Placemaking is a sweat!

The 'Fat Jew' aka Fabrizio Goldstein teaches Bikram Yoga at the NYC Second Avenue F-train stop.

The New York subways are notoriously hot and many commuters consider riding the subway in August unbearable, a daily torture that has to be endured to get around the city. One man has used the puffs of hot air from the trains to his advantage and has transformed the underground into a Bikram Yoga Class for the homeless.

Comedian Fabrizio Goldstein, who also goes by the alias 'Fat Jew', is passing on his skills to the destitute, by helping them limber up during the sweaty classes.

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What Will Happen to Budapest's 'Ruin Pubs' Once All the Ruin Is Removed?

Szimpla in the Budapest Jewish Quarter

BUDAPEST, Hungary -- The two-story building at 14 Kazinczy Utca isn’t much to look at. Some of its windows have been boarded up and a thick layer of dirt and grime has settled into the crumbling facade. A collection of potted plants sits on a balcony overlooking the street while a bright yellow sign hangs in a doorway below.

You wouldn’t know it from the outside, but this is one of the most popular places to be in Budapest, at least on a Friday or Saturday night.

Push past the front door and a dimly-lit hallway leads to a large, open-air courtyard. Colorful lights strung together with furniture and a bicycle or two hang suspended in the air above and scenes from a black-and-white movie are projected onto the back wall. Off to the side sits an old Trabant, a type of car made in East Germany during the Cold War. The courtyard opens onto a maze of rooms, each decorated differently. In one, ancient-looking computer monitors and television sets are mounted to the walls. In another, a bathtub has been split in half and converted into a makeshift seating area.

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Placemaking and the City

Cities are back in fashion; on television (Sex in the City), in music (with ‘urban’ now the codeword for black, popular and rhythmic), in architecture (where density generates the most rewarding opportunities), among international agencies (seeking ways of managing post-Fordist and post-industrial societies), and within the planning establishment (with the reversal of ideas on the uses of the city). One of the most important issues facing planning at the beginning of the twenty-first century is how to revitalise cities. Today, cities are seen as assets rather than liabilities. Their role as engines of economic growth is widely accepted and their spheres of influence the city is becoming recognised as fundamental building blocks in the national fabric.

Bench Bombing in Philly

One simple way to transform public space

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Urban Planning and the Christchurch Recovery

“To hell with resilience, more action, please.”

These words of a disgruntled, uncited local have restrained me from writing an anticipated article on Christchurch’s ‘urban resilience’. While resilience might well be urbanism’s most prevalent buzzword since ‘sustainability’ itself, I feel I must honour the above-quoted, unnamed radio personality who rhetorically asked: “can we please stop patronising people by gushing about their resilience?”

Indeed Cantabrians, being those who hail from the Canterbury region in which Christchurch City is located, dealt and are dealing with the earthquakes of 2010 to present remarkably well. But people are resilient. It’s what we do. Notwithstanding how fantastically adaptable humans are, this article instead considers the positive urban planning outcomes which have come out of Christchurch’s preliminary recovery.

Júzcar - The Smurf Town

Júzcar is a town and municipality in the province of Málaga, part of the autonomous community of Andalusia in southern Spain. The municipality is situated approximately 22 kilometres from Ronda and 113 from the provincial capital. The town is one of the White Towns of Andalusia, with buildings whitewashed. In spring 2011, buildings in the town (including the church and gravestones) were painted blue to celebrate the premiere of the Smurfs movie.

Here's the link for more -> http://metrosquare.blogspot.com.au/2011/12/juzcar-smurf-town.html