Emergent Urbanism

Rediscovering Urban Complexity

shopping mall

A conversation about the geometry of nowhere

Submitted by Mathieu Helie on Sun, 04/12/2009 - 20:42, last updated Mon, 02/20/2012 - 16:07

In response to my previous article, Bruce Liedstrand of Community Design Strategies in Paris writes,

I read with interest your essay on The Geometry of Nowhere because I divide my time between Paris and Silicon Valley (the site of your Cupertino Target store example). After re-reading the essay, I am puzzled. I hear your frustration with narrow sidewalks, but I am lost in understanding your concept of “place”.

The Marketplace City

Submitted by Mathieu Helie on Wed, 01/23/2008 - 00:56, last updated Sun, 11/06/2011 - 01:12

Christmas break brought me back to Montreal visiting family, and family took me out to the post-holiday sales in the constellation of big-box stores along Montreal's southern beltway, highway 30. Having all but grown up in the area, I've been witness to the transformations that the commercial space along the highway has experienced. There are some hard lessons to learn from the silly congestion of Christmas shopping and the impact of random growth in the context of the severely zoned outer suburbs.

A measure of urban connection

Submitted by Mathieu Helie on Fri, 12/07/2007 - 15:58, last updated Sun, 11/06/2011 - 01:11

What does it mean for a city to be connected? And is there quality resulting from this property? Let's define the basic node of a city as a doorway. (Not necessarily a building. A single building can have many doorways to separate spaces.) A connection is the distance from this doorway to the next node, that is to say the next doorway. A well connected city is a city where the distance from doorway to doorway is minimized, since everything will be easily accessible from the public space.

Further comment

Please send your comments by email at mthl@mthl.info, or find me on Twitter @mathieuhelie. The commenting system is closed at the moment as no measures can hold back blog spamming bots.

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