Monday News Roundup


Warm up this cold winter Monday with the hottest news and headlines from last week!

Sometimes all it takes is a little extra paint for placemaking (Planetizen)
Alyse Nelson describes the carefully placed and collaborative intersection painting of City Paint in Portland, OR as "community empowerment" at its core.

The promise of bike sharing to reduce emissions (Sustainable Cities Collective)
With the launch of NYC’s first system next spring, it appears that bikes and bike stations may become as widespread and popular as they are in Canada and throughout Europe.

2011 Holiday Gift Books in Architecture and Design (Daily Dose)
Just as the title implies, a gift list for design-minded just in time for the holidays.

Do we (still) need Vancouver? (New Urban Network)
Vancouver is known to have become one of the world’s most livable cities. This article discusses the many lessons we have learned (good and bad) from this great city as a model of urbanization. 

Why Montreal needs to tap into the "Development Charge" (Planetizen)
McGill University planners have released a report highlighting untapped sources of revenue in municipal funding. The most glaring of them: fees levied on developers to pay for city services.

APTA reports those who switch from driving to public transportation can save almost $10,000/year. But, in the real world, more Americans will take public transportation only if it becomes more plentiful and convenient.

Although urban planning used to be more connected with health, over the decades it has gotten more obsessed with separating uses and planning for automobiles.

A Simple Portrait of an Urban Place (Sustainable Cities Collective)
From time to time, a single image captures the look and feel of city life, and successfully depicts an urban place where people come together...

Achievement in smart growth honored by EPA (Switchboard)
One of the country’s very best, grassroots-led revitalizing neighborhoods and one of our most articulate city plans for a more sustainable future are among this year’s national honorees for achievement in smart growth.

7 Trends for Planning Post-Oil Cities (Sustainable Cities Collective)
In this post, Robert Bowen of Future Cape Town looks at the Masters Thesis of Allen Rhodes, entitled Planning the Post-Oil City, highlighting the seven trends identified and the opportunities they present for cities.


Friday Feature: Alex Sandoval

Since we last posted a Friday Feature, VIA has welcomed a wave of new talent to the firm. We start our series again by introducing one of our gifted urban planners, Alex Sandoval. Check back soon for more first-hand perspectives on what it takes to become an architect!   
Who are you and what do you do? 
I’m Alex and I’m an Urban Designer and Planner at VIA in Seattle. I went to architecture school back in Mexico City where I grew up. After working as an architecture designer for some time, I realized that I was most excited and interested about those large regional projects that influence the way cities are experienced. That interest brought me to Seattle where I did grad school in Urban Planning. It’s been 6 years already and I still have a lot to do in this amazing region.

What made you decide to go into your field?
I was born and raised in one of the largest cities in the world: the great Mexico City with a population reaching over 20 million people. I suppose growing up in such a dense and chaotic urban environment made me quite conscious of the issues and benefits of living in a city. This is why I decided that I was not going to have a career designing sprawling single-family communities but rather to be a proponent of dense and compact living. Just like we recently heard all over the news, the World’s population has reached the 7 billion mark and it is projected that by 2050 we’ll reach over 10 billion! According to 7 Billion & Me, the day I was born there were 4,331,448,959 people in the world and since then 4,363,658,538 more people have been born. With all these alarming figures all I can think is that we need to make the decisions now that will accommodate such growth where it actually makes sense; re-densifying our urban centers while still making them livable. Big challenge!

What did your family think of your chosen field?
They were very supportive however I was supposed to go into a career in medicine following my father’s footsteps.

Who is the teacher who had the most influence on you and why?
I had a lot of great professors and mentors, however, definitely the best professor I had was a close group of friends from architecture school. With these 7 guys we opened a little studio where we would get together after school to help each other out with our school projects, do some critique sessions and just overall talk and exchange ideas. We kept this little studio running for over 3 years and evolved it to a point where we were actually running a business submitting proposals and entering design competitions. At some point we were actually making money out of this so I’ll have to say that this true hands-on experience was definitely the best learning I had.

What was the biggest hurdle you faced along your educational path? (academic, financial, motivational, family or peer pressure, outside distraction, etc.)
Definitely financial; It’s hard to live on a student budget especially while pursuing a design degree. There are so many expenses, materials, software, books... not to mention all that coffee intake.

What inspires you?
I don’t believe there’s one true source of inspiration. I’d rather believe that through cumulative work we come up with the best design solutions. To me the actual wow moment comes at the end of the process when you look back and realize the amount of work you had to put on just to arrive at a particular design. That is truly inspiring.

What schooling is required for success in your career?
Urban planning is such a broad field that people from almost any career can be a part of the process; in fact, I would highly encourage anyone interested to include as many points of view as possible. It is important, however, that people that want to be an active participant have some technical skills. It took me 5 years of architecture school and 2 of planning to develop some sort of technical and design skills and I still have a lot to learn.

What kind of people are the most successful in your field? Are there any specific attributes?
Good communicators.

What is the best advice you were ever given?
No la forces (Don’t force it). Sometimes we as designers can be stubborn and get stuck in one design solution trying to figure it out right at the beginning without even exploring other solutions; however, I have learned that design is actually an iterative process and it is through this process of trial and error that we can come up with the best design solutions. It is through this back and forth process that design teams learn a lot and develop ideas that at the time may not be applicable to the project but can be recycled in the future for different projects.

Is your field growing? (ie. is there room for new entries and is there career growth?)
Big YES! I believe urban design and planning is something that is going to keep growing just as cities and municipalities are requiring more and better planning to accommodate population growth. Remember, 10 billion people by 2050, that’s a lot of planning!

What advice would you give someone considering a career like yours? 
Get involved. Urban planning typically requires a public process so it is very easy to become part of it by just attending public meetings, design reviews and public charrettes. Participating in these types of meetings can give students an idea of what this planning thing is all about.


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VIAVOX tonight: Patrick Condon Book Reading + Signing


Please join us for an upcoming VIAVOX:

Book Reading + Signing: Patrick Condon’s
Seven Rules for Sustainable Communities
Design Strategies for the Post Carbon World

When: 5:30pm  Monday, November 28th 2011
Where: Seattle Coffee Works - 107 Pike Street, Seattle, WA 98101
Free; Open to the public. Light refreshments will be provided.

Patrick Condon, Professor at the University of British Columbia, will read samples from his latest book Seven Rules for Sustainable Communities:

Questions of how to green the North American economy, create a green energy and transportation infrastructure, and halt the deadly increase in greenhouse gas buildup dominate our daily news. Related questions of how the design of cities can impact these challenges dominate the thoughts of urban planners and designers across the U.S. and Canada. With admirable clarity, Patrick Condon discusses transportation, housing equity, job distribution, economic development, and ecological systems issues and synthesizes his knowledge and research into a simple-to-understand set of urban design rules that can, if followed, help save the planet.
No other book so clearly connects the form of our cities to their ecological, economic, and social consequences. No other book takes on this breadth of complex and contentious issues and distills them down to such convincing and practical solutions. And no other book so vividly compares and contrasts the differing experiences of U.S. and Canadian cities.

VIAVOX: giving a voice to current issues in architecture, planning, and design

Monday News Roundup

A roundup of the top headlines from art, design, sustainability and architecture:

The slow-track checkout lane at Finnish K-citymarket is aimed at the elderly, the disabled, and anyone else who wants a more relaxed shopping experience.

This sturdy tower designed by 24H Architects acts as a recognizable sculpture from all sides. It will serve as a housing program, new public space for citizens and a community health center.  

These assorted projects showcase her uncanny ability to portray ordinary objects in extraordinary ways

VIA's own takes a closer look at the success and cost efficiency of Issaquah's net-zero energy townhouse development.

ArtPlace America has issued a landmark series of grants dedicated to supporting the 'creative class' and enhance communities through the arts.

As seen on campus at the Minneapolis Art Institute

A fascinating bit of creative land use (Sustainable Cities Collective)
NYC's conceptual, subterranean public park attempts to pipe natural light underground
A return to community focused development is changing the design of neighborhoods across the country.
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