourhoods, respectful of people and the environment, thus avoiding the reiteration of the previous forty years’ mistakes.

The City of Freiburg is often called Germany's "ecological capital" and has been recognized internationally as one of the world’s most livable, sustainable and child-friendly cities. In 1993, IMCL awarded the City of Freiburg the IMCL City of Vision Award. Since then, Freiburg has received numerous awards for its leadership in sustainable transportation planning, promotion of walking and biking, traffic calming mechanisms, human scale mixed-use development, renewable energy, protection of nature, and sustainability.

The IMCL Healthy Communities Urban Plazas Award was presented to landscape architect, Deane Rundell[i] at a ceremony on Main Street Square, Rapid City, SD on Saturday, August 25, in the midst of a festive program of events. The day started with a market in the alley, guitar concert, children’s dance group, and after lunch came a Western music band, a Celebrity Cook-out Competition, beer and wine stalls, and another band that played into the evening.

Suzanne H. Crowhurst Lennard, Ph.D. (Arch.)

It is common today to talk about health only in terms of physical health. The “Active Living” program is often considered the solution to all health problems. In fact, even as cities enact “Active Living” programs to solve obesity, they discover the programs are ineffectual if the society is fragmented or the individual is marginalized. Social health is the foundation for physical health. This has serious implications for planning and urban design. A healthy city must have a healthy "social immune system".

I base my vision of cities on a theory, and this theory proposes that a city is like a human being. The health of a human being is based on balances, and that is true of the city as well. If those balances are distorted then the city will not be healthy. Most of us saw that happening in the United States.

Every livable city has its own unique character that is expressed in its architecture and arrangement of streets and open places. It is not inappropriate to propose the metaphor that the livable city, like every living thing, has a genetic code, or a DNA structure.

Ecuador is launching a visionary project to revitalize social life and economic vitality by restoring 35 historic plazas. At a recent three-day workshop in Ibarra, over 100 representatives from municipalities throughout Ecuador gathered to hear from Ecuadorian and international experts about the history and significance of the plaza, the social, cultural and economic functions it serves, physical aspects of successful plazas, and how artistic interventions through community participation can catalyze social networks and community identity.

Suzanne H. Crowhurst Lennard
Henry L. Lennard

Henry L Lennard

"Love... is the feeling that impels us to seek the companionship of our fellows, and the actions of love are all the things we do in the attempt to share our joys and griefs with others." (De Crescenzo)

Suzanne Lennard, Director of Making Cities Livable, was interviewed on Channel News Asia while she was in Singapore to speak at the World Cities Summit.

We have reached a major turning point in city-making! 

On September 18 – 20, 2002 the first Conference on “The European Square” was held at Schloss Mirabell in Salzburg, Austria with the participation of mayors, councilors, planning directors, professors of architecture, planning and social sciences from twenty-two countries.