4pm PDX Time

The following is the final video from my term project called “Birds Striking Building Windows”

The whole experience at the final review was quite nice. I enjoyed being able to finally show the video that Liz Cosko and I had been working so hard on.

At the bottom of this post, you will find a written description of the process of this term’s project.

Here is the short video of my experiences of learning about Networked Urbanism. (more…)

Water is a growing concern amongst the cultures of the world. In the northwest United States, particularly Portland Oregon where this focus exists, there happens to be an abundance of water at the time. This will not be the case for long as global warming and pollution have created awareness that our actions are finite. As design continues to advance, more focus is being given to rainwater capture on site. By containing the water that falls upon the site or structure, the water is able to be used for irrigation and other activities depending on the infrastructure set up to handle this run-off. The stormwater run-off is generally taxed in most cities based on the square footage of the site. This is to pay for the treatment of the water before it returns to the ecosystem. By filtering the sites own water money would be saved, eventually recouping the cost of the installation of the pollution control system. (more…)

What tools does a city have to create public spaces? One option is to develop the spaces themselves, another is to entice outside developers to build via zoning and incentives. Each approach has pros and cons, the struggle is finding the best solution given the specific needs of a community.

Some of the positive aspects of cities taking ownership of the development of public spaces are: The community has more control over the qualities of the final product, the public maintains ownership of the property, and it can be a possible revenue generator for the city. The negative aspects being: The project will be publicly funded and maintained, therefore subject to voter approval in many cases, it can take a very long time to work through the bureaucratic processes, and finding tenants or scheduling events is the responsibility of the city.

Some positive aspects of private development are: (more…)

Hunger is one of the greatest pressing global issue today; Unlike famines that receive emergency-aid, chronic hunger affects 842 million people to suffer from a silent, yet invisible predicament on a daily basis. Although America is known as the land of plenty, 1 in 6 Americans in the United States struggle with hunger. Many people believe that the problems associated with hunger are confined to small pockets of society, certain areas of the country, or certain neighborhoods, but the reality is much different; many hard-working adults, children and seniors who simply cannot always make ends meet are forced to go without food. (more…)

My project was about creating temporary public spaces within underutilized parking lots at Eastport Plaza, a shopping super-block in Southeast Portland.

There are expansive parking lots at this mall, some of which are heavily used, whereas others are predominantly empty of cars. According to the mall manager they “exceed code,” the groundskeeper said he has never seen the parking lots at maximum capacity and from personal observation about 15-20% of parking is rarely used.

I propose to fill in these empty spaces with public uses during the warmer months of the year. (more…)

Initially our observations began with parks and plazas–what people typically view as public space.  However, we began to refocus our attention to the general public realm–streets, sidewalks, empty lots, etc.  Although the city of Portland provides its inhabitants with numerous planned public space, many of these remain underutilized throughout the majority of the week.  We don’t necessarily see this as a “problem” currently, considering the population and density of Portland.  However, with the projected growth–expected to double by 2060–we sought to improve it for the present and for the future.

To understand what our intervention could be, we looked at other examples that addressed similar issues.  (more…)

About 2047 students live in campus housing, of which only 400-600 students are freshmen. All freshmen that live in campus housing are required to sign up for a meal plan. The meal plan consists of a specific number of meals that they eat at Victor’s cafeteria (food is cooked there) in Ondine (one of the dormitories on campus) and dining dollars that they can spend at three different locations on campus; two coffee shops and a cafeteria that houses various food chains. All the food sources that fall under the meal plan are owned by Aramark (a company that provides services in food, facilities management, and uniforms) or have a contract with them.

The problem with the current food served by Aramark is it is processed and students do not know where it comes from. (more…)

The evolved sensor grid provides a comprehensive look of Portland’s air toxics throughout a day. The animation shows the flux of diesel related air toxics around the highly utilized, freeway areas.  This shows the ‘interface’ that connects the physical city sensor grid to the individual device. Citizens will be able to connect directly to the ‘interface’ and gain information about their surrounding air contents. (click on image to see full screen animation)

We have created page accounts to go along with our app. This allows for deeper connection and to get the ball rolling on creating this app as a marketable item. Also along with the use of Facebook and Twitter as base pages, we have created a hashtag that goes along with our app and pages to further group conversations and connections.

https://www.facebook.com/bikingportland

https://twitter.com/BikingPDX

#bportland

 

 

Here is a mapped out version of the development of the Bike PDX app so far…

« Previous 1 … 8 9 10 11 12 … 38 Next »

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

networkedurbanism: This website has been created solely for educational purposes, and not for profit or commercial distribution of any kind. All rights from the content belong to the authors or to the corresponding educational institutions.

ABOUT US . CONTACT . 2012