Urban Design
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Week of Learning with Bruntletts
It was a cool late afternoon in October when I met up with Melissa and Chris Bruntlett at Trees Café on Granville Street. The rain held off as we settled...
By mollybarkowsky -
When Density Meets Disgust
Walk down a crowded city street and you might marvel at its vibrancy—people brushing past each other, buildings packed like puzzle pieces, the hum of...
By Erick Villagomez -
The Coriolis Effect, Part IV: When Viability Becomes Destiny
In my earlier Coriolis Effect series (Part I, Part II, and Part III), I argued that city planning has been quietly absorbed into the logic of the...
By Erick Villagomez -
Book Review – Histories of Ecological Design: An Unfinished Cyclopedia
Author: Lydia Kallipoliti (Actar, 2024) In an era when “green” is a brand and climate collapse is a backdrop, Lydia Kallipoliti’s Histories of Ecological...
By Erick Villagomez -
The Singapore Chronicles: Divergent Models
The city, we’re often told, is a model—something to be learned from, exported, improved. But what happens when models conflict? What if the city itself...
By Erick Villagomez -
UCS #65: King David contemplates the future of BC
See our Launch and Introduction about the launch of the © Urban Cartoon Syndicate and the announcement by CityHallWatch. *** Related Readings: BC...
By Urban Cartoon Syndicate -
The Singapore Chronicles: Designing for Urban Health
In the closing days of our field school, we sat around a modest table in a conference room overlooking the city skyline. It was our final debrief, and the...
By Erick Villagomez -
The Singapore Chronicles: Housing the Nation
Few cities in the contemporary world have made public housing as central to urban life as Singapore has. With over 80% of the population living in flats...
By Erick Villagomez -
The Singapore Chronicles: The Politics of Preservation
Singapore’s skyline is constantly in motion. Construction cranes and hoardings are as much part of the visual identity of the city as its heritage...
By Erick Villagomez -
The Slow Emergency
The crisis in Vancouver’s housing system isn’t explosive—it’s quiet, procedural, and often disguised as progress. Recently made public, the Broadway...
By Erick Villagomez -
Entitled to Flip
In Vancouver today, rezoning doesn’t necessarily mean building. Increasingly, it means something else: securing entitlements — legal permissions that...
By Erick Villagomez -
The Trifecta of Control: Stealth. Speed. Complexity.
In the 1960s, planning decisions in Vancouver—like many North American cities—were made behind closed doors. Freeways bulldozed working-class...
By Erick Villagomez