urbanism

For $100 a Night, You Can Stay in a Bed and Breakfast Shaped Like a Beagle

image: Woodland Retreat

During the 2014 Venice Biennale, the award winning Korean pavilion displayed work from both the DPRK and the ROK. The DPRK portion was organized by Koryo Studies. Here is the brief from this website on "Utopian Tours":

Koryo Studio commissioned a North Korean architect to work on ‘Commissions for Utopia’, designs for sustainable tourism. We sat down with the North Korean architect and talked about trends in creating architecture that leaves a small environmental footprint. North Korean architects who were trained pre-digitalisation are expert in rendering their drawings by hand using acrylic paints, creating artworks in their own right.

The works were exhibited at the 2014 Venice Biennale, Korean pavilion (Golden Lion winner).

Here are some of my favorites:

Silk Co-operative

Mt. Kumgang Bird’s Nest Villa

Mt. Kumgang Bird’s Nest Villa Interior

Mountain Conicals

And finally, the MVP of communism:

Train

More here: https://koryostudio.com/exhibitions/commissions-for-utopia-2010/

“For an office building, you can’t get a loan today…there’s no liquidity in the marketplace,” Gottlieb told Fortune. And with interest rates being higher, it’s eating away at a lot of the cash flow, Gottlieb said, calling it a “very trying time.”

In his view, the difference with this office real estate downturn as compared to previous downturns is that office owners are wondering if demand will ever return.

160k for that truck esp considering its made with Swiss labor is pretty good.

Y'all surely already got recommended these same videos by youtube, but I really love the "US urbanism hopium week" unknowingly unleashed right after the dumb NJB doomer tantrum, lmao

https://fortune.com/2023/08/03/michael-bloomberg-billionaire-return-to-office-federal-agencies/

Empty offices are a problem that could result in another run on the banks, some economists have warned, with swaths of new office buildings financed on short-term loans with no leases taken out to pay for it. Morgan Stanley estimates that $1.5 trillion in commercial real estate loans are due to be repaid by 2025.

With 176 offices across the world—some of which cost more than $1 billion to build—it’s perhaps not a surprise that Bloomberg is keen to get his own staff back through the doors, a sentiment echoed by JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon.

It's that time again! Ask me about trains.

Nitter

Metro is adding service specifically because Taylor Swift is playing. Free shuttles to the stadium from the station, service until 2am!

https://thesource.metro.net/2023/07/24/look-what-you-made-us-do-were-adding-service-for-taylor-swifts-six-shows-at-sofi-stadium/

Next year MAYBE construction begins on a people mover connecting SoFi stadium to Inglewood station.

You all do realize that suburbs existed before the invention of the car right? American infrastructure is bad but it’s not irredeemable, the assumption that we can’t provide public transportation to these places because of a lack of resources is malthusian. And sure some places like the American Southwest and Florida are legitimately over human population carrying capacity due to climate change but in general the earth as a whole isn’t, and cities like Amsterdam are just as unsustainable as Miami since even though has one of those le epic reddit notjustbikes cityskylines approved infrastructure, both are below the sea level.

I think in general our message should be abolish the need to own the automobile, any measures meant to limit car use should target the rich before the poor. And that trains are good, and that a high speed train across the United States would be a rather popular project in the eyes of even the chuds. And by god stop calling for the suburbs to be razed, stop trying to be zoomer Robert Moses.

just thought it was funny this video came out right after the NotJustBikes doomerism post

I tend to agree RMTransit here, even in cursed Los Angeles there are miles of rail opening each year. Maybe one day it'll creep into my neighborhood

This is Thanet Parkway.

No ticket office, no information point, no staff, about as wide as a balance beam and less vibrant than a self-storage complex. It was supposed to cost £11m but somehow ended up spiralling to over £35m.

Southeastern Railways is on Twitter trying to answer or deflect angry questions, predominantly from disabled people, explaining the ever more complicated and absurd ways disabled people can 'request' assistance in using the station.

It's important to note that most of their answers rely on just saying that the trains on that line have conductors on the trains themselves who can help, at a time when both the government and the rail companies are pushing for DOO trains (Driver Operater Only i.e. no train staff apart from the driver who is not allowed to leave their cabin).

They've also been asked numerous times for the dimensions of the platform so that disabled users can check if there is enough space for their wheelchairs / mobility scooters. This is the only question they have repeatedly ignored.

It also appears that the station, which many local politicians have argued was not required, may have been promised as part of a deal with a housing developer to increase the value of the development they were building. Which is a whole other can of worms.

NotJustBikes is getting dragged on Twitter for this post.

What do you think? Is he right? Wrong? Not wrong, but an asshole?

When I see how hard advocates and sympathetic planners have to work in 2023 to get a halfassed facility that would never make it off the drawing board in the Netherlands, it's hard for me to say he's wrong.