Category: infrastructure

  • Greenroads

    While the recent explosion of interesting and application of Green Streets is well documented, the announcement of a new program to provide sustainability metrics for Greenroads comes at an opportune time when infrastructure seems to be one of the only things getting funded. From the website (which is still under construction): “Greenroads is a sustainability…

  • BEST Parking Lot

    I do love a good pic of James Wines BEST stores (see videos & images here), particularly those blending site with store (or in this case folding program under parking). Something about this dreary gray representation that I just love. :: image via underpaid genius

  • Personal Infrastructures

    Working on some link house-cleaning and came up with a few posts that seems to thread together in an interesting narrative. The first of this was a beautiful installation for the ‘Flower Street BioReactor’ via Dezeen: “Los Angeles architects Emergent have designed an installation filled with green algae that produce oil by photosynthesis.” This sort…

  • Historic Depave Portland

    As previously mentioned, the main drag along the Willamette was formerly a multi-lane highway named Harbor Drive, which was removed in the mid-1970’s to make way for the current resident along the river, Tom McCall Waterfront Park. :: image via Portland Mercury :: image via Flickr – William200549 Text, from the article ‘The Dead Freeway…

  • Ghost Highway: Mount Hood Freeway

    It’s fascinating to dig into some of the historical legacies that have existed throughout planning over time. Some seem like missed opportunities – while others show that perhaps sometimes cooler heads will prevail, and we think of the awfulness of what might have been. Nowhere in Portland’s planning history is this more evident than the…

  • WPA Video: Local Code / Real Estates

    I managed to butcher the announcement of the WPA 2.0 finalists a few weeks back… (which should be up to date now)… and was made aware of it thanks to Ben Golder, one of the team members from the Local Code team. He recently sent me this link to a video of their project. I…

  • WPA 2.0 Student Finalists

    As a follow-up to the previous post, the student award finalists were announced as well, including a few of the notables images from some of the entries.“R_Ignite” was designed by four graduate students of the Manchester School of Architecture – Peter Millar, Jamie Potter, Andy Wilde and Stuart Wheeler. This proposal revitalizes port cities and…

  • WPA 2.0 Winners

    [post corrected on 12.13.09] I have been remiss in posting about the WPA 2.0 competition beyond this initial post way back when… it’s been exciting to see both the professional and student awards coming together into a fabulous compilation on information on the reinvention of public infrastructure. So alas, it was time to capture at…

  • Portland Grid, revisited

    The question of the efficacy of the grid system is continually interesting, and there have been some interesting conversations about this with a range of folks locally. Another resource to throw some information into this discussion is the recently released background documents in support of the Portland Plan. One worth checking out for any Portland-phile…

  • Size Does Matter, or Not

    An interesting article in Planetizen called “Beloved and Abandoned: A Platting Named Portland” investigates one of the unique, frustrating and beloved quirks of Portland. This is, our slicework of 200 foot square blocks… making for a lot of roads, and development of tiny blocks. It’s our burden to bear. The article is a fascinating ride…