Urban Change Maker - Joost Bakker

Oh yeah, the Urban Change Maker column is back! Do you ever dedicate some time to finally listening to a lecture or talk you have been meaning to and get absolutely blown away by what they had to say? Well, that is exactly what happened when I watched this Creative Mornings Melbourne talk (vimeo.com/63225503 ) by todays Urban Change Maker - Joost Bakker. 

Joost's Melbourne Greenhouse Pop Up via Broadsheet Melbourne

Joost could be categorised as a lot of things; farmer, inventor, artist, designer and problem solver but at the heart of everything he does is his clear ethos - rethink your original notions of waste and products and collaborate and explore to inspire people to live sustainably. Joost has made particular efforts to improve the sustainability of the hospitality industry not only by developing the cool vertical gardens you see everywhere such as those featured on the Greenhouse Pop Up. In Silo by Joost, a hole in the wall Melbourne Cafe in Hardware Lane the act of simple stating that the cafe will not have a bin has lead to a huge range of sustainable and waste minimising solutions! 

Inside Silo by Joost via Broadsheet Melbourne

Asides from providing take away coffee (and I am sure a sustainably made reusable coffee cup is encouraged) Silo boasts the fact that it produces absolutely no waste. You even get to sit on top of the reusable kegs which provide the milk and other beverages for the cafe. I wont provide too much more detail when you can watch the video and check out Joost for yourself and be sure to visit ByJoost.com for more information on other cool projects (e.g. rooftop farming and harvesting urine!). I know I want to learn everything I can about this talented problem solver!

Urban Change Makers: Bee One Third

I thought it was about time I not only reinstated the urban change makers column but that I hopped aboard the praise train for the duo behind Brisbanes Bee One Third (recently featured in the U on Sunday magazine). Although neither Kat Skull or Jack Wilson Stone, the geniuses behind Bee One Third are from Brisbane originally they are both long term residents and luckily for us it has become their entrepreneurial home. Urban bee keeping is by no means a new addition to the rooftops of cities across the world and addresses a vital need to maintain our bee population and restore their rightful place in the city. But Bee One Third bring a new meaning the the term "local" with honey being produced on the rooftops of the very restaurants it is used and sold in (such as Gerards Bistro in New Farm). 

Rooftop Beekeeping taken by Andy Leitch via Facebook

Not only are Skull and Stone bringing bee keeping to our rooftops, they also have taught classes at Brisbane's The Joynery in order to help locals create bee friendly gardens in small spaces, in order to provide the best possible chance for the hives to thrive. The attention to detail shown in the Bee One Third project is admirable, with all hives hand crafted and the honey produced bottled by hand and containing hand stamped and embossed labels. These are some seriously talented and clever bee keepers we are dealing with.  If you are interested in finding out more I would head to Bee One Third's facebook here or try and get your hands on yesterdays U on Sunday article. 

The Urban Coffee Farm

I tweeted a video of Hassell's Urban Coffee Farm process (here) for the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival and I am super stoked to share some photos of the finished product here. I think this project really embodies a great temporary urban place and love that it has focused on reactivating a space that was otherwise underused.  Not only that I, like many Australians and especially Melbournites, am a coffee addict - so any place to get more coffee is always going to be approved by me!  The space is also awesome as it actually gives you to opportunity to learn more about coffee and where it comes from placing an emphasis on sustainability. 

Inside the Urban Coffee Farm via Habitus

The design of this project is, for lack of a better word, ingenious. The way that pallets, ply and chalkboards have been used in conjunction with a huge volume of greenery and vegetation really does set the scene of walking into a coffee farm or jungle and allowing you to step out of the city for a few moments (as well as just looking genuinely cool). Not only does it look cool, but you can see in the below picture that the coffee farm is attracting a wide range of people and giving them a collective an accessible open space to enjoy together. 

Outer View of the Urban Coffee Farm via Habitus

There are more photos over on the Habitus blog if you want to check it out further, and if your living in Melbourne I hope you are heading straight over to enjoy it while it's there because I wish I was! 

City. Living. Buys - Reusable Drink Bottles

So Concord in Massachusetts has become the first city to officially ban disposable plastic water bottles in order to help our environment and encourage reduced waste and more sustainable living. This is a huge step in the right direction to reduce the total amount of packaging we are currently using (speakers come in a box, with two separate boxes inside with more packaging inside that). Though if you are like me the idea of choosing permanent water bottle and forking out between $12 - 35 for it, is somewhat intimidating (or at least it is for poor students that want their water bottle to match their outfits like I do). So I made a little collage of some cool water bottles to help you find the perfect one! 

1/2/3/4/5/6

Now although none of these water bottles are particularly new to the market, they each have their own unique feature which makes them well worth your consideration. My personal favourite is the Eau Good water bottle (number 1), which has a replaceable charcoal filter and sleek but quirky design features. The only draw back of this bottle is that it recommends a long period of time e.g. overnight to thoroughly filter tap water. The bottle is designed by black+blum and their other stuff (hello pot plant bbq) is definitely worth checking out! The bobble bottles (4) work based on a similar charcoal filter as well and the vapur sports bottle (5) is flexible and thus can fold up when not in use. 

So what do you think? Are you going to make the switch to reusable bottles? 

Mobile Cities

Now I want to admit to you guys something, hideously, hideously embarrassing - I have never had a meal provided by a food truck. This is particularly bad as I have noticed they seem to have been the biggest urban trend of the last 6 months or so and only seem to be growing in popularity. That being said, Australia and Brisbane in particular only just seem to be really picking up the whole mobile food service trend, with Brisbane's only current contender being "The Bun Mobile" pictured below. 

The Bun Mobile @ Newstead via Facebook

Now I can't help thinking that the food truck may turn out to be one of the biggest trends of 2013, allowing us to have adaptable and ever changing cities. BUT is the humble truck restricted to just serving us delicious, specialised foods? Why can't we have makers and craftsmen using the truck as a mobile store? We could have "The Shoe Horn" a bespoke cobbler featuring the old school ice cream truck horn.  Or "The Rolling Press" where people could simply walk in and have an appointment for their printing and letterpress needs. Not only could this trend provide us with exciting, moving cities but it could also allow for small businesses an affordable way to get on their feet before moving to more permanent (and expensive) premises. 

This is one trend I would really like to see be taken to new levels this year, what do you think? 

Urban Hero - Candy Chang

I have decided, due to how much I love doing city. design. buys to start another weekly column, dedicated to modern urban heros that are doing their bit to make our cities more sustainable, functional and fun. As much as I love Jane Jacobs and Kevin Lynch I feel like everyone doing something to shape our urban realm deserves a little credit and a little praise. So today I want to lavish praise on Candy Chang who I have been a die hard fan for since I first saw her TED Talk. 

It's Good to be Here project via Candy Chang

Candy Chang is an artist (one may even say an urban artist) in New Orleans, who based on her biography, aims to make people more contemplative when within cities. Despite me saying that urban heros didn't need to be urban designers or architects, Candy is both - with a degree in graphic design to boot. She has undertaken a huge variety of public art and design projects to make people really think and interact with the urban environment. Most renowned is her "Before I die _____" wall where people were provided with chalk to fill in the blank (live abroad, change the world, hug a sloth). Her "It's good to be here" project featured above was designed to make people stop and appreciate the city. But the project I find the most exciting started with the "I wish this was" project. 

"I wish this was" bollard via Candy Chang

Free stickers starting with "I wish this was" were provided with the direction to place them on vacant shop fronts throughout the city with what you wish they were being used as. Not only does this provide a great form of guerrilla public consultation and free expresion, it also allows for greater personalisation (there you go Kevin Lynch) of the public realm. Candy Chang also gives full permission for public use of her photos and recreations of her projects in other cities as long as the original inspiration is credited, what a way to give back and change our cities! 

"I wish this was" store front via Candy Chang

Rethink: The Way You Live

I recently purchased, read and loved Amanda Talbot's book "Rethink: The Way You Live". Not only is this book so full of glorious pictures and outstanding design that it should take the place of pride on your coffee table, but it is full of useful, innovative and important ideas and concepts. What I enjoyed most is that although the book presents a large range of big ideas on living more sustainably and changing the way we treat our homes and daily life, it never took on a "preachy" tone. 

One of my favourite spreads from Rethink via The Design Files

The above spread was one of my favourites in the book and the simple quote and idea that the way we as humans are interacting with the world is changing. This sparked particular importance for me in the way that our ideas in architecture and urban design can no longer rest on the same historical ideas but must push towards a brighter future. 

I especially relate with the idea that a single room does not need to have a defined purpose, a typical "bedroom" throughout the day can function also as an office, a living room, a meeting area, a quiet space and a range of other things so why limit it to just being "a bedroom". I think this idea, as well as the fact that we should always be growing, should also be applied to the urban realm. A park does not just have to function as a recreation and leisure area but can also be where people meet, work, meditate, etc. 

Subway to Work

Subway car offices in Shoreditch, London (Nov, 2012)

While recently travelling in England I became addicted to the program "George Clarke's Amazing Spaces" which is like a less pretentious grand designs for the conversion of small, irregular spaces into habitable homes and offices. One of the spaces featured was these subway cars which had been converted into cheap, rentable office space in the middle of London. As I was wandering around Shoreditch (mostly looking for the more famous "Box Park" nearby) I took the above photo of some cool graffiti and subway cars which turned out to be the very offices featured on amazing spaces. 

Inhabitat, again, has featured these offices with a number of pictures showing their sleek interiors (am I ever going to feature something those geniuses haven't found first?) which you can visit by clicking here. Or I have been guilty of borrowing one of their photos showing the inside of the converted car and placing it below - it was just too sleek and pretty not to have! I wish I had known at the time what I was photographing, but all the fun of visiting a new city is stumbling across the unexpected. 

The interior of "village 2" subway car from Inhabitat.com

Cardboard Houses

I am currently reading "The Happiness Project" by Gretchen Rubin (because Kikki K did a collaboration and sometimes you can judge a book by its cover) and one of her tasks was to spend a little bit of time each day working on her blog. And so, I have decided to dedicate myself to doing the same, to stop this blog being a dream and to do the work to make it a reality. 

So, my very first thought was that I should write a post about something that really excites me and at the moment that is the work of Japanese architect Shigeru Ban. Luckily (and to my excitement) Shigeru Ban has contributed work to the rebuilding efforts in Christchurch, by designing a cardboard cathedral to replace one that regrettably had to be demolished. This cathedral, pictured below, uses the humble cardboard tube as it's main structural support elements. 

Model of the cardboard cathedral from Inhabitat.com

The coolest thing about this design is that it can be quickly assembled to allow Christchurch to resume life in the inner city and it can remain indefinitely until it is taken down and the parts are reused in another project. This work really highlights a new era in the realm of sustainable building design and development, that not only fills a need for buildings in the present but also accounts for the future of what is so called "temporary" architecture. Not only is this building sustainable, I am also highly attracted to the simple geometric design and the idea that the stained glass windows can be created by local artists which really helps connect the project with the city and provide a sense of ownership. 

Shigeru Ban has done countless other amazing projects and has fast become my hero. Inhabitat.com has featured a number of other projects which are definitely worth taking a look at if your interested in architecture, design and sustainability. 

The Process of Temporary Urban Design

What first got me excited about the idea of temporary urban design is the diagram below by Rick Agnes which was discussed on the Gehl cities for people blog in relation to the processes currently being implemented in Christchurch. As a concept it has only evolved relatively recently in response to a number of factors (e.g. natural disasters and the GFC) and really incorporates those intermediate, unplanned uses that can be put in place immediately in empty spaces throughout the city.  

The process of Temporary Urban Design @ Gehl Cities for People Blog

For the purpose of this blog I want to look at temporary urban design in terms of achieving a number of goals, namely; 

• Increasing activation and community involvement within our cities 
• Rebuilding a sense of community and bringing people back into the city after damaging natural disasters 
• Allowing for "unplanned", intermediate use of undeveloped land within a city 
• Creating unique uses which bring fun back into the urban realm 

So this basis leads us to the fun part from now on, looking at different temporary urban design that has been put in place worldwide, what it has achieved and in some cases even future ideas for temporary urban design! 

P.S. I promise this will start getting more colour and interest on the blog and I am working on learning my HTML to make the template more exciting!