Monday, July 18, 2011
Managing civic space for climate change
http://thefastertimes.com/greeneconomy/2011/06/22/do-we-need-a-greensward-manager-for-urban-growth/
Friday, July 15, 2011
YOU ARE INVITED!
You are invited to attend a reception at the Kansas City Design Center for the exhibition of Kansas State University landscape architecture studio projects.
Friday, July 22 from 5:00 to 7:00 PM
Hosted by the Kansas City Designer Center, 1018 Baltimore Avenue, Kansas City, Missouri
Students from the landscape architecture summer studio have been imagining the future of downtown Kansas City through the development of visionary civic space strategies. The students are anxious to discuss their projects with residents and stakeholders, and the discussion promises to stimulating. We invite you to share your feedback to help move the project into its second phase.
Light hors d'oeuvres and drinks will be provided.
Here is a preview of some of the students' work:
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
#nucleus
On companies moving away from suburban business parks: http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20110528/ISSUE01/305289984/crains-special-report-corporate-campuses-in-twilight
Sunday, July 10, 2011
citizen ballot initiatives for Kansas City transit
A few links about citizen ballot initiatives - current and past - for rail transit in Kansas City:
http://www.kansascity.com/2011/07/07/3000385/chastain-submits-petition-for.html
http://www.pitch.com/2006-10-26/news/crazy-train/
http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/stories/2006/11/27/daily6.html?from_rss=1
http://www.kansascity.com/2011/07/07/3000385/chastain-submits-petition-for.html
http://www.pitch.com/2006-10-26/news/crazy-train/
http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/stories/2006/11/27/daily6.html?from_rss=1
Thursday, July 7, 2011
#civicspace #highline
A good general interest article on the design process for the High Line:
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/07/first-drafts-james-corners-high-line-park/240695/
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/07/first-drafts-james-corners-high-line-park/240695/
#civicspace
From the wikipedia entry on Tahrir Square, civic space at the center of the Arab Spring, "tahrir means liberation"...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tahrir_Square
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tahrir_Square
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Michael Swann's Studies of Shifting City Centers in Kansas City
Stephanie Rolley mentioned Mike Swann, associate dean of KU's School of Architecture Design and Planning, and his work related to geographical shifts of city centers, as may occur with some of our projects in studio.
I emailed him asking about this study and this was his reply:
Anne:
I think I know what you're talking about.
I gave a presentation at the 1991 ASLA national meeting in Kansas City as part of a session on the Parks and Boulevards system of Kansas City. My talk was called "Kessler's Plan: The Organizing Structure." I prepared a hand-written version to go with the graphics that I presented. I later incorporated this into a larger typescript of a paper called "The City Beautiful Movement and Kansas City's Parks and Boulevards." This paper compared Kansas City's internal growth with other North American cities using some classic models drawn from urban spatial theory and I also used the rise and decline of the historic east-west national trail system and the railroads to show how the focal point within the greater metropolitan area migrated southward as transportation technology evolved during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The final part of this larger paper included what I presented at the ASLA meeting. My research involved the measurement of the Boulevard system as it existed in the 1893 plan and the 1915 plan. I transformed it into a simple network with links and nodes and calculated a connectivity index for each of the two networks. This allowed me to rank order the "connectedness" of each node or intersection in the boulevard network based on a value that represented first-, second- and third-order links. Doing this allows you to identify the primary node in the network. This is a measure of relative centrality. In 1893, the "center" of the boulevard network was east of downtown at the intersection of Benton Boulevard and Independence Avenue. By 1915, the boulevard system had expanded in density and direction to the extent that the center had shifted southwest, around the downtown to a location at Armour Boulevard and Harrison Street approaching what would soon become the Country Club Plaza district. In other words, the boulevard system facilitated growth outside the downtown and helped promote the development of secondary service and retail centers.
I don't think I ever had time to send this out for review and publication--I moved on to a few years of work at the old Quindaro townsite in KCK where I had a lot of fun working with Professor Rolley and other great faculty at K-State. The work I did there has been published, but I think that's outside your current project.
Let me know if there's anything I can do to help you or anyone else.
Mike Swann
I think I know what you're talking about.
I gave a presentation at the 1991 ASLA national meeting in Kansas City as part of a session on the Parks and Boulevards system of Kansas City. My talk was called "Kessler's Plan: The Organizing Structure." I prepared a hand-written version to go with the graphics that I presented. I later incorporated this into a larger typescript of a paper called "The City Beautiful Movement and Kansas City's Parks and Boulevards." This paper compared Kansas City's internal growth with other North American cities using some classic models drawn from urban spatial theory and I also used the rise and decline of the historic east-west national trail system and the railroads to show how the focal point within the greater metropolitan area migrated southward as transportation technology evolved during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The final part of this larger paper included what I presented at the ASLA meeting. My research involved the measurement of the Boulevard system as it existed in the 1893 plan and the 1915 plan. I transformed it into a simple network with links and nodes and calculated a connectivity index for each of the two networks. This allowed me to rank order the "connectedness" of each node or intersection in the boulevard network based on a value that represented first-, second- and third-order links. Doing this allows you to identify the primary node in the network. This is a measure of relative centrality. In 1893, the "center" of the boulevard network was east of downtown at the intersection of Benton Boulevard and Independence Avenue. By 1915, the boulevard system had expanded in density and direction to the extent that the center had shifted southwest, around the downtown to a location at Armour Boulevard and Harrison Street approaching what would soon become the Country Club Plaza district. In other words, the boulevard system facilitated growth outside the downtown and helped promote the development of secondary service and retail centers.
I don't think I ever had time to send this out for review and publication--I moved on to a few years of work at the old Quindaro townsite in KCK where I had a lot of fun working with Professor Rolley and other great faculty at K-State. The work I did there has been published, but I think that's outside your current project.
Let me know if there's anything I can do to help you or anyone else.
Mike Swann
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)