Our cities are growing. The UN estimates that up to 61 percent of the world’s population will life in cities by 2030 – pushing up urban population from three billion today to a total of five billion. By 2015, approximately 350 million people will live in megacities. As a consequence of this accelerated urbanization, the transformation of cultivated land and nature into urban landscapes continues and jeopardizes the resources for future generations. Keyword: sustainability! Solution: Ecocity? [read more…]

Le Corbusier has been known as one of the architectural masterminds of modernity. Now, 40 years after his death, his last project “Sainte Pierre” is finallly finished. [read more…]

On April 11th 2006, the EU jury recommended that the title of European Capital of Culture 2010 will be awarded to the Ruhr area (German Rhurgebiet). Essen had gone into the running representing the whole region and had to compeed against around 20 other cities and towns, which also had applied for the title. [read more…]

“The building design has to change – not only in Europe”, says Wolfgang Winter, Academic Director of Vienna University of Technology and Professor for Structured Design and Timber Engineering. That’s why the international MSc Programme “Urban Wood” has been created. [read more…]

Not only urban designers and architects will change the appearance of cities in the future - also interior designers will influence the experiences of buildings in future from the inside. In this column, I focus on special items, which I believe are somewhat outstanding. In the end, architectural design and interior design should melt together - and provide a wholesome impression and experience. [read more…]

Now we know more about one of Libeskind’s next favourite projects. Daniel Libeskind and Jean-Francois Ott (President and CEO of ORCO property Group) shared the same dream: creating an outstanding and unique project to put Warsaw on the world’s architectural map – with Zlota 44. [read more…]

Can you imagine streets without traffic signs? Dreaming of streets liberated from rules and directives, European traffic planners already harvest the first good results – seven European cities already do away with traffic signs.

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“The perfect city is always just a snap-shot; perfection cannot be conserved,” of this Robert Schäfer, chief editor of the magazine “Topos“, is sure. The other participants in the “Perfect City” panel discussion, hosted by Eurohypo at the Expo Real trade fair in Munich, agreed. “There’s no such thing as perfect urban development,” pointed out for instance Wolfgang Fischer, manager of City Partner München e.V. “What we today consider to be a perfect city is the result of a long history and not of a long planning process.”

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Don’t we all wish to fly through a scene of real buildings or places? Wouldn’t it be nice to present your former architectural work, or designs to clients in 3D? But up-to-date computer-created 3D-models feel somewhat “artificial” and have a slightly “phoney” taste?
Why not take your photographs then? Hmmmm… [read more…]