Paris, France

From November to the start of January, Paris lives up to its name as the city of light, illuminating one of the most famous streets in the world, the Champs-Elysées, as well as other notable public spaces.

New York City

Holiday markets in New York City have become increasingly popular. One of the best known ones is the Union Square Holiday Market near 14th Street and Fourth Avenue in Manhattan. Individual craft vendors dot the northern part of Union Square Park with cutesy booths. The market itself was the brainchild Urbanspace, an English-turned-New-York street market cultivator that has launched many specialized public markets across New York City boroughs. Their newest seasonal market addition this year was in the Garment District with sidewalk vendors on Broadway.

Stockholm, Sweden

Stortorget, the oldest square in Stockholm, is renowned for its annual Christmas market. Although it had started to snow, people continued to enjoy the stalls of crafts and food, which lined the public square located in Gamla Stan, the oldest part of the city.  

Copenhagen, Denmark

Strøget, is one of the longest pedestrian-oriented and car-free retail streets in Europe. Along the 1.1km street, holiday lights and decorative garland add a little color to the wintery days, complementing the ornate architecture.

Melbourne, Australia

One of several public spaces around Melbourne decorated for the holidays, this former industrial railway bridge in Docklands was converted into a striking shared pedestrian and bicycle bridge some years ago, and this year, features red, white and green baubles above.

Évora, Portugal

In the city of Évora in Portugal, a few years ago, the central square, Praça do Giraldo, held a fun community event, displaying Christmas trees made by locals from recycled materials.

Seattle

Several public spaces in Seattle feature holiday decorations this year, including: the Christmas tree and Macy’s Holiday Star outside of Westlake Center, which involved a public lighting ceremony and live performances a few weeks ago; Westlake Park has a carousel, live music, food trucks, and a winter village until January 1st; and at Pike Place Market, fun decorations are integrated into the awnings.

We invite you to share your photos of interesting decorations and events in public spaces on social media. Tag us on Instagram (@urbanistorg) and Twitter (@urbanistorg).

Happy holidays from all of us at The Urbanist!

The post Fridaygram: Happy Holidays first appeared on The Urbanist.

In 1852, the parcel of parkland in question had been given to the Illinois Central Railroad in exchange for the construction of a breakwater on Lake Michigan. This resulted in the construction of expansive tracks between Chicago’s lakefront and downtown. Considering this an “eyesore”, Mayor Daley sought its transformation, regaining the property for the City. A not-for-profit, Millennium Park, Inc, was established to fundraise for the park’s planning and construction. The park’s development was not without controversy, with the initial plan for a 16 acre landscaped space to be above a parking garage that would help to finance $120 million that would be coupled with $30 million in private donations, to ensure no costs to taxpayers. Instead, a 24.5-acre parkland was developed for $490 million (with $95 million estimated to be tax money) and opened to the public four years after the millennium. Despite the additional time and cost, the park has become one of the top attractions in Chicago and has been a catalyst for the surrounding area, boosting real estate values and tourism revenue by billions of dollars.

The park comprises a series of spaces, including performance venues, art and sculpture, architecture and landscapes, which offer different experiences. The park supports the cultural life of the city with countless free events and monumental public art installations that create a focal point and foster interaction. Cloud Gate by Anish Kapoor is a magnet for visitors, with the enormous polished stainless steel sculpture uniquely reflecting the skyline and surrounding people. The two fifty-foot tall towers of Crown Fountain by Jaume Plensa is rather surreal, incorporating the faces of Chicagoans on a LED screen, who every so often, spit water from their mouths. Lurie Garden is a peaceful 5-acre space with more than one hundred perennial plants, enclosed by a high hedge. There is also an ice rink, a cycle center, and Millennium Station below. The Jay Pritzker Pavilion by world-renowned architect Frank Gehry provides a striking setting for music festivals and performances. The BP Bridge, is a winding pedestrian bridge which crosses Columbus Drive to connect with Grant Park, also by Frank Gehry, and designed to mitigate the impact of traffic noise on the park.

The park is a unique gathering space for residents and one of the biggest tourist attractions in Chicago. The transformation of the site for public parkland reflects Chicago’s efforts to revitalize dilapidated urban spaces.

The post Fridaygram: From Railway Yards and Dilapidated Parking Lots to Millennium Park first appeared on The Urbanist.

These photos are from a recent visit to Japan show the kind of variety and interesting shopping experiences that can be had in even a single one of these streets. Walking any single Shotengai street can vary greatly in architecture, surface paving, type of overhead weather protection (or lack thereof), and surrounding connected buildings. It’s also not too uncommon for an existing Shotengai to be attached to a Western-style mall.

Unsurprisingly, Shotengai shopping arcades frequently exhibit a wider variety of shopping options than the average shopping mall. It’s common to find fresh food vendors of all kinds like bakeries, butchers, fish markets, and vegetables. But they also have a wealth of other retail and service options to choose from like gambling establishments, game centers, restaurants, and even book stores. Besides that, Shotengai noticeably have a lot more independent shops and fewer chain stores. And though chain stores do exist, the don’t dominate like they do in Western shopping malls.

In a way, these shopping arcades are reminiscent of old downtowns and main streets that used to exist throughout the United States before the rapid shift to shopping centers and big box chain stores in the last half of the 20th century. If we want to bring back pedestrian-oriented shopping to more parts of our country, shopping experiences similar to this would not be a bad place to start.

The post Fridaygram: Japanese Shotengai first appeared on The Urbanist.

The focus on transforming the prized real-estate of a car parking space into a park for people to enjoy prompts us to consider the amount of space reserved for storing stationary cars, which could otherwise serve different purposes. The transformed spaces showcase community creativity to add color, life, and interest to the street, whilst also promoting participation in temporary forms of city design.

Today over 50 localities have transformed spaces for PARK(ing) Day across Seattle offering diverse experiences. Here is a snapshot of some of the PARK(ing) Day spaces in Ballard today. 

Seattle Urban Farm Company – 5307 Ballard Ave NW

The Seattle Urban Farm Company transformed a space adjacent to Bastille Cafe and Bar into a micro urban farm experience featuring crops, chickens and a free seed library. The team started developing the concept from May and in July started growing the crops for this installation.

Seattle Green Spaces Coalition – 2826 NW Market St

With a mission for creating opportunities for re-using city-owned public land for the benefit of communities, the Seattle Green Spaces Coalition created this colorful art space.

Seattle Design Festival – 5443 Ballard Ave NW

The Seattle Design Festival has created this intricate shelter which prompts people to think about the size of living spaces in Seattle.

Cascade Bicycle Club – 5210 Ballard Ave NW 

Some extra bicycle parking and greenery added to Ballard Ave highlights the opportunities for transforming small spaces to benefit cyclists.

If you find any great PARK(ing) Day spaces, tag us on Twitter and we’ll retweet your photo. Hashtag for the day is #SEAParkingDay. PARK(ing) Day runs from 10 AM to 7 PM.

The post Fridaygram: PARK(ing) Day Spaces in Ballard first appeared on The Urbanist.

In June 2015, the City of Seattle entered an agreement which places the Downtown Seattle Association (DSA) and Metropolitan Improvement District (MID) in a management role of Westlake and Occidental parks. Working in partnership with Seattle Parks and Recreation, the Seattle Parks Foundation, Alliance for Pioneer Square and Friends of Waterfront Seattle, the objective of the DSA and MID is to enhance the experience of these parks, creating a more welcoming, inclusive and safe environment. 

Having programmed Westlake Park in 2014, the approach of the DSA and MID has already been successful in attracting more, and a greater diversity of people to enjoy these often overlooked and underutilized spaces. The reprogramming of Westlake and Occidental appear to be inspired by Manhattan’s Bryant Park, an exemplar for revitalizing a neglected public space with poor public perceptions. The Seattle Parks Foundation commissioned a strategy for activating Westlake and Occidental parks by Dan Biederman, president of Biederman Redevelopment Ventures, who had led the transformation of Bryant Park in the 1990s. Towards the 1980s, despite its exceptional location, Bryant Park, had deteriorated, with litter, graffiti, and drug dealers affecting public perception. Biederman co-founded the Bryant Park Corporation with Andrew Heiskell, developing a master plan for park improvements and overseeing its management. The initiative included experimenting with ways to bring people back to the park and generating revenue.

Many elements of the efforts to improve the image of Bryant Park are evident in the amenities on offer at Westlake and Occidental. Bryant Park reflects a “low-design, high programming” approach. For many years, Bryant Park has been programmed with a range of activities including ping-pong, seasonal ice rinks, dancing and exercise classes, outdoor movies, and an outdoor library. Biederman worked with William H. Whyte, the notable American sociologist who had observed and documented people’s behavior in public spaces, which influenced the use of movable chairs in Bryant Park. Whyte advocated that movable furniture gives people freedom of choice to sit where they like, an element which seems to be working well in Westlake and Occidental. Bryant Park was transformed from an unsafe and overlooked park into a public asset which had a significant impact on improving the surrounding neighbourhood. Property owners in the vicinity have acknowledged that the park activation strategies and improvements increased their rents and occupancy rates. Today, Bryant Park is one of Manhattan’s most well regarded parks.

With the City signing a 1-year trial contract with DSA and MID to manage Westlake and Occidental, it will be exciting to see how the investment in the new activities will enhance the image and experiences of these spaces. The Bryant Park learnings, as well as observations of the approach to date, suggest these initiatives will be successful in attracting more people, improving their experience and enhancing not only these spaces but also the surrounding neighborhoods. 

The post Fridaygram: Activating Seattle’s Squares first appeared on The Urbanist.

The site upon which the homes sit is relatively small with only 25,000 square feet to put into use. Yet, three separate structures and 16 dwelling units manage to fit on it — something you wouldn’t necessarily think in brief passing. The two residential buildings are single-story rowhouses that look much the same as any other Wallingford single-family home would. Typical of the Craftsman era, the buildings feature embellished red brick with strongly pitched roofs, semi-Tudor patterning, and dormers to top it all off. As an added bonus, some units also happen to have basements, which are only noticeable from daylight windows skirting bottom edges of the buildings.

Both residential buildings are “L” shaped themselves, split only by a rearyard driveway access in the middle of the site. The frontages of the site are essentially flanked in full by the buildings, but given the scale of the structures it feels almost natural. In the rear of the property, there is a paved courtyard and carriage structure based upon the traditional mews approach. The carriage structure presumably serves as long-term storage for the cars and kayaks of residents.

If the architecture itself isn’t a strong hint, this series of homes aren’t new to the area. They date back to 1929, around the time when Wallingford was ending its early round of infill development. For some context, it’s worth noting that the property is zoned SF 5000 like all of the surrounding blocks to match the largely residential character of this part of Wallingford. North of the site is home to St. Benedict School, a local parochial school, while the remainder of the adjacent properties are mostly single-family homes with a modest mix of duplexes. And, just a few blocks to the south is the heart of Wallingford.

There really is more to single-family residential areas than meets the eye.

The post Fridaygram: Wallingford Rowhouses first appeared on The Urbanist.

Although the bridge today features six lanes for automobiles, the original design included lanes for horse-drawn carriages, New York City’s first cable car line, and rail lines which operated until the 1940s. The elevated and separated space for pedestrians and cyclists was an original feature which remains today. In the 1970s, pedestrians and cyclists were separated by one of the city’s first dedicated bicycle lanes, however today both spaces are filled creating new challenges due to popularity with tourists and commuters. Walking and cycling between the bridge’s impressive gothic arches and steel cables, provides an incredible view of Manhattan and Brooklyn and of the engineering of the bridge itself, which serves so many each day.

The post Fridaygram: Brooklyn Bridge first appeared on The Urbanist.

In the 1960s, the City of Seattle purchased what had been a coal gas plant from 1906 to 1956, with the intention of developing a park on the northern banks of Lake Union. The design of the park by Richard Haag is visionary for treating the soil which had been polluted by the former industrial processes on site through a process called bio-phytoremediation. The most contaminated soil was formed into mounds and capped with clay. These man-made hills offer the striking landscape that offer views of downtown Seattle and the Olympic Mountains. Haag also campaigned to preserve some of the industrial structures of the former plant to provide visual interest, rather than demolishing them.

Since opening to the public in 1975, the park has reconnected people to the north shore of the lake and to local history. Gas Works was recognized as the only surviving coal gas plant in the USA and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2013.

Gas Works Park continues to be improved, with recent landscape works and plans for a new play area commencing construction by the City of Seattle in 2016. The parkland has provided an example for restoring and recreating industrial landscapes as public spaces.

The post Fridaygram: Gas Works Park first appeared on The Urbanist.