PUBLIC SPACE is the place where the drama of urban life spread out.

Leon Krier’s opinion in his book entitled Architecture and Urban Design; 1979-1992, judging that the public space can only be formed from the street and square.

Stephen Carr guides the design of public space in his book entitled Public Space that public spaces should be; responsive, democratic and meaningful. Read the rest of this entry »

A stream runs through the center of Seoul, dividing the city into North and South, but for three decades it was totally buried beneath a busy downtown highway. In 2003, as part of a vast urban renewal project, the highway was removed and the stream was recovered and turned into a beautiful 5.8 km urban park. Demolishing roads in favor of urban parks is is a development project we can really get behind.

The Cheonggyecheon stream was formed during the Joseon Dynasty in order to provide drainage for the city. It lasted for hundreds of years until the 1940s, when the city became so populated that a shanty town popped up around the stream and began polluting the area. The stream was gradually covered over with concrete, and by 1976 a 5.6 km elevated highway was built on top of it. Read the rest of this entry »

Meteor Alley is one of the whimsically named spaces of Buffalo. Running over a two-block stretch parallel to North and South Division streets between Emslie and Lord, it is also one of the cool, hidden spots of the Hydraulics. Meteor Alley, renamed in 1893 from Anderson Alley to avoid confusion with Anderson Place, still has a pretty cosmic feel.

While the reason the name “Meteor Alley” was chosen is lost to history, it’s established that typically the City polled residents on a name choice. Perhaps kids in the neighborhood, fresh off reading Jules Verne’s From the Earth to the Moon, insisted it would be a neat idea, and their preferred name change prevailed. Either way, meteors and meteor showers invigorated the fascination of the public in the 1890s, as scientific theory on their nature and origin advanced considerably. The renaming of the space to “Meteor Alley” would have been very timely. Read the rest of this entry »