December 29, 2011
As Manhattan grows and progresses, change, with regard to building performance, is inevitable. Many newly constructed buildings uphold sustainable standards from the start; yet, the city is overwhelming settled with existing structures that need some upgrading – case in point, the retrofit project of the Empire State building that will cut energy usage by close to 40% and carbon emissions by over 100,000 metric tons over the next 15 years. As the city tries to put its greenest face forward by retrofitting older buildings and adding sustainable features, zoning laws from the 1960s did not account for, and thus, in some cases do not allow, such changes.
Architecture News | ArchDaily, page 748 archdaily.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from archdaily.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Architecture News | ArchDaily, page 772 archdaily.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from archdaily.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
June 01, 2012
A community in Treasure Hill, in Taiwan, originally slated for demolition, but then preserved as a site for Urban Agriculture. Photo via e-architect.
Earlier this month, The New York Times’ Michael Kimmelman tackled a common narrative in the architecture and urban planning community. It goes like this: once upon a time, in the 1990s, Medellín, Colombia, was the “murder of the capital of the world.” Then thoughtful architectural planning connected the slums to the city. Crime rates plummeted and, against the odds, the city was transformed.
Well, yes and no.
What happened in Medellín is often called “Urban Acupuncture,” a way of planning that pinpoints vulnerable sectors of a city and re-energizes them through design intervention. But Kimmelman reports that while the city has made considerable strides in its commitment to long-term, urban renewal, it has prioritized huge, infrastructural change over smaller solutions that could truly address community need