Place

The patterns of place

Mathieu Helie — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 20:00:51 +0000

(This article originally appeared in Get Ahead Magazine, for the Get Ahead Festival of independent short films in Brooklyn.)

Modeling the processes of urban emergence

Mathieu Helie — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 05:57:11 +0000

A conversation about the geometry of nowhere

Mathieu Helie — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 00:42:18 +0000

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 geometry of nowhere

Mathieu Helie — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 12:00:51 +0000

I hate sidewalks.

Planning for nomads

Mathieu Helie — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 05:39:16 +0000

Almost half of Americans want to live somewhere else. Even for a nation known for its exceptional mobility, the fact that people are not only moving in pursuit of employment opportunities but are looking to move simply because they hate the place they live in reveals a much deeper problem. Economic opportunity is no longer what keeps people moving, it is what keeps them immobilized. Given the same opportunity they would relocate to the kind of place where life is good.

The emergence of a sense of place

Mathieu Helie — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 02:14:00 +0000

Modern urbanism has given us a landscape that many consider to be soulless. Everything looks the same. Nothing creates a sense of place. New Urbanism has attempted to reverse this by returning to traditional architecture and town planning forms. This was done in European new towns, under the advice of well-meaning men like the Krier brothers, in the late 1970's, and did not succeed.