intermodal

The term “intermodal” has been used in many applications that include passenger transportation and the containerization of freight. Intermodal freight transport is defined as the use of two or more modes to move a shipment from origin to destination. An intermodal movement involves the physical infrastructure, goods movement and transfer, and information drivers and capabilities under a single freight bill. (http://www.railway-technical.com/intermo.shtml)

From my own understanding, there are four important points in the definition. First, during the door-to-door transportation, freight is put in standarized containers. Second, there are two or more than two modes of tranportation in the process. Third, there should be a manager who takes care of the whole chain of transportation even thought the freight goes through the hands of several companies. What's more, a customer will only be charged once by that manager, not several times by different companies.

Brownfields

"Brownfield sites are abandoned or underused industrial and commercial facilities available for re-use. Expansion or redevelopment of such a facility may be complicated by real or perceived environmental contaminations. In the United States urban planning jargon, a brownfield site (or simply a brownfield) is land previously used for industrial purposes or certain commercial uses. The land may be contaminated by low concentrations of hazardous waste or pollution, and has the potential to be reused once it is cle
aned up. Land that is more severely contaminated and has high concentrations of hazardous waste or pollution, such as a Superfund site, does not fall under the brownfield classification. Mothballed brownfields are properties that the owners are not willing to transfer or put to productive reuse." (http://en
.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownfield_land)

(Example of brownfields, image author: Dumelow)

Brown fields are lands used to be used as industry field or commercial field and are lightly polluted. Some highly polluted lands are not brownfiles. Brownfields are not abandoned lands. They are potential developing land and can be of great value if developed successfully. Usually brownfields are located in the suburban industrial districts, and sometimes may be located in old residential districts when the lands are polluted by some service facilities.

Now more and more designers are trying to explore methods to reuse and redevelop urban brownfields because of the limitation of available lands. Redeveloping the brownfields can decrease the developing pressure of urban green fields. Usually developing brownfields need a longer progress time because it takes time for the fields to recover.

(Example of the reuse of brownfields project, image author:Scott Ehardt)

Cosmopolitanism

Cosmopolitanism is the ideology that all human ethnic groups belong to a single community based on a shared morality. This is contrasted with communitarian and particularistic theories, especially the ideas of patriotism and nationalism. Cosmopolitanism may entail some sort of world government or it may simply refer to more inclusive moral, economic, and/or political relationships between nations or individuals of different nations. A person who adheres to the idea of cosmopolitanism in any of its forms is called cosmopolite. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmopolitanism)

In my opinion, cosmopolitanism should be the special turf of urbanists and architects. Standing against tribalism sectarian division and universalism of global placelessness, cosmopolitanism not only has the creation and reinforcement of the unique and particular qualities of places, but also welcomes immigrant populations, the disenfranchised and the poor into the places to make diversity, which encourage individuals from different places to form relationships of mutual respects.

Sidewalk

A sidewalk is a pedestrian path along the side of a road. A sidewalk may accommodate moderate changes in grade (height) and is normally separated from the vehicular section by a curbThere may also be a strip of vegetation, grass or bushes or trees or a combination of these between the pedestrian section and the vehicular section.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidewalk)

The sidewalk, severs far more purposes besides carrying pedestrian. It acts as the onjunction of the buildings and other users that border it. It provides a place that people could participate into the city life. Nowadays, a csidewalk by itself is nothing. It may be used for rich social spaces ground retail, markets by busking musicians or bicycles.

City of Global Capitalism

Through decades after the WWII, it is not difficult to claim that still we are living in the consequences of Modernism, and the merge of cities of global capitalism is one of them, inevitably, which is the expansion of capitalism based with the key of Modernism. Everything in the process of the city growth is not evaluated by the essence of the process, instead, the efficiency, being copy-able, the scale of global development, and the common value serving as the vital criteria for a city. Indeed, all these elements provided us with the brand new world that the scale were redefined by the efficiency of capital flow rather than the physical distance, for example , as a banker, or even an “urban designer”, you can decide what is going to happen in China when you sitting in the office in NYC; however, coming with, global capitalism is destroying the identity of cities, the self-protection of regional economy system such as the recent financial crisis which is the aftermath for the all the countries engaged in globalization, as is shown in the diagrams and photos.

the diagram is original composed by Wilson

Luckily, people are coming to realize the problem of uncontrolled globalization. Some architects, like Utzon, Aalto, are working to recalling the sense of places and for now there being the theory of critical regionalism headed by Tzonis, and so forth. Also in the field of urban design there are so many pacers, like Jan Gehl.

Olfactory

Olfactory which is one of the five basic sensations of human is always ignored by us in describing and feeling architecture and city because it is invisible. But when we try to experience the space by sense of smell, I really find something. Smell of the space is influenced by the wind direction, temperature and humidity. So the description of smell can reflect the climate and air quality of a city. On the other hand, smell is always connected to the memory of human and can conjure images. The smell of fresh water may lead us to think about the blue ocean, the smell of smoke may lead us the image of burned house. What is more, smell is also related to the culture. The smell of east world may be easily distinct from the west. Finally, It is a subjective sensation that everyone’s description of a specific smell may be different.
Here are how some architecture express smell visibally.

"    Léviathan Thot, Ernesto Neto
As part of the Paris Autumn Festival, Neto displayed Léviathan Thot in the Panthéon, Paris in 2006. Neto used tulle and polystyrene suspended from the ceiling to create a new relationship between space and the body. The translucent skin allowed for visitors to see the scents establishing a tension wanting to touch and play with the hanging floral stigma releasing more scents into the air. Through the passage of time, the scent dissipated into the space and would visitors would need to interact with it again (spray more perfume into the room).Like perfume which encompasses the space all around, Léviathan Thot provided a new spatialized scent formula which worked with gravity to place smells directly in front of the nose like a top note. The aromatic combination included black pepper, powdered cloves, turmeric, ginger and sand representing a flower with unique colors and perfume. The chandelier was intended to be touched, seen and smelled. Residue of the different spices and herbs left circles on the floor as a remnant of the installation (like the base of the perfume)."


"Eating the City, Song DongEating the City is a series of installations by Song Dong beginning in 2006. He recreates a mini-replica of the city in wafers, cookies, biscuits and candy. Viewers are presented with a sweet olfactory experience of the city rather than the usual urban stench of steam, garbage, and other urban pollution odors. Because food is an edible product, Dong explores it the temporality of a city through a decomposing, non-permanent material. The public is allowed to nibble the exhibit as their human footprint changes the daily footprint of the modern city landscape."


http://jodipfister.wordpress.com/2011/02/06/territories-of-olfaction/

Infrastructural Urbanism

Infrastructural Urbanism is a branch of urbanism which offers a new model for practice and a renewed sense of architecture's potential to structure the future of the city.  ( Infrastructure Urbanism, Stan Allen）

In our studio's recent assignment, we are designing a series of infrastructure to improve riverfront area in Detroit. This is a way to work at the larger scale that escapes master planning. However, that doesn't mean that we could neglect mapping,  projection, notation and visualization. We are just designing infrastructural projects to give people some brand-new experience.

Like the Swimming Pool showing left, the artist designed this infrastructural project to attract people to the site area. It worked really well. Human curiosity is been considered a lot in this case. Our projects are the same, to design  infrastructural projects to attract people to Detroit and make it revatalized.

Posted by Shuchen Lin