Vancouver – Greenest City in the World by 2020!?
Some days ago I was at the Vancouver Pecha Kucha Special Edition: Walk the Talk, Green Your City at the Queen Elisabeth Theatre in downtown Vancouver. The Queen Elizabeth Theatre is the home of the Vancouver Opera and Ballet BC and seats 2,929 people at maximum capacity. It was a sold out event and the...
Parametric Urban Design for SketchUp with Modelur Plugin
Modelur is a SketchUp plugin for parametric urban design. It offers basic tools for quick and effective urban design. In contrast to traditional CAD tools, where the building is described by its width, length and height, Modelur uses parametric approach, in which the building can also be designed by a combination of desired final parameters,...
City as Living Factory of Ecology
Recognizing the need and opportunity to improve sustainable building practices, Sitra, the Finnish Innovation Fund, in collaboration with the City of Helsinki, has launched a sustainable development design competition. The goal was to attract and identify the best team to design a large building complex on a reclaimed harbour at the western edge of Helsinkis...
Free Parking Isn’t Free
When does a Prius have the same environmental impact as a Hummer? The 95 percent of the time it’s parked. Most people don’t spend time thinking about parking spaces unless they’re looking for one. But these 9′ by 18′ rectangles of urban real estate have a vast impact on North American communities. They affect the...
Communicate Urban Planning in Google Earth 5.0
Google Earth is a natural yet still underused place for urban planners to communicate the future of cities. With the addition of the timeline feature it is possible to chart development according to phases of growth. This is exactly what a company in the Netherlands has done to illustrate the proposed changes to the station...
Connected Urban Development
The following proof of concept study is intended as a future visions of the utilization of Connected Urban Development pilot programs in urban environments. This vision of connected and sustainable urban development was created by MIT Mobile Experience Lab in collaboration with Cisco Systems – Internet Business Solutions Group. The Connected Home of the future...
Metro Vancouver Eyes Sky-Rise Farming
Surrey BC may be home to region’s first vertical greenhouse By Kelly Sinoski, The Vancouver Sun 21 Oct 2008 Rooftop gardens and vertical greenhouses could be a sign of the times in Metro Vancouver as the region wrestles with ways to tackle a global food crisis and the effects of climate change. And Surrey could...
SFU City Program Video Podcasts
Check out these videos at the Simon Fraser University City Program website from lectures and presentations on urban design strategies, transportation, bicycling, sustainability, affordable housing, land development and EcoDensity.
Laneway
Unsatisfied with what the housing market had to offer, Pete and Suzanne set off to transform a small urban back lot into a sensitive house that questions how we deal with our environment by challenging our conventional definition of “home”. Laneway is a short documentary funded by Canada Council and produced by TWIXT Media Productions....
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