Tag: suburbs

Changing a Mall from Useless to Useful

Dead malls are a problem in too many communities and these malls are occupying large tracts of land that can be used better. Suburbs in North America have to confront the obvious change in front of them and some communities are doing a good thing by making the malls livable for people instead of just for cars.

The redesign will be in line with many new urbanism projects. There will be shops, cafes and offices connected by walkways. Storefronts will be on the first floor and residential units will occupy the top floors. There will also be a mix of cottages, multi family homes, and condos in the neighborhood as to add variety. Parking will still be present but will be hidden behind the retrofitted mall, away from the storefronts.

More info and pics here.

Another Way to Fix the Suburbs

The suburbs have a problem and it’s that they are lifeless. There’s little to no wildlife and human culture is confined to isolated locations and this is a problem in many ways and people know this.

We’ve looked at ways to fix the suburbs on Things Are Good before, this piece on the other hand, as an assortment of ideas and a good synopsis of efforts being made to save the suburbs from American suburban malfeasance:

After nearly four years of a McMansion mortgage crisis and new waves of Creative Class immigration into America’s leading cities, it’s time to confront a strange new phenomenon: the hollowed-out suburbs. It may not quite be the apocalyptic vision offered up by Christopher Leinberger in The Atlantic three years ago during the height of the mortgage crisis – when it was feared that empty McMansions would turn into crack dens – but it’s still bracing stuff. Indeed, the psycho-demographic pendulum appears to have shifted across America. According to most surveys, people prefer to live in walkable neighborhoods and sustainably designed communities — places that have all the perks of big-city living, as well as the goodness of green parks and good schools.

So what would it take to create these types of walkable, sustainable suburbs on a national scale?

Two architectural & design firms, Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Droog, recently hosted the Open House 2011 event where they re-imagined the classic suburban utopia – Levittown in Long Island, New York – and brainstormed ways that the suburban dream could be revitalized. They looked at what has worked in places like Manhattan and Brooklyn — places where dogwalkers, drycleaners, bohemian cafes, 24-hour bodegas and countless delivery services ease the strain of everyday urban life — and came up with suburban equivalents.

Read the full article and get some more links here.

Thanks Nick!

PuRE Makes Swimming Pools a Good Thing

Here’s a groovy idea that will hopefully take off: use swimming pools to filter water. Swimming pools consume a lot of water and energy and this concept is designed to take these resource-hogs and turn them into something useful. It’s part of a contest to make suburbs livable.

PuRE

Using the same principles employed in constructed wetlands, puRE treats wastewater through six stages. Wastewater first flows into closed treatment tanks during the first two stages before reaching four separate purification cells in stages 3-6. These purification cells contain several species of aquatic plants and animals which remove pollutants naturally and even allow for small-scale food production as a by-product. The solids from the wastewater stream are filtered and directed to a communal methane digester, generating another bounty for its users – power.

For those of with you with pools but think drinkable water is too expensive here’s some tips on how to make your swimming pool a little kinder for the environment.