Urban Farms: NY, Osaka, Londres, Chicago

Londres, Chicago, Osaka e Nova Iorque:

http://www.monocle.com/sections/edits/Web-Articles/Best-Urban-Farms/

E Lisboa? Qual a produção agricola da nossa cidade?

Foto: Borough Market, Londres

NOVA IORQUE: «NO DOGS ALLOWED»

O que se poderá fazer para ajudar a acabar com o grave problema dos jardins lisboetas transformados em WC caninos? Para além de um reforço da fiscalização (nunca vi um Polícia Municipal a multar estes casos flagrantes), porque não segue a CML o exemplo de outras cidades do mundo? Este que aqui divulgamos foi observado em jardins públicos de Nova Iorque: placas afixadas a colunas de iluminação informando que é probido a entrada de cães, «NO DOGS ALLOWED». Se os jardins municipais, como o do Principe Real, Estrela, Campo dos Mártires da Pátria, Fernando Pessa (um dos piores!) etc, tivessem placas semelhantes, isso constituiria um primeiro nível dissuasor, para além de nos ajudar a nós, os munícipes que reclamam.

Candeeiros de Iluminação Pública: Lisboa versus New York

City Hall Park, New York

A propósito de mais um abate de candeeiros de iluminação pública por parte do Departamento de Iluminação Pública (DIP) da CML a decorrer no Bairro das Novas Nações (ex Bairro das Colónias), apresentamos aqui um exemplo do que a cidade de Nova Iorque está a fazer nas zonas históricas da cidade. No City Hall Park, perto do Ground Zero, foram restauradas as colunas de iluminação originais no âmbito da reabilitação do jardim nesta praça. Mas a intervenção de restauro foi ao pormenor de repor a iluminação a gás original. Mas não se pense que isto é um mero capricho de NY - podemos ver arruamentos públicos em cidades da Europa também com candeeiros a gás (ex: Londres).

Ao longo das últimas décadas do séc. XX grande parte do mobiliário urbano de origem das praças e jardins de NY foi descaracterizado, nomeadamente através do abate insensível de candeiros, bancos, etc. Mas as autoridades de NY estão a reabilitar estes espaços públicos de referência da cidade, numa filosofia de restauro e não de "modernização". Infelizmente ainda temos funcionários na CML, por exemplo na DIP, que não prestam grande atenção (desprezando até!) ao património dos candeeiros de Lisboa, muitos deles desenhados especificamente para a cidade como é o caso das consolas de iluminação que equiparam o Bairro das Novas Nações desde os anos 50 do séc. XX até este ano.

O "Glória", Lisboa, no New York Times

CHEAP. That’s the label usually slapped across the forehead of the Portuguese capital. Around the Continent, the waterside city is mostly seen as the charmingly faded seat of a centuries-gone trade empire where you can plunk down some coins to ride an old yellow cable car, visit Baroque churches and squares, fill up on cut-rate seafood meals, sip 2-euro glasses of Portuguese red and retire to your budget hotel. But Lisbon is getting fancier every month. By day, ambitious upstart museums and renovated industrial districts offer an infusion of contemporary art and design. By night, a fledgling wave of neo-Portuguese restaurants, stylish night spots and innovatively designed hotels provide happening places to play. The best part? The city remains a terrific bargain.

Artigo completo:

http://travel.nytimes.com/2011/01/30/travel/30hours-lisbon.html?ref=travel

Foto: o Elevador da Glória foi destacado pelo jornal NEW YORK TIMES neste artigo de meia página "36 hours in: Lisbon". A fotografia do Elevador da Glória, publicada no jornal, mostra o icónico monumento lisboeta totalmente vandalizado com graffiti. É urgente que a CARRIS, CML e ATL pensem numa solução para manter os elevadores históricos livres de graffiti. Como verificamos pela crescente atenção dada pelos media, os elevadores e eléctricos clássicos são estratégicos tanto para o desenvolvimento da Mobilidade em geral como para o Turismo de Lisboa em particular.

Dia Mundial do Turismo: Nova Iorque

Dia Mundial do Turismo. Esplanada em Bryant Park no centro de Nova Iorque. Naturalmente, mobiliário com publicidade é impensável. Chapéus de sol podem apenas conter a toponímia do jardim público.

Exposição: WMF PRESERVING MODERN ARCHITECTURE

WORLD MONUMENTS FUND EXHIBITION ON PRESERVING MODERN ARCHITECTURE

Cities and towns across America routinely demolish their modern architecture, without giving the buildings a chance to be preserved and adaptively restored.

Why this happens, and what we can do to save 50 years of modernist architecture, is addressed in Modernism at Risk: Modern Solutions for Saving Modern Landmarks, a traveling exhibition organized by the World Monuments Fund (WMF) and sponsored by Knoll, Inc. Opening on February 17 at the Center for Architecture, 536 LaGuardia Place, the exhibition will be on view there through May 1, 2010.

A project of WMF's Modernism at Risk program (http://www.wmf.org/advocacy/modernism), the exhibition features large-scale photographs by noted photographer Andrew Moore and interpretative panels on five case studies that explore the role designers and other advocacy groups play in preserving modern landmarks.

"For decades the World Monuments Fund has worked to save heritage sites around the globe, from early settlements to 20th-century architecture," said Bonnie Burnham, WMF President. "While modern buildings face the same physical threats as ancient structures, they are too often overlooked as insignificant, not important enough to preserve. We launched our Modernism at Risk initiative to advocate for these often ignored buildings and to address their special needs. And, through this traveling exhibition, we hope to draw many more advocates to our cause. We are especially pleased that it is now here in New York, at the Center for Architecture, where we hope hundreds of people will see the show and add their voices to ours on the importance of preserving our modern heritage." (...)

"Architecture isn't just about building new buildings," said AIANY President Anthony Schirripa, FAIA, "It's also about celebrating our architectural history. Preserving modernist landmarks should be a goal not only for the design community, but for all communities that want to celebrate the diversity and richness of modern architecture in their midst. I hope this exhibition will begin a dialogue amongst New Yorkers about how, and why, modernism matters, and that it inspires us to each contribute in our own way to the World Monuments Fund's valuable mission of saving these extraordinary buildings."

The Center for Architecture

The Center for Architecture is a destination for all interested in the built environment. It is home to the American Institute of Architects New York Chapter and the Center for Architecture Foundation, vibrant nonprofit organizations that provide resources to both the public and building industry professionals. Through exhibitions, programs, and special events, the Center aims to improve the quality and sustainability of the built environment, foster exchange between the design, construction, and real estate communities, and encourage collaborations across the city and globe. The Center also celebrates New York's vibrant architecture, explores its urban fabric, shares community resources, and provides opportunities for scholarship. As the city's leading cultural institution focusing on architecture, the Center drives positive change through the power of design.

Foto: Museu Guggenheim, restaurado em 2009 por ocasião dos 50 anos

THE CARBON COUNTER: Times Square billboard counts Carbon build up

National debt used to be the big number we all lived in fear of. Now it's greenhouse gases.

Climate change is likely to have all sorts of nasty consequences over the next century—among them, according to a brand-new report from the U.S. Global Change Research program, an increase in torrential downpours in the American northeast.

So it was uncomfortably fitting that a major climate-consciousness-raising event took place in just such a downpour. As reporters and dignitaries huddled under leaky tents just outside New York's Madison Square Garden on Thursday, Deutche Bank switched on its mammoth Carbon Counter billboard. The counter, towering 70 feet above busy Seventh Avenue and dramatically visible to hundreds of thousands of commuters who take the train to and from Penn Station, displays a real-time count of heat-trapping greenhouse gases we're pumping into the atmosphere—about 2 billion metric tons every month, added to the 3.6 trillion tons already floating around up there.

How do they know it's 2 billion tons? Actually, they know it isn't. Although carbon dioxide is by far the most significant human-generated greenhouse gas, it isn't the only one. Methane, generated by ruminating cows and rice paddies is another; nitrous oxide, created in making fertilizer, is another; so are halocarbons, used as refrigerants. If you really want to know about how much heat we're trapping, you have to take these into account too—and that's what Deutche Bank and its scientific advisers from MIT wanted to do.

It's complicated, though. For one thing, each of these gases traps heat at a different rate (OK, they really trap infrared radiation, but it ends up amounting to the same thing). Methane, for example, is a much more efficient energy-trapper than CO2; it's just that we emit a lot less of it. Each of these gases, moreover, degrades in the atmosphere at a different speed. That means you can't just add them up. "It's like you give someone a hundred dollars," says MIT atmospheric scientist Ron Prinn, "but it's a mix of Australian and Canadian and U.S. dollars. "You have to make some conversions before you know what it's worth." For the Carbon Counter, those conversions run into many pages of equations, at the end of which you get a number representing the "CO2 equivalent" of 20 different gases. Add them up, and you're at 2 billion tons monthly.

That's a big number, certainly, but what exactly does it mean? Most popular accounts of climate change don't talk about tons; they talk about parts-per-million—the number of CO2 or other molecules you'd find in a million molecules of atmosphere. CO2 was at about 280ppm back in 1700; it's now at 386 and rising. For perspective, climate scientists believe that if CO2 rises to 450ppm or so, the global average temperature could rise as much as 2 degrees Celsius, with serious consequences (and heavy rainstorms are hardly the worst).

But if you factor in the other greenhouse gases, we're already at 450, or pretty close to it. That being the case, you'd think we'd already be seeing dramatically rising seas and severe weather changes. There are two reasons why we aren't. First, it takes a while for heat to build up once the gases are up there. Second, and more important, the Carbon Counter doesn't take aerosols into account. These are tiny particles of soot, sulfur dioxide and other pollutants spewed into the air along with greenhouse gases. "The problem with these," says Bill Chameides, dean of Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment, "is that some aerosols tend to cool the planet, some tend to warm it, and some interact with clouds in ways we don't understand."

That's the good news. The bad news is that aerosols cause their own problems— lung disease and acid rain, just to name a couple. Presumably, we'll be trying to limit those emissions in the future, which will leave the greenhouse gases to do their thing without interference.

By leaving some factors out, the Carbon Counter is by definition somewhat inaccurate. But since most of us don't know what 3.6 trillion tons of carbon or carbon-equivalent or whatever actually means, it hardly matters. It's a big number, and it's getting bigger, fast. Deutche Bank and the MIT folks hope that seeing these huge numbers scroll by on a giant billboard will make people more aware of what we're doing to the planet, just as billboards with the U.S. national debt try to raise awareness about another scary number.

Given how much people pay attention to the debt, though, let's hope this one is more effective.

In NEWSWEEK, 19 de Junho de 2009

http://www.newsweek.com/id/202757?from=rss

Nota: Vamos sugerir ao Presidente da CML, e ao Vereador do Ambiente, que instalem semelhante painel em frente, por exemplo, da sede do ACP. Ou, em alteranativa, em vez da tela de publicidade mal disfarçada da Renova no ROSSIO.

Licenciamento de obras em Nova Iorque

Porque razão em Portugal não se divulgam publicamente todos os dados referentes a pedidos de licenciamento de obras? Um cidadão português não pode consultar o projecto de uma nova construção enquanto este estiver em apreciação numa Câmara. Porquê tanto secretismo? Para piorar a situação, muitas vezes o «AVISO», que é afixado no local da futura obra, nem sequer é preenchido! Em Nova Iorque (na imagem) é obrigatorio por lei afixar no local todos os detalhes da operação urbanística que se pretende efectuar, desde o nome e contactos do proprietário até à discriminação exaustiva da intervenção para a qual se pediu licenciamento. E não se pense que isto é uma particularidade da Democracia dos EUA. Em Londres é exactamente o mesmo. Se um proprietário quer mudar a caixilharia de uma janela, terá de afixar igualmente no local todos os documentos oficiais que entregou nas autoridades municipais (incluindo o nome e contacto telefónico do proprietário). Em alguns países, e para novas construções, é também obrigatório a divulgação de imagens, previamente e no local, dos projectos em apreciação. Exemplos de Transparência, Participação, enfim, BOAS PRÁTICAS ainda em falta no nosso país. Não é pois de admirar os problemas urbanísticos que cada vez mais caracterizam a nossa paisagem. O actual sistema alimenta a corrupção.

NOVA IORQUE: "Broadway is NO way"

It's curtains for cars on Broadway.

Starting Sunday, vehicles will be barred from the legendary roadway in Times Square and Herald Square as it is transformed into a pedestrian-only area with a food festival, an outdoor yoga studio and a kickball arena, officials said yesterday.

All traffic will be diverted from Broadway between 47th and 42nd streets and between 35th and 33rd streets, said Department of Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan. Drivers will have to move to Seventh or Ninth avenues to get downtown.

It's all part of a $1.5 million plan to turn sections of Broadway into massive pedestrian plazas, a plan that Mayor Bloomberg said will ease the grueling traffic bottlenecks that happen near major intersections.

Officials aren't wasting any time turning the Great White Way into the Great Walkway.

On June 7, the city will broadcast the Tony Awards to a live audience sitting on what used to be Broadway's traffic lanes.

Top-notch restaurants will also be out for a Taste of Times Square event on June 8.

Other events, like kickball, capture the flag, and yoga at sunrise, will come later in June.

Construction on the Times Square plazas will be done by Aug. 16, and Herald Square will be finished Aug. 23, officials said.

Sadik-Khan said the closures will "take some getting used to," for drivers, but she doesn't expect any traffic nightmares.

"We actually think traffic is going to improve coming down Seventh Avenue when we're knitting it together," she said.

"I think it'll still take a period of adjustment, though," she acknowledged. Officials begged motorists not to get caught up in any early confusion. "Give it time to see how it works," said Times Square alliance chief Tim Tompkins.

DOT crews will be out monitoring traffic, Sadik-Khan said. The plan is causing a divide among business owners.

A manager at Grand Slam, a trinkets store on Broadway, said he thinks the increased foot traffic will bring him more customers.

"It helps me," said John Palha, who has managed the store for 11 years. "When there's less cars on the street, people can get here. They can walk right over and come in."

But store owners on the Seventh Avenue side said the increased car traffic and sinking economy might tank their business.

"It could very possibly put me under," said a businessman who runs a camera and computer store.

"It's not good for me. It's much more attractive for the other side."

in NEW YORK POST, 20 de Maio de 2009 [sounds familiar...]

CITY ON AN UP 'CYCLE': 143% jump in pedalers

The spokes are really flying around the Big Apple. Scores of new bike lanes and a sour economy have led to a surge in people pedaling to work, data released yesterday show.

The number of bicycle commuters surged by 18,000 from 2007 to 2008, according to numbers from the city and advocacy groups. An estimated 185,000 people pedaled to the office in 2008, compared to 76,000 in 2000 -- a 143 percent increase, according to the figures provided by Transportation Alternatives.

The reason, officials and cyclists say, is the hundreds of miles of new bike lanes and the recently tanking financial picture.

"I save at least $60 a month on subway fares, $100 on parking and $100 on gas," said West Village resident Michael Pavlakos. "My bike costs me $50 a year in repairs. So I ride it even more because of the economy."

Over the past three years, the city Department of Transportation laid down about 620 miles of lanes, some separated from busy roads with paint and pylons.

Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan said it's those lanes -- not the streets -- that will handle the 1 million more people projected to move into the city in the near future. "We can't compensate for more people by double-decking the road network," she told The Post. "We're looking to create a [bike-lane grid] for cyclists to go from Point A to Point B without getting off."

She also praised proposed legislation in the City Council that would make more building owners accept riders storing bikes in their offices. "That would ensure the bike is going to be there when they need it," Sadik-Khan said, noting that riders are worried about bike theft.

Recently, the MTA approved 10 percent fare hikes and the state Legislature agreed to increase the price of driver's-license renewals and car registrations. "People are bring priced out of driving and priced out of transit," said Wiley Norvell, spokesman for Transportation Alternatives. "Any time that happens, you usually see a boost in people biking to work every day."

But bike theft is still a problem, cyclists said, and some want more bike racks around the city. "The city still has a lot to do with parking," said East Village resident Paul Heck, who bikes to work every day. Sadik-Khan said there are more than 6,000 racks in the city now, with more on the way.

TA's biking numbers, which go back to 1980, are based on DOT counts of cyclists who ride into Midtown and lower Manhattan every day and are projected for the entire city. in New York Post, 15 Maio 2009

Foto: Nova Iorque ja tem mais de 1000 km de bike-lanes, implementadas nas faixas de rodagem e nunca em passeios. Nota: os sublinhados sao nossos.