Public Works: rethinking infrastructure
Library as Infrastructure
Places Journal
Reading room, social service center, innovation lab. How far can we stretch the public library?
State of the Commons
Places Journal
On Wikipedia, the digital commons, and the National Register of Historic Places.
Surface to Unlimited: A Visit to Spaceport America
Places Journal
Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, has long depended on tourism. Now spaceflight has been folded into its mythos, at the dawn of the Second Space Age.
Fracture Critical
Places Journal
Much U.S. infrastructure is “fracture critical” — vulnerable to catastrophic and systemic failure; so too are our finance, housing, and energy systems.
In Motion: The Experience of Travel
Places Journal
Can we redesign the commute? Tony Hiss poses provocative questions in his latest book.
The Infrastructural City
Places Journal
Los Angeles depends upon vast infrastructural systems that are breathtakingly complex, yet vulnerable to disruption, even disaster.
Roads to Rails
Places Journal
Laying out the math for a modern streetcar revival, supported by municipal investment in urban rail.
Thirsty City
Places Journal
An environmental historian assesses the massive infrastructure that brings water to the American West — and makes it possible to take a shower in Los Angeles.
Infrastructural Tourism
Places Journal
For decades tourists have marveled at monumental dams of the American West. These days they trace infrastructures like satellite communications and nuclear waste transport.
The Public Works
Places Journal
Why isn’t the Great Recession inspiring a new New Deal? Places’ editor argues that we no longer believe in public-sector solutions — or even in the public itself.
Notes Toward a History of Agrarian Urbanism
Places Journal
Architects like Frank Lloyd Wright, Ludwig Hilberseimer, and Andrea Branzi anticipated today’s interest in urban farming.
The Future of Mobility: Greening the Airport
Places Journal
The next generation of sustainable airport design will go beyond LEED certification to address the airfield within its metropolitan context.
The Past Is Promenade: On the High Line
Places Journal
The latest addition to New York’s public realm is neither city nor park nor movement infrastructure but a hybrid creature formed from all three: a slow corridor.
Working Public Architecture
Places Journal
Can we envision a contemporary counterpart to the New Deal? WPA 2.0 is an ambitious competition and symposium created by cityLab at UCLA.
Infrastructural Optimism
Places Journal
Learning from New Orleans, or why we really need a new New Deal.
Principles for Post-Industrial Public Works
Places Journal
Principles to guide the next generation of green infrastructure, from power networks to transportation systems to high-performance buildings.
After the Storm: Climate Change and Public Works
Places Journal
The accelerating crisis of climate change suggests a newly intensified political agenda for design activism.
Is This Place Great or What
Places Journal
Dark stores, empty big boxes, and ghost malls are the collateral consumer damage of the great recession.
Road Ecology: Wildlife Habitat and Highway Design
Places Journal
The emerging field of road ecology will define the next generation of highway design.
The City and the Sea
Places Journal
The landscape and politics of New York City after Hurricane Sandy.
The New Public Landscapes of Governors Island
Places Journal
A leading landscape architect shares his vision for a big new public park in New York Harbor.
Public and Common(s)
Places Journal
A philosophical view of the terms public and commons, from the 20th-century treatises of Hannah Arendt and Jurgen Habermas to recent books by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri.
Seattle Central Library: Civic Architecture in the Age of Media
Places Journal
In the Seattle Public Library, Rem Koolhaas and OMA work to transform architecture into media interface.