A 1928 Plan for the City of Vancouver & Others

The last month, and particularly the last few days, has seen a slew of reports and plans released. I thought it would be good to compile them all in once place for those interested and with lots of free time. And I mean a lot of free time. This probably adds up to more than 500 pages in total. Have fun!

There's the Cambie Corridor Plan in Vancouver, which lays out the future of Cambie street now that the Canada Line has strung it all together.

City of Vancouver Archives has released this digitized version of a 1928 plan for the City of Vancouver. The whole things can be downloaded as a 332-page PDF file that includes an exhaustive city plan along with maps, charts, and street cross-sections. BT Architects held an event surrounding the plan on April 26, 2011. Historical nerds, unite!

The Martin Prosperity Institute released their report, Who Cares About 15 Million Urban Voters, which quantifies Canada's urbanization and the place of cities in the federal election. This was also the subject of a panel discussion held a few weeks ago, which I covered for Torontoist.

For more electiony-type stuff, here's the election platform for the Federation of Canadian Municipalities [PDF], which among many other things calls for broader funding tools for cities as well as national strategies for transit and infrastructure.

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives released their Transportation Transformation document a few days ago, which looks to build "complete communities and a zero-emission transportation system in B.C."

City Parks, Burning Man, Roofs That Aren't Roofs, Atmospheric Electricity, & Freeway Demolitions

Could city parks bring urban centres back to life? This article looks at new urban parks in St. Louis, Detroit and Houston. And no, the Detroit one is not a (park)ing lot.

Ever wanted to create a 50,000 person city in the middle of the desert, party for a few days and then take it all down again only to do it the following year? Well, maybe you should go to Burning Man.

These architecture students ask the question when is a roof not a roof? (Answer: when it's a floor. Or a wall.)

Things I wish I could pull out of thin air: money, time, really good zingers. Oh, and I guess electricity would be kind of cool, too.

New Orlean's toys with the idea of tearing down an elevated urban expressway. Toronto, take note.

Solar Homes, Iceberg Homes, Animal-shaped Cities, Bike Corrals, and Hacked Billboards & Websites

Architect Ralph Disch builds Heliotrope: the world's first energy positive solar home. It rotates to follow the sun where ever it goes. Except at night.

Daniel Andersson imagines the Iceberg house in Finland: a floating house that shows only its tip above water. Soon to follow: the first cruise ship sunk by striking a house.

Southern Sudan unveils plans to build animal shaped cities. It's like animal crackers, except instead of eating them you live inside them.

Vancouver grocery store owner credits the city's "hippy mayor" for on street bicycle corral that fits 18 bikes outside his store on Commercial Drive.

A group of Toronto artist's take it upon themselves to hack illegal billboards and replace the advertisements with their own art. In a twist of irony, the Toronto website illegalsigns.ca has also been hacked, but of a different less artistic nature.

Design Success!, Design Fail!, iPhone Architecture Tours, High Speed Rail, and a Land of Giants

If you feel in a positive mood, you can check out this list of the top 20 urban planning successes of all time and see if you agree. Spoiler: Vancouver's Granville Island makes it to number 7.

Or if you feel in a negative mood, you can check out the 10 worst design fails of the past 25 years, instead. My personal favourite being the waterpark filled with colourful penises.

The Netherlands Architecture Institute launches Urban Augmented Reality, a smartphone app that will allow you to point your phone's camera at a building and instantly see information on that building, including past images and future projects. Definitely a handy tool for locals and tourists who want to know more about the city as they're walking around and don't want to take the time to do it the old fashioned way and look it up on Wikipedia.

On August 11th, the groundbreaking for the Transbay Transit Center -- a high-speed rail station that will link San Francisco with Los Angeles -- took place. The 2.25 billion project will see trains running at 354 km/h with a travel time between the two cities of about two and a half hours. Watch this beautiful 3D rendering of the future station and be consumed by jealousy (unless you live in SF).

Choi + Shine Architects re-design the boring electrical tower into a stunning Land of Giants, proving that infrastructure we long ago shrugged off as a necessary evil can be turned into imaginative and though-provoking architectural wizardries.

Busses you can drive beneath, super high-speed trains, Soviet-style Tetris, vertical gardens, and a fake cloud in New York

China plans to build huge busses that you can drive underneath, with construction of the first 186km track to be started at the end of the year. But wait! China's not finished yet! They're also building a maglev train that will be capable of ground speeds of up to 1000km/h. After riding the GO train to Niagara Falls from Toronto a few days ago, a 1000km/h high-speed train is almost unimaginable.

But let's say you don't really care about crazy busses and high-speed trains and are more into, oh, I don't know, building Soviet-style apartment blocks in a giant game of Tetris. Well, now you can! Or, you can at least watch a video of how it's done.

Spain has created a six-story vertical garden in the town square of San Vincente del Raspeig, which to me looks like a big green patch-work quilt thrown over a building.

Architects, NAMELESS, propose a fake cloud in New York called PlayCloud, which, in my opinion, should be renamed The Big Giant White Jellyfish.

Urbanized Film, Plastic Jug Planters, 21 Architectural Marvels, More Electronic Billboards?, and Fishy Frank Gehry

Gary Hustwit, director of the documentaries Helvetica and Objectified, says his next project, to complete the "Design Trilogy" will be a film titled Urbanized that will explore ideas related to urban design.

Old, plastic jugs turned decorative planters pop up in London.

Vanity Fair lists 21 architectural marvels. Expect some of the usual suspects. Rem Koolhaas makes the list three times. Canadian buildings completely absent.

John Lorinc writes about the renewal of upper Yonge Street in Toronto, featuring...more electronic billboards a la Yonge & Dundas Square?

Frank Gehry clears the air on his fishy inspiration.