Other
How to Map Nothing
Places Journal
Many pandemic maps depict the macro-scale forces that produced the “Great Pause.” What’s harder to show is all the something enabling that nothing, the pulsing activity powering the pause.
Viral Cities
Places Journal
How can cities prepare for a viral pandemic? An architect traces the links between urban design and public health, from the plagues of medieval Europe to the H1N1 outbreak.
Mind the Map
Places Journal
London recently updated its iconic map of the Underground and removed the River Thames. Big mistake.
The Future That Is Now
Places Journal
A leading academic reviews architecture education in North America during the past two decades of rapid social and technological change.
The Velvet Coffin
Places Journal
At this moment in national and world history, an empty cemetery felt correct as public space.
Burning Man and the Metropolis
Places Journal
How did a beach party in San Francisco mushroom into a week-long bacchanal — and temporary city — in the Nevada desert?
Mythologies of Placemaking
Places Journal
Designers and planners talk about “sense of place,” but this murky buzzword often serves to rally support for redevelopment projects that ignore deep patterns of local culture.
Portfolio: Uneasy Spaces
Places Journal
A New York City photographer focuses on what she calls “landscape of security.”
The Anti-Cairo
Places Journal
Egypt’s military regime is building a new capital city in the desert, where the “People’s Piazza” will be a pale shadow of Tahrir Square.
Urbanized
Places Journal
Ranging from Mumbai to Bogotá, from DIY design to Rem Koolhaas, a new documentary on cities is as kaleidoscopic as its subject.
Five Ways to Change the World
Places Journal
An idiosyncratic and partial guide to activism through architecture.
Designing Indian Country
Places Journal
Suppose Native America is not over, that there is no “after colonialism.” How do we create public spaces that enable true contact between cultures?