Hasta La Ideas

Gallery show explores urban ruins and the problem of the built environment

A new gallery collection at Christina Ray takes a look at the ruins of urban spaces in an age of sustainability and waste reduction. Artists Amze Emmons and Kevin Haas present imaginary landscapes as the potential for progressive living, juxtaposed against a background of deterioration. As Haas explains in the exhibition catalogue, “Now the building spree has changed gears, yet we will have to live with it for decades to come.”

Emmons’ work colorfully portrays industrial settings with a vivacity that belies their dilapidation. His representations of refugee camps are serene and desolate, and reminds one of the fragility of community that plagues conflict zones. Emmons concentrates on themes of space and dislocation, citing a lifetime of movement and resettlement as inspiration.

Haas draws hypothetical blueprints of the industrial space, showing the potential for creation while recognizing the inadequacy of our habitats. “I have been focusing on locations just off major interstates, and their seemingly infinite potential for sprawl,” says Haas. “When confronted with places like these, I am aware of my own tenuous complicity with them, and the repetitive displacement they create through their ubiquity.” Starkly contrasted with deserted locales, Haas’ monochromatic cityscapes are at once enticing and foreboding.

Disintegration and Sprawl can be seen now though October 30 at the Christina Ray gallery in New York.

A new book delves into the future of urban development through three of the world’s fastest growing cities

Among all the chatter about the future of urban development, “Living in the Endless City” stands out as a refreshing voice with its collection of clear-eyed info designed to help grapple with the some of the big questions facing today’s cities. Culled from the London School of Economics’ “Urban Age” conferences, the massive book may seem like a daunting academic read meant only for architects and city planners, but extraordinary photographs and comprehensive infographics make for a thoroughly engrossing book picking up where the ideas in “The Endless City“—which examined NYC, Shanghai, London, Mexico City, Johannesburg and Berlin—left off. “Living,” edited by the same team of London Design Museum director Deyan Sudjic and London School of Economics professor Ricky Burdett, continues with an in-depth look at the world’s three most rapidly expanding cities (Mumbai, São Paulo and Istanbul), using them as examples for a deeper discussion about urban sprawl and the value of the city in its potential to shape our culture and way of life.

The weighty book is filled with astonishing statistics, like that only 2% of the Earth’s surface is covered by cities but 53% of the world’s population currently occupies those areas (a number that will grow to 75% by 2050). Thoughtful essays on transportation, emergency aid and grave economic shifts detail how to prepare for these numbers.

A rational look at urban dwelling in the twenty-first century, the book is a gainful read for anyone interested in how the increasingly global world will fare during such rapidly developing times. “Living In The Endless City” sells from Phaidon and Amazon.

All images courtesy of Phaidon

NYC’s urban gardening supply store with a mission

Behind the many verdant closets and kitchen-corner produce installations increasingly tucked into NYC apartments, you can often find the expertise and passion of urban gardening advocate and entrepreneur Aaron Moore. Splitting his time between his two City Hydroponic supply stores in New York’s Bronx and Brooklyn boroughs, Moore not only supplies the growing green gardening movement but proactively tackles the challenges of sustainable indoor farming with a focus on low-income neighborhoods, working to increase access to fresh produce and education about healthy living

The staff of socially-responsible gardeners and urban growers at City Hydroponic can help with any indoor or outdoor gardening needs, whether growing with soil, water or nutrient mist. Stocked with all of the equipment necessary to set up functional hydroponic (growing solely with water and no soil) or aeroponic (spraying exposed root systems with a nutrient mist) farms in any space, ranging from a studio apartment to a suburban home, the shops are fully committed to the craft, stocking the highest tech tools in the trade. They offer a full line of fluorescent, HID, metal halide and high-pressure sodium lights, full hydroponics and aeroponics systems, nutrients, fertilizers and knowledgeable employees who will gladly explain everything from potting soil to building drainage systems.

For budding urban farmers feeling intimidated by all the lights and gadgets, City Hydroponic periodically offers month long sessions of free hour-long classes on Saturdays. The comprehensive course starts with the basic concepts of hydro and aeroponic gardening and proceeds with how to produce and maintain a functional farm.

Moore, a huge advocate of food justice, feels education is as important as access, and by delivering these free classes to the community he hopes to push the green movement forward. “We need to generate a market from a grassroots level by educating our consumers, giving them confidence so they can partake in the green movement, and help them be successful in it.” His agenda includes increasing knowledge about where your food comes from, why quality is important and how creating your own fresh produce empowers you as an individual.

While Moore’s goal might be lofty, it’s also relatively simple. The concept was born from bearing witness to the poor dietary habits in his neighborhood and the urban landscape at large. “In the communities that we are in there is an abundance of food but there is not an abundance of quality food,” he says. Rather than attempt to reverse gravitation toward what is available—typically highly-processed foods with grave nutritional consequences—his work comes down to changing what is available by creating a DIY supply chain that’s doesn’t price residents out. “We are trying to bring quality food to the masses, to all neighborhoods, not just those that can afford it. We want to make it more affordable in general, to teach people whats good food and what’s not—and if its not readily available, show them how to grow their own!”

As food culture in America continues to diversify and the importance of healthy living becomes more apparent the movement will push this type of localized urban agriculture to the forefront of nutrition. Moore shows how anyone is capable of creating fresh organic produce right in their home, reducing carbon waste, soil and water usage and generally promoting a sustainable, self-sufficient way to stay healthy.

by Jose R. Mejia

What happens when you task four leading architects with redeveloping a historic Milanese neighborhood? Multiply that by €523 million and you get an equally historic seven-year endeavor, breaking records and creating an entirely new blueprint for cities of the future.

CityLife, the catch-all name for the project, will end up being Milan’s first zero-emissions neighborhood. Comprised of residences, offices and retail space, the new architectural phenomenon will include three bold skyscrapers designed by Zaha Hadid, Daniel Libeskind, and Arata Isozaki.

At the core of the development, a centralized park—designed to operate both as a pretty public attraction and an eco-engineering feat—will purify air and normalize temperatures.

Slated to become Italy’s tallest building, Isozaki’s Il Dritto, will tower at 715 feet. His love for spartan design makes a strong statement through the simple, elegant structure.

Hadid’s tower, Lo Storto, will connect to the tube station (along with Il Dritto), housing retailers and apartments. The slick design highlights her mastery of form and curvature, seen recently in the MAXXI Art Museum. Hadid explains her process, “The dynamism of the surrounding urban fabric was the subject of our formal investigations and inspired the geometry of the project.”

Libeskind deconstructed the classic shape into Il Curvo, a strange pairing of curved, half-moon glass and sharp concrete. Both dreamy and urban, the edifice represents the metropolitan idealism of CityLife.

Intended to work as a fully-formed neighborhood from its opening in 2014, the mix of offices and residences will be complemented by several new cultural buildings, including a new Museum of Contemporary Art, tying together the starchitect-studded vision of utopian living.

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