Archive for November, 2007
“Downtown Lakewood, an area surprisingly easy location to recognize without some sort of banner/basket network or monumental arch to announce the location, will be hosting the 2007 Light Up Lakewood festival. Light Up Lakewood is a holiday event that focuses on the community centric lifestyle of a walkable town. For me the most exciting occurrence [...]
“In addition to considering the importance of a headquarters hotel, Positively Cleveland’s report urges planners to make sure the site:
Is big enough to handle future expansions; Is downtown and within walking distance to hotels, entertainment and transportation options; Can encourage nearby business development; Is flexible enough to handle multiple groups at the same time; Includes [...]
“Edushi.com (short for ECity in Chinese) is such a link, a company that has mapped the 21 major cities in China and the majority of the provincial areas.
The maps are a visual feast of pixel art down to the finest detail and covering vast swathes of urban China. The interface is similar to Google Maps [...]
“This picture was forwarded to me by a concerned citizen who had noticed that the fliers posted on the construction barrier around the Ameritrust Tower on East 9th, South of Euclid has suffered from what could possibly be described as “adhesive surrender”. The glue used to mount the fliers to the barrier has/is failing and [...]
Via Brewed Fresh Daily: “Positively Cleveland, the Convention & Visitors Bureau of Greater Cleveland, has just released a report, ‘Characteristics of a Successful Convention Center.’ Cool Cleveland’s Thomas Mulready, who serves on the board, has received a copy and permission to post and distribute.
Read the complete report here: http://www.coolcleveland.com/index.php?n=Main.Convention…” (go to article)
Via Planetizin: “Finally, cities that can successfully move away from reliance on failing industries will do well. Many cities whose economies formerly rested on heavy industry, such as Cleveland and Pittsburgh, are following Baltimore’s lead by exploring salvation in the “cleaner” area of biotechnology. (Baltimore’s John Hopkins Hospital and Johns Hopkins University are major centers [...]
“Cleveland officials are taking note, and are looking to add a layer of green infrastructure to their existing efforts. In October, Cleveland Office of Sustainability Director Andrew Watterson, along with Fran DiDonato, a project manager working on sustainable policies, proposed updating the city’s ordinances to allow private property owners to disconnect downspouts from the sewer [...]
“I apologize for the confusion about our next Sketch Crawl! Someone just pointed out that I mistakenly mentioned the date for the next Sketch Crawl being on December the 8th…when the first Saturday of the month is THIS Saturday. So…in case you have been lead astray by my previous post…
…Our next Sketch Crawl is this [...]
“Ask the executives at any of these companies why they’ve moved, and you’ll get a range of reasons: Unique space. The chance to bump hips with other tech firms. More affordable rent, in some cases, than they would pay in the suburbs. And a more hip, urban environment that might help them capture and keep [...]
Via Crain’s Cleveland Editors Choice Blog, this Wall Street Journal Op-Ed from Joel Kotkin: “For much of the past decade, business recruiters, cities and urban developers have focused on the ‘young and restless,’ the ‘creative class,’ and the so-called ‘yuspie’ — the young urban single professional. Cities, they’ve said, should capture this so-called ‘dream demographic’ [...]
“Jackson’s green building policy should begin with an assessment of Cleveland’s existing stock of buildings and preserving those offices and homes that have good bones. With new programs such as expedited foreclosure and Housing and Urban Development’s Good Neighbor program—which allows HUD to acquire foreclosed homes and sell it to the city for $1 —more [...]
“While one can lament the missed opportunities at Cleveland’s first ‘big box’ retail complex, Steel Yard Commons, and the obvious signs of economic trouble when 6000 people apply for work at Wal-Mart, is it not to soon to be considering what the re-use of big boxes at SYC, and in Northeast Ohio in particular will [...]
“BOTC has received a few responses to our “A Needed Autonomy” post, a post questioning the championing (or marketing) of the cause of sustainability in our built environment, irrespective of the quality of the architecture that possesses this green-ness. The reponders were “offended” and quite shrill with their posts, of course, attacking BOTC peronsally with [...]
“First off, I would like to congratulate the city on the sneaky way they are hindering the use of automobiles on Euclid. Seriously. With two main urban corridors (Chester and Carnegie) a block North and South I can understand why the city would want to make Euclid as pedestrian friendly as possible and they did [...]
“I would like to tip the hat to the Open Architecture Network(OAN) for attempting to prove out that designers care quite a bit about designing with a purpose as opposed to hi-jacking altruistic trends for personal gain. Spend some time at OAN site and check out the hundreds of project submissions and proposals that are [...]
“Architects of revival in six Cleveland neighborhoods are focusing their cash and expertise on the streets around big, new projects.
The strategy, they say, is to build “model blocks” on the streets that border new neighborhood anchors — housing and commercial projects totaling $915 million.
The projects are under way or planned for a half dozen neighborhoods [...]
“34 years after our last oil crisis America (and much of the industrialized world) finds ourselves again on the precipice of what some are calling a complete economic breakdown. Once again we see how closely we are tied to international energy production but are unwilling to make the self sacrifice needed to alleviate the burden. [...]
Cleveland Plain Dealer Architecture Critic Steven Litt: “a few architecturally brave souls started building Modernist houses in Greater Cleveland before World War II. These include the 1938 Burdick House in Cleveland Heights, known for the extensive use of glass block windows on its first floor.
The Burdick house and roughly two dozen other Modernist dwellings built [...]
“Happy Black Friday United States! (I think the rest of the world celebrates tomorrow as the biggest shopping day of the year).
Granted I am against copious consumer consumption as much as I can be however with the holidays gearing up and gift giving being a way to express one’s feelings and respect for another I [...]
