Tuesday, January 25, 2011

something old, something new, something blue

The capital city of Slovenia, Ljubljana has an impressive network of public spaces: squares, riverfronts, bridges and pedestrian streets with carefully selected street furniture in all the different areas that vary from ancient Roman to hippie Metelkova. The city is absolutely worth a visit.

Monday, January 24, 2011

Russia

The photos of Masha Osipova http://www.mashaosipova.com/ give an interesting view into Russian daily life and vulnerable people. The serie of her great aunt was published on http://www.dejaap.nl/ and are moving,  intense and above all beautiful.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Zaans

Zaandam started a huge inner city transformation about 10 years ago, today some of the buildings from Sjoerd Soeters masterplan are finished. The typical Zaanse huisjes perfectly fit Soeters portfolio. The piling- up of the original huisjes designed by WAM make a incredible landmark!

Monday, January 3, 2011

social mapping

Maps by Eric Fischer 
Erik Fischer creates interesting maps combining city layouts with social media; his maps and much more can be found here http://www.flickr.com/photos/walkingsf/  With the maps he shows the use of space by tourists versus local people or the use of the city by different ethnicities. These are just 2 examples, I'm sure that many more interesting combinations can be found!

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Photos made by Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre
Since my master thesis in 2006 about shrinking cities (Liverpool, Glasgow & Rotterdam) I’m fascinated by the impact that rapid population decline has on cities. This series of photos made by http://www.marchandmeffre.com/  about downtown Detroit as printed in the Guardian today, gives a terrific impression of abandoned buildings and the decline of great post industrial cities.