Dec. 4, 2009
By Thomas J. Walsh
For PlanPhilly
Formal workshops between civic associations, CDCs, developers, city planners and members of the Zoning Code Commission will take place in January, backed by the Philadelphia chapter of the American Institute of Architects and with funding expected from the William Penn Foundation. FULL STORY HERE.
Nov. 4, 2009
By Thomas J. Walsh
For PlanPhilly
David Belt, at Community Design Collaborative; Oct. 30, 2009
“Just do it” and “easier to ask forgiveness than to ask permission” were the orders of the day from David Belt, the provocative guest speaker and designer from Brooklyn. Teams focused on schemes for Kensington and Chinatown, where plans are a couple years away.
Nov. 2, 2009
By Thomas J. Walsh
Siena's Piazza del Campo at night. October 2009.
For PlanPhilly
SIENA, Italy – It’s not the pizza; it’s the piazza that makes Italy Italy. The town center gathers and disperses. It is forever open, changing only with the centuries. A chip here and there, but on the whole, the same. And anybody up for some stickball?
Oct. 29, 2009
By Thomas J. Walsh
For PlanPhilly
With the public input phase of the Zoning Code Commission’s efforts to re-write the city’s antiquated zoning code well underway, architects, architecture critics and at least one developer took time Thursday to examine one possible aspect of the new code. It’s an idea that has been gaining momentum as well as a bit of controversy: a new Design Review Committee that would be a part of the city’s Planning Commission.
From PlanPhilly
Governor's Island, New York City
An “urban-planning Rorschach.” Wish we had thought of it first, regarding the re-do of Penn’s Landing. But here we’re referring to Nutten Island, a.k.a. Governors Island, a 172-acre anomaly in the mouth of New York Harbor profiled in the Aug. 31 issue of The New Yorker by writer Nick Paumgarten.
The place sounds less like our Petty’s Island than our Navy Yard, with its former off-limits-to-the-public nature, its stately old residences, ghost town ambiance, military bearing and location at the foot of the city between two rivers. It is a seven-minute ferry ride from the South Street Seaport or from Brooklyn – about the same amount of time it would take you to drive from Washington Avenue straight down Broad and into the Navy Yard.
Paumgarten has some interesting things to say about the designs in waiting, and the zeitgeist marrying green ambition with urban re-use, “the kinds that involve the clever transformation of dilapidated postindustrial wastelands or garbage dumps into useful and conscience-easing recreational space.”
© 2010 Thomas J. Walsh. All Rights Reserved.