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June 8, 2007

Citta Italia, Japan

The kind of developer every cool city needs...

...and that's an Eve Picker. Trained as an architect/urban designer, Eve is probably Pittsburgh's most innovative, entrepreneurial real estate developer with a reputation for transforming undesirable buildings into loft-oriented residence and office works of art.

She's completed twelve developments from 2 units to 40,000 s.f. via her No Wall Productions real estate development company in Pittsburgh. Pictured is her 4920 Penn residential loft rentals, which has never had a lease vacancy since day one.

Dissatisfied with the property management of her developments once they were completed, she founded her own firm We Do Property to maintain the "high level of quality, fun, attitude and style" of her built residences and offices.

She's also one of the founders of Pop City, an alternative weekly e-magazine and news site for what's cool in Pittsburgh. The 6-8 development and 6-8 innovation news stories are often archived by neighborhood. A Pittsburgh version of the CoolTown Studios website if you will, as is Buffalo Rising is for Buffalo.

You can catch an interview with Eve on Smart City Radio. A couple of worth excerpts:

- What are the indicators that a neighborhood will attract creatives? Pop City uses TIDE indicators: Talent, innovation, diversity, environment.
- What are the key retail businesses needed to jumpstart a neglected neighborhood? Cheap good eats, sidewalk cafes, markets with fresh fruit and meat, food delivery, lifestyle/hip shops, pet day care, dry cleaners, a movie theater and car sharing.

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June 7, 2007

Citta Italia, Japan

A rarity: Human proportions in new development

A year ago we profiled how human-proportioned buildings not only provided a more welcoming urban fabric, but higher property values as well. These were generally in historic neighborhoods, but seldom in new developments.

Well, it took an Italian urban designer with a tremendous amount of respect for historic Italian neighborhoods to design these new buildings (pictured) in the Shiodome Italia, Tokyo development. The 30 Italian-inspired buildings in Japan's new Little Italy surround a piazza known as Citta Italia.

It's not a model of authenticity, but it's an excellent example of applying some humanistic contemporary creativity to the mass-produced urban glass tower apartment building, and that deserves some authentic credit.

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June 6, 2007

Architect Magazine

CoolTown Studios featured in Architect Magazine

I guess it's not a coincidence that the architecture magazine Architect, where you'd most likely find case studies of the kinds of buildings profiled on this website, would feature this website in its pages.

The new periodical has a regular column/page called Screen Capture (pictured) which highlights architecture-related websites, and this online destination is presented in its June issue. It isn't uploaded on their website just yet, so you're getting the first look at it online! (with the associate editor's permission of course.) You can view it a little better here.

The current issue has an excellent article with a suite of inspired photos on how loft-oriented interior design is spicing up restaurants, hotels and grocery markets.

Thanks to Joey Coleman for referring the article.

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June 5, 2007

Kevin Stolarick, Creative Class

How the creative class relates to the economy

With all the press and writings on the creative class, what sometimes gets lost is the economic bottom line of its impact on cities. These graphs, produced by Creative Class Group research partner Kevin Stolarick based on 2000 data, show it as clearly and succintly as anything out there.

The graphs show regional per capita income as it relates to % of the creative class workforce. The top one represents all 331 Metropolitan Statistical Areas, and the lower one shows only regions with populations above 500K.

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June 4, 2007

Twinbrook Station, Rockville, MD

Rockville, MD really laying on the urban fabric

Rockville, MD may not have a reputation for being a creative urban city in the Washington DC area, but it's certainly looking to change that in a hurry. It's Rockville Town Square makes a noble attempt at replicating a piazza, and its upcoming Twinbrook Station is garnering prestigious awards for sustainable urban planning.

The 26-acre Twinbrook (pictured) is a transit-oriented development located right at one of Washington DC's Metro subway stations. What used to be a collection of parking lots is being replaced with 610,000 s.f. of office, 160,000 s.f. of street-level retail and 1288 residential units - that's a lot of community being added that wasn't there.

Unfortunately, the supply of mixed-use urban development has yet to reach demand, so the units aren't necessarily affordable, nor are they designed small enough with affordability in mind. However, the market will correct itself once the demand for 'large luxury condominiums' is met and we will soon enough see new urban housing that the 'everyone else' can attain.

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