What will the next generation third place look like? Architect Magazine asked five architectural firms to provide their unique answers which are presented in the article, The Next Starbucks. Clockwise from top left, there’s a definite coffee bar theme:

BARbucks by designLAB, Boston - Coffee served bartender style like at a bar for people that want a more social solo experience. This is how coffee is served in Italian espresso bars. designLAB also presents AUTObucks, the equivalent of the self

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There are a slew of ‘most walkable city’ rankings, but the one by Walk Score (profiled previously) is as scientific and practical as they get.  Walk Score is a web-based service that scores the walkability of an address on a scale of 1 to 100 based on access to amenities, groceries, transportation, etc., so it wasn’t difficult for them to map out every single address and display it graphically (the more green, the more walkable, red being the least).

The Walk Score rankings:

1. San

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Bedford Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn’s main street, is pedestrian-only on four Saturdays from July 19th to August 9th, 2008, noon to 7 pm. Check it out at Wiliamsburg Walks. Those in the know are aware this is a NYC DOT led effort through their streets to plazas program, though heavily supported by the local businesses and residents - some quotes:

“It feels a lot more peaceful, people are spread across the sidewalk and road, vs everyone crammed onto the sidewalk.“

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Up until recently, crowdsourced placemaking only made it to the front page of this website. Sunday, July 27, 2008, was a seminal moment as it hit the front page of the fifth largest newspaper in the U.S., the Washington Post in the article Online, a Community Gathers to Concoct A Neighborhood Eatery. The story, written by food writer Jane Black, is focused on the crowdsourcing of a green, healthy, education and community-oriented restaurant in Washington DC called Elements, which has been

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How do you top Maryland’s first pedestrian-only street in several decades and its first pedestrian-only mixed-use lane? Easy, its first real piazza, which we profiled while in the planning stages here.

The $360 million, 15-acre Rockville Town Square has literally become the city’s center stage overnight, hosting concerts, movies, a farmer’s market and even a rock climbing wall. Being in the space feels right - it’s like an outdoor room, enclosed on four sides, filled with outdoor dining

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Maryland’s first pedestrian-only street in several decades, Ellsworth Drive, was profiled in the previous entry, but it’s not the only one.  In Bethesda, a town at the edge of Washington DC, Bethesda Lane opened in June 2008. If Ellsworth Drive reminds people of Downtown Disney, then Bethesda Lane conjures up Universal Studios. It features 44,000 s.f. of retail distributed through 16 shops and restaurants, mostly chains and luxury items, topped with 180 luxury apartments.

It obviously does

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Ok, so those who’ve been down Silver Spring’s Ellsworth Drive in Downtown Silver Spring feel like they’re in Downtown Disney, but the takeaway here is that this is Maryland’s first successful pedestrian-only district (on weekends) in decades.

Ellsworth is the lone pedestrian-only street in the 22-acre mixed-use Downtown Silver Spring redevelopment, including 440,000 s.f. of retail. It’s more of a suburban shopping mall with its large-scale national retailers, but it does have a triangular

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Why are large organizations so focused on maintaining their bureaucracy rather than providing what’s needed when it’s needed? That’s what Clay Shirky answers in his new book on crowdsourcing, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, and his Smart City Radio interview focuses especially on cities. Some valuable lessons:

- It’s easy to create a new bureaucracy, and very hard to dismantle it.

- The first stage of crowdsourcing is sharing ideas. The second is doing

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A popular item on many a creatives‘ wishlist is to see a car-dominated commercial street transformed into a pedestrian-only plaza brimming with outdoor diners. Some fortunate residents in NYC may not have to wait much longer.

Following a rather astounding recent track record in prioritizing pedestrians over cars, the NYC DOT (Department of Transportation) presented its latest and greatest, the NYC Plaza Program. When was the last time a Department of Transportation issued a statement like

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There are ‘green festivals’, then there’s San Francisco’s second annual Bicycle Music Festival, a one day, 15 band, 7 festival stop, free music festival that uses zero cars, trucks or even electricity. How?

- The bands all carry their equipment via bicycle trailers.
- The audience arrives via bike, skate and foot. They then travel sequentially to each of the seven festival stops in different parts of the city.
- The 600-watt P/A system is pedal-powered, developed by Rock the Bike in Berkeley,

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