Jane's Walk Vienna

On Sunday May 4th I will be guiding a Jane's Walk in Vienna. This post contains some preparatory images I took. Please have a look into the walk's details on the website of Jane's Walks. 

As I just moved to Vienna's 9th district (Alsergrund) I decided to explore the area of the "University Center Althanstraße" encompassing the now vacant Business University buildings, the Institute of Ecology (where I studied, amongst others), as well as the Geology and Pharmacy Institutes.

I am happy about this initiative and am curious to see how we are going to walk, converse and vision about what this whole building complex can turn into in future. 

Meeting point: Sunday, 4th May, 5PM in front of Franz-Josephs Bahnhof.

Click images to enlarge! 

Niche Flushing Meadows Corona Park

Niche Red Hook

Gowanus Canal: Approach II by Bike

I was approaching the Gowanus canal this time by bike downstream from 3rd street. Contrasting the upper/inner part of the canal this area is characterized by huge private industrial and retail lots located directly at the canal. This propoerty context creates a variety of borders which materialize in numerous intertwined fences and in-between spaces along the canal. Nicely enough these derelict areas left out of sight are the places where succession can take place and accomodate biological succession and human shadowy existence. At the end of the tour I met some people interested in the peotics of the Gowanus as well. The oil slick on the water was almost gulf-like this time.
Find here some peeks at the canal, into private lots, through fences and borders, onto landmarks and on situations of unintended beauty.

Niches in Brooklyn

Hop (Humulus lupulus)

Red oak (Quercus rubra).

vienna hinterhof niche

although this tree is being chopped down again and again, its keeping on sprouting in this courtyard next to a friend's studio in Vienna. urban ubiquists make the best designs.

sewage system as niche

ferns growing in this sewage system in wanchai hong kong. click on the picture below to enlarge.

sinking world (concepts) in dubai

while the big reflection process about economical paradigms is still ongoing in dubai, the sea seems busy getting back what boom and bust tried to claim from her. the newly landscaped world is disappearing into the the ocean again, even faster than sea level rise would have been doing the job.

dubai may provide a stark learning lesson: mankind cannot develop cities (and maintain societies) without an 'ecological thought'.
cities may rather be conceptualized as tradin places, places of intensified negotiation and exchange, 'parliaments of things' which are interconnected by networks of the 'living'.
a city in which some sort of financial imperialism is celebrated to the cost of modern slavery is not such a place.

more on the story at, and picture taken from: dailymail.co.uk

Palisade Bay Masterplan envisioned

i was very excited last thursday during Guy Nordenson's lecture at HKU, faculty of architecture about a research based approach to design which is usually missing in practise.

the lecture featured a straightforward research project 'On the Water - Palisade Bay' by Guy Nordenson and Associates, Catherine Seavitt Studio and students from Princeton University, Center for Architecture, Urbanism + Infrastructure.
they aimed at illucidating the effects of sea level rise on greater new york harbor and the adjacent landscape (where millions of people reside;).
mapping of the landscape palimpsest was complemented by scientific modelling of possible severe floodings in the harbor area. this CFD modelling of waterflows under hurricane conditions was done with a seamless landscape model of bathymetry and topography.


























model of bathymetry and topography developed in the 'Surface Water Modeling System' (SMS). copyright: Princeton University, CAUI.


this research currently informs the development of a visionary masterplan for the bay area. regarding stormwater management, the strategy (in a nutshell) is to take out energy from the inflowing water during storm events. therefore, the roughness of bay and shoreline should be amplified (see pic below). this will be an opportunity to create an interconnected land- and waterscape as breeding ground for 'the living' in greater new york.



























Finite-element model of the New York / New Jersey Upper Bay incorporating Latrobe masterplan islands, detached piers, and reefs. copyright: Princeton University, CAUI.

during the last months, five design teams, constituted from architects and landscape architects, were busy designing this vision of transforming the bay area into a 'contemporary central park' for the new york metropolitan region. mitigation climate change effects and the necessary clean-up of industrial artifacts may thereby lead to a new urban environment in which synergies are the norm and ecology understood as lived complexity.

you can find more and updated information about the design proposals the MOMA 'rising currents' blog. and await the MOMA exhibition starting this spring (@ The Museum of Modern Art; March 24-August 10, 2010).

see also worldarchitects and changeobserver for more information.

check out as well the homepge 'on the water - palisade bay' and surf to Princeton University, Center for Architecture, Urbanism and Infrastructure.

niches in hong kong

@ causeway bay































@ tai hang

aspern