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Brand Avenue

Place, Space, & Identity

Neither Festival nor MarketplaceDecember 23 2008

Is there something amiss with Boston's Faneuil Hall, Ben Thompson's 1976 project that originated the concept of the "festival marketplace"? After all, it just won an AIA award for having "stood the test of time:"

The award is called the Twenty-five Year Award. It goes to only one American building each year. The building must be at least 25 years old, and it must have "stood the test of time" in the words of the sponsor, the American Institute of Architects. In other words, it must have proved to be an architectural classic. I don't think any prize is more highly valued by architects.

The Marketplace is unlike most winners of this award in that it isn't a new building. The architect, the late Benjamin Thompson, conceived the idea. He renovated three blocks of old warehouses, built originally in 1826, into a new kind of shopping complex that he dubbed a "festival marketplace."

...In its press release, the American Institute of Architects sings of the Marketplace in very up-to-date language. It's called "a great model of vital environmental principles" and

Get on the BusDecember 22 2008

A team composed of Aston Martin car designers and Foster + Partners architects have won a competition to design the next generation of iconic, much-loved double-decker buses for London. (via)

Aston Martin and Foster + Partners share the first prize distinction with a proposal by Capoco Design, (below) a bus, truck, and coach company.

The website of sponsoring authority Transport for London describes Aston Martin and Foster + Partners' winning entry:

...The bus will reinvent a much-loved London icon for a new era and re-establish the city as a

Roadsworth RevisitedDecember 10 2008

Peter Gibson, aka Roadsworth, (earlier) was recently commissioned by a Montreal neighborhood association to help revitalize the area, known as Saint-Pierre (via):

Most people don’t venture into Saint-Pierre unless they live there, work there, or are truly lost. The neighbourhood is isolated between two railway lines and a highway; its main street, a segment of Saint-Jacques, doubles as a trucking route. But despite these challenges, this part of the Lachine borough is close to the city centre and is currently experiencing a boom in housing....

The artist developed a naval theme, which alludes to Saint-Pierre’s proximity to the Lachine Canal and the historic Saint-Pierre River. The naval rope the winds along the sidewalksof Saint-Jacques also symbolizes the ties between local residents that are the strength of the isolated community. The anchor points, which are painted on benches, garbage cans and flower boxes, symbolize people’s attachment to their neighbourhood.

Local businesses donated paint and supplied water and electricity for the project. The hope is that Roadsworth’s street art - the same stencil work that got him arrested for public mischief in 2004 - will make Saint-Jacques more attractive to pedestrians, encourage people to walk to local businesses, and create a unique local signature that residents can be proud of.

It's an interesting project, especially given Roadsworth's checkered past with his city. Once seen as vandalism, his work makes for an interesting addition to what's usually considered urban design.

A new documentary that explores Roadsworth's work debuted last month in Montreal. View the trailer:

Building a Better Big BoxDecember 9 2008

The Washington Post enlists the imaginations of several DC-area architects in envisioning the future of the "big box" retail spaces that we all know and loathe. What will happen when the anchor tenant moves on, goes under, or decides it needs an even bigger space? What about changing retail and transportation preferences?

The different solutions presented in the article approach big box retail space from a few angles--exploring the big box's integration into denser, urban form and reimagining its insides as space for agriculture and commerce.

Below, Christopher Leinberger and Daniel Rippeteau start with the ubiquitous parking lots that surround essentially every suburban big box store. Their solution: "build a town in the parking lot."

The vast acreage of big-box parking lots seems almost providentially proportioned to be turned into walkable city blocks, he says. What y

Street with a ViewNovember 18 2008

Contemplating the gradual progress of Google's impartial, all-seeing "Street View" eye through America's streets, two Pittsburgh artists embarked on a mission to add some new, community-centric layers to the company's visual record. Hence "Street with a View," on an alley in Pittsburgh's North Side:

On May 3rd 2008, artists Robin Hewlett and Ben Kinsley invited the Google Inc. Street View team and residents of Pittsburgh’s North Side to collaborate on a series of tableaux along Sampsonia Way. Neighbors, and other participants from around the city, staged scenes ranging from a parade and a marathon, to a garage band practice, a seventeenth century sword fight, a heroic rescue and much more... 

Street View technicians captured 360-degree photographs of the street with the scenes in action and integrated the images into the Street View mapping platform. This first-ever artistic intervention in Google Street View made its debut on the web in November of 2008.

The end result is a clever blurring of fact and fiction, one that tells much more of a story about the street and its inhabitants. Check out all the constituent parts of the event that, sure enough, made it into Google Maps.