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An Environmental Psychology Blueprint? - A must read! |
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Title: The Challenge of Making HafenCity Feel Neighborly
In: Spiegel Online International
By: Cathrin Schaer
"Hamburg's new quarter is one of the largest urban development projects underway in the world today. But will it be successful? City planners are hoping that their application of an academic field known as environmental psychology will do the trick.
Luxury apartments, star architects and a waterfront promenade; a five-star hotel, a university, plenty of residential and office space and excellent public transportation. Hamburg's HafenCity is one of the largest city center development projects in the world today, and it is an incredible undertaking. The jewel in the crown will be a brand new, and very expensive, opera house designed by Herzog & de Meuron -- it will be a sight to rival Sydney's landmark concert hall.
By the time HafenCity (Harbor City) is finished in 2025, Hamburg's newest district will stretch 1.5 kilometers (0.9 miles) between the city center and the Elbe River, covering the site of the former harbor. The quarter will double the population of Hamburg's city center. No satellite town this: HafenCity sits less than a kilometer from the Hamburg town hall and its success is essential to Germany's second largest city.
But how to ensure that success? How can one make certain that this very important piece of real estate actually becomes a living, breathing part of the city -- a place where people want to both work and spend their leisure time? Indeed, how can one guarantee that a brand new neighborhood actually feels neighborly?"
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What Social Entrepreneurship Can Teach Social Design |
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In: Design Observer
By: Ramsey Ford
"What Social Entrepreneurship Can Teach Social Design.
Applying principles from a well-established practice to a brave new world.
In the past few years, considerable progress has been made in bringing design attention to areas of social inequality. An emerging field, however, social design lacks the established educational and career paths that exist for other areas of design. As a professor at the University of Cincinnati and a director of a nascent design nonprofit, Design Impact (DI), I'm often approached by young designers asking: What knowledge do I need to get into social design? What skills should I develop that I didn’t learn for my design degree? What social design opportunities are out there? How do I begin?
Two years ago, I attended the Better World by Design conference in Providence, Rhode Island. There, I was surprised to discover that many of the panelists weren’t designers, but entrepreneurs and realized that young designers interested in this field may find assistance from the well-established field of social entrepreneurship. One source of insight is J. Gregory Dees’s influential article “The Meaning of Social Entrepreneurship,” which lays out the differences between social and traditional orientations of entrepreneurship, identifying a few areas where social entrepreneurs need to have expanded knowledge. Adapting the same concepts to designers — a strategy I use in the paragraphs below — provides some insight into what they need to thrive in the social design arena."
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Infuriating Wheelchair Ramps |
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In: Roll a Ramp
"Technically the following wheelchair ramps are a success, in that they bridge the gap between two levels by way of an inclined surface. The problem though, lies in the fact they’re incredibly difficult and/or somehow infuriating to use for the average wheelchair user – if not impossible – and could actually even cause more problems than they solve. It’s good to see ramps appearing around the world in an effort to make certain areas accessible to wheelchair users, but a little common sense and an ounce of forward-thinking would help to make their experience a lot more agreeable."
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By Roger K. Lewis
In: The Washington Post
Saturday, June 19, 2010
"Georgetown's Social Safeway is a Monument to Changing Supermarket Structure"
"The recently rebuilt "Social Safeway" on Wisconsin Avenue NW, at the northern edge of Georgetown [in Washington, DC], is not just another remodeled supermarket. It represents a positive evolution in thinking about merchandising strategy and about being a good citizen through pedestrian-friendly architecture and urban design.
This new supermarket follows a completely different set of rules than its predecessor. Safeway and other supermarket chains traditionally have adhered dogmatically to rules about selection of sites for stores and, in particular, rules about how such sites should be developed. And one of the primary rules was: Cars rule"
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The Secret Language of Signs |
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The Secret Language of SignsThey're the most useful thing you pay no attention to. Start paying attention.
By: Julia Turner
In: Slate, March 1st, 2010
“Signage—the kind we see on city streets, in airports, on highways, in hospital corridors—is the most useful thing we pay no attention to. When it works well, it tells us where we are (as when an Interstate marker assures us we're on the right highway) and it helps us to get where we want to go (as when an airport banner directs us to our gate). When it fails, we miss trains, we're late to appointments, we spend hours pacing the indistinguishable floors of underground parking garages, muttering to ourselves in mounting frustration and fury. And in some cases, especially where automobiles are involved, the consequences of bad signage can be fatal.”
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