Urban Planet is a daily roundup of blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We’ll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.
A few weeks ago, the folks at Fast Company published an article on 7 Ways to Disrupt Your Industry. Many of the ideas seemed pertinent to public space, according to the folks at Project for Public Spaces. They made their own adapted list of 7 ways to disrupt your public space. These include: eliminating visitor pain points, reducing complexity, cutting costs, using digital placemaking tools, encouraging conversation, being inclusive, and making loyalty easier.
From the “we swear it’s not photoshopped” category, this Parisian building looks as though French architects must be big fans of either Dali or Jell-O. This was what 39 Avenue George V in Paris looked like in 2008. The effect is actually from a facade that was installed over the bulding during renovation work. It went up in the winter of 07-08 and was created by temporary achitecture firm Athem and sculpter Pierre Delavie. Though it was taken down a couple years later, you can still catch it on Google Street View.
Tegucigalpa is one of the world’s most dangerous cities. The city of 1.2 million had 1,149 murders last year – 10 times the rate that the World Health Organization considers an epidemic of violence. Fed up with the how commonplace guns and violence had become, the former advertising designer, Urban Maeztro, is drawing attention to the situation by defacing posters with images of violence. “In a country that’s sinking, using art to boost consumption rather than to provoke social change became unbearable for me,” says Urban Maeztro, “The natural place for art is the street, forget the middleman.” (Globe and Mail)
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