May 06, 2013

Musings on a Sustainable Urban Lifestyle in San Francisco

by: Lucky Sharma

Tweet Today’s post is by contributing writer, Lucky Sharma. Lucky is a sustainability professional, supply-chain consultant, product manager, innovations scout, bad-ass scientist, marathon runner, long-distance cyclist, and a poet. Lucky lives in two cities – San Francisco and Tempe. She’ll be sharing her observations of both cities in a series of posts about the sustainable urban lifestyle. This post will be published in two parts. Below is part I: Coffee is a BIG DEAL in San Francisco. I knew this pretty much as soon as my husband and I moved into our third floor apartment in the Pacific Heights neighborhood…

May 01, 2013

Is Phoenix a City or Just a Big Suburb?

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet I visited Phoenix a few weeks ago and I stayed with my parents in their home in Chandler, Arizona, a suburb of the city. I wrote the following in my journal about my experience of living in Chandler. I thought you might be interested in the unvarnished thoughts of someone who has lived in suburban Phoenix, then in Central Phoenix and is now living in the central Portland. [Excerpt from my journal entry from April 18, 2013…] “Trying to live an urban life in Phoenix is just depressing. Living a suburban life in Phoenix is perfect though. It makes…

April 29, 2013

Why We Should Cultivate Disorder in Cities

by: Kirby Hoyt

Tweet Today’s post is by contributing writer Kirby Hoyt: If you’ve ever roamed the passages of Venice, Italy late at night (early in the morning) after several glasses of wine, you know what I’m talking about. It’s a feeling of disorientation – like being a rat in a maze hunting for cheese. In this case the cheese is your hotel. It’s dark, quiet, and you keep running into dead ends or find yourself going in circles. You cross bridges and try to find your way through the twisted narrow corridors. Yet this experience is one of the reasons we love…

April 27, 2013

Why You Should Go Watch “Paolo Soleri: Beyond Form” Tomorrow…

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet When I asked a few of my friends here in Portland if they knew who Paolo Soleri is, they said no. When I tried to jog their memory by mentioning Arcosanti, I was met with a blank stare and still had no luck. Some of these friends were even architects or in the building industry and they didn’t know Paolo Soleri. I found this to be tragic. I think everyone should know who Paolo Soleri is, not just in Arizona, but all over the world. He was such a visionary and an uncompromising original. Yes, he worked under Frank…

April 11, 2013

In Memoriam: A Timeline of the Amazing Life and Work of Paolo Soleri

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet The legendary thought leader, architect, urban planner, author, lecturer, teacher and craftsman, Paolo Soleri died yesterday, April 9, 2013, at his home in Paradise Valley. In honor of his memory and achievements, below is a timeline of his inspiring life and work that spanned the globe and influenced many people, movements, aesthetics and ways of making. 1919 – Paolo Soleri is born in Turin, Italy 1946 – Soleri moves to the U.S. after receiving a doctorate with the highest honors from the Polytechnic University of Turin 1947 – Soleri enters into apprenticeship with Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesin West 1948…

April 08, 2013

Community Action, not Top-Down Overhaul, Will Lead to Walkability in Phoenix

by: Jennifer Gunther

Tweet Today’s post is by contributing writer Jennifer Gunther reporting on Day 2 of Phoenix Urban Design Week’s Urban Tactics Symposium: The AIA Arizona office downtown hosted day two of Phoenix Urban Design Week’s Urban Tactics Symposium, which featured keynote speaker, planner and walkability expert Jeff Speck and a panel of planners, researchers and designers who presented key strategies that can help Phoenix become less autocentric and more of a socially oriented urban space. The author of “Walkable City” gave an overview of the first section of his book, laying down the case for walkability’s powerful impact on the overall quality…

April 05, 2013

Jeff Speck Says Phoenix Needs Urban Triage to Become More Walkable

by: Will Novak

Tweet Today’s post is by contributing writer Will Novak who attended Day 1 of Phoenix Urban Design Week‘s Urban Tactics Symposium featuring the nation’s foremost expert on walkability – Jeff Speck: “Phoenix lacks on street parking more than any City I’ve seen…well, maybe Atlanta is close” “I don’t know anything that’s not in my book. If it’s not in there, I don’t know it.” “I’m very bullish on developers…I just wish they’d read a book written in the last 10 years.” “Well…I am a bit prone to hyperbole.” Throughout Day 1 of Phoenix Urban Design week, during the Urban Tactics…

April 03, 2013

6 Reasons I Love The Waffle Window

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet I live 528 feet away from The Waffle Window on Hawthorne. I go there every Saturday morning for my people-watching + waffle fix. Below are 6 reasons why I love this place so much. 1. It generates urban vibrancy. The Waffle Window is a people magnet. Imagine the crowds and energy at a busy restaurant. The Waffle Window generates this same kind of energy but right on the street. So the whole neighborhood gets to benefit from the vibrancy it generates. People anxiously awaiting their waffles on a lovely Saturday morning in March. 2. It turns a parking lot…

April 01, 2013

In Search for the Perfect Coffee Shop in Portland: Stumptown on Division

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet Today marks two months since I moved to Portland. And I think I have come upon a favorite coffee shop in the southeast after some searching. Up until now, since I hadn’t found the one, I had set up a rotation of coffee shops to work from, one for each day of the week. I went to Crema on Monday, Heart Coffee Roasters on Tuesday, Townshend’s Tea House on Division on Wednesday, Heart again on Thursday, Stumptown on Belmont on Friday, Fresh Pot on Hawthorne on Saturday and Oblique on Sunday. All of these are either within walking or biking…

March 29, 2013

Beefeaters in Central Phoenix to Become Home to New Changing Hands Bookstore and New Restaurant

by: Jennifer Gunther

Tweet Today’s post is by contributing writer Jennifer Gunther: Thursday morning on the northwest corner of Camelback Road and 3rd Avenue in uptown Phoenix, the community was welcomed back to a place it hadn’t been able to open a door to or sit down in for seven years. An array of developers and local leaders ─ among them Lorenzo Perez and John Kitchell of Venture Projects, Shannon Scutari of Sustainable Communities Collaborative, Kimber Lanning of Local First Arizona and Phoenix city councilman Tom Simplot ─ announced the adaptive reuse of the locally beloved Beef Eaters restaurant building. Being rebranded as…