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September 15, 2006

Smallest, Coolest Apartment Contest 2006

What are the smallest, coolest apartments in the country?

One need look no further than the 2nd annual Smallest, Coolest Apartment Contest 2006, sponsored by Apartment Therapy.

Qualifying entrants must be under 650 s.f. (quality trumps quantity in the city) and among the 48 contiguous states (what the judges have against Hawaii, Alaska and Washington DC I don't know), and are usually submitted in the early spring. This year's tied-for-first winners are:

- David & Im's OneSpace - 426 s.f. loft in San Diego (pictured above) - "truly innovative, creative, and beautiful use of a small space." Check out the loft's a-day-and-night-in-the-life-of video.
- Jenny & Clove's LAish Pad - 442 s.f. open studio in Astor Place, NY (below) - a "high-end look on a low-end budget".

Both the readers and judges evaluate the apartments on the following criteria, which are excellent benchmarks of quality whether designing one or a hundred not-so-big (and thus, more attainable) apartments:

"Efficiency: Innovative use of small space to maximize livability
Aesthetics: Beauty and stylistic achievement in decor
Special Challenges: Creative problem solving in dealing with adverse conditions"

We highlighted the first annual contest here.

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September 14, 2006

Innovista, Columbia, SC

The evolved university research park - the research village (pt. 2)

So why is the University of South Carolina's Innovista (profiled yesterday) worthy of proclaiming itself as "the model for the new research campus of the next 100 years"?...

...When's the last time you've seen a research "park" with marketing like this - "Imagine your home is a meandering stroll from your office. Along the way you pass delightful distractions, quaint bistros, art galleries, and unique shops. Just a few more steps and you're on a tree lined riverfront parkway, or watching a ballgame or concert." The more aptly described research village, with a mix of housing, office and retail, also features an extensive number of public amenities including a waterfront park, amphitheater, walking and biking paths and a grand public plaza.

Not only is the planning progressive, master-planned by the acclaimed Sasaki Associates, Boston, but so are the district's industries - biomedicine, nanotechnology, environmental science, public health and alternative fuels (including fuel cells). It's no coincidence that the presence of intellectual capital in environmental science and public health has provided the research village itself with an emphasis on sustainable design and fitness.

As a result, it's a good guess that Columbia won't be suffering from much brain drain in the coming years, and there are already indications that people are moving back to the downtowns. The name - the riverfront area is traditionally known as "the Vista", and of course "innovation" prevails throughout - says it all.

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September 13, 2006

Innovista, Columbia, SC

The evolved university research park - the research village (pt. 1)

We're all familiar with university research parks - they look just like suburban office parks, and yes, prospective workers avoid choosing such places (no one lives there) because they're not about to sacrifice two hours of their daily life to commuting, much less the additional time it takes to get to any form of authentic entertainment.

Well, that was in the days of the industrial economy, and in the knowledge economy we'll start to see places like the University of South Carolina's Innovista, a 200-acre live, work, play university research urban village located in the heart of the city of Columbia. In fact, in many ways it will help enhance the perception of Columbia as a true city as the development is integrated into the city's downtown fabric and scale and provides the kind of housing, office space, entertainment and recreation that attracts the creative class, entrepreneurs and knowledge workers, not to mention graduating students.

At build-out:
- 8 million s.f. of office, retail and residential (3000 residences)
- Projected to create 8700 jobs
- Boost to the economy of $1.35 billion.

Do you think your major city would benefit from those numbers?

Tomorrow - why Innovista is a model for university research parks, which from here on out should probably be referred to as university research villages.

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September 12, 2006

Arnhem City Center, Netherlands

From deteriorated industrial center to stylish public attraction

As the Netherlands shifts from industry to knowledge-based economy, they certainly know their placemaking, transforming blocks of a neglected industrial district into a $150 million mixed-use development, Arnhem City Center, known locally as 'Musiskwartier'.

Opening last month, the predominantly a retail/entertainment center hosts a residential community above its shops of condos with terraces, gardens and balconies. The largely pedestrian-only development features a timeless architectural fabric, multiple paseos, and a new market square. While the public spaces are free, unfortunately all the homes are upscale and much of the retail consists of chains.

The project's financing is also a model for future investments of this kind. The forward-thinking Netherlands-based developer, Multi Development sold the project to a series of pension funds - an increasingly reliable source of long-term capital for future urban investments, mainly because their return on investment requirements have markedly lower demands over much longer periods of time.

Key stats:
- 1.68 acres
- 344,445 s.f. of retail
- 76 condos
- Underground parking for 1000 bicycles, 750 cars (maybe someday a U.S. project will have the same ratio)

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September 11, 2006

Paris

Downtowns can learn from creatives fleeing MySpace as well

The bad news is, once a place is on an irreversible track towards being uncool, you can bet the creatives will flee. The good news is, it works vice versa.

We all know the familiar pattern of risk-taking artists moving into an undesirable neighborhood, attracting the cool risk-taking indie venues, coffeehouses, restaurants and workplaces and infusing it with desire, which then attracts the risk-averse executive-types who then attract the risk-averse chains (ie Starbucks, McD's, Gap, etc.) While many artists are indeed either priced out or turned off and move, think of it this way - the creatives get to decide where the rest of the city's population should live, and hopefully benefit from a return on investment in the process.

So it shouldn't be any surprise that the same exact thing is happening with virtual communities, such as MySpace (see MySpace is Over) especially after being bought out by Fox's Rupert Murdoch a year ago. With 106 million members, what was once a series of genuine local communities of friends - the key to its viral success - has turned into hundreds of companies wanting to make friends with everyone and anyone. Sounds suspiciously like retail chains, or as one journalist writes, "When companies make profiles on MySpace, it’s only cool if they conform to the 'local language.'” Cities take note - local, indie, authentic, unique... is in, and probably will stay that way for a long time.

So where will the creatives be heading off to as MySpace continues to lose its authenticity? Something tells me they'd rather not say.

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