Planning process

Emergent Urbanism at the University of Montreal

Mathieu Helie — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 19:24:33 +0000

I was invited to the complex systems laboratory of the Université de Montréal this week to present emergent urbanism to their twenty-member large research group. Click through to SlideShare in order to see the full text of the presentation under the "notes on" tab. The entire text is in French, however I know a significant share of this website's visitors enjoy French once in a while.

Defining a new traditional urbanism

Mathieu Helie — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 01:55:26 +0000

Sometime last year this website attracted the attention of several members of the International Network for Traditional Building, Architecture and Urbanism, an organization sponsored by the Prince of Wales Foundation in order to support and renew traditions of construction. While this organization does great work to preserve the techniques of traditional building cultures, they have yet to define what the traditional urbanism of their name really implies. The importance of such a definition I believe to be primordial.

The rules for changing rules

Mathieu Helie — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 23:12:44 +0000

Paul Romer presents his solution to the problem of underdevelopment in this TED video.

Stanford economist Paul Romer believes in the power of ideas. He first studied how to speed up the discovery and implementation of new technologies. But to address the big problems we'll face this century -- insecurity, harm to the environment, global poverty -- new technologies will not be enough. We must also speed up the discovery and implementation of new rules, of new ideas about how people interact.

Lake country

Mathieu Helie — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 04:53:06 +0000

In the outskirts of Miami, ill-thought subdivision development codes require developers to build on-site water reservoirs. The result is a patchwork of unconnected pools.

Principles published

Mathieu Helie — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 17:57:37 +0000

The full article conceptualizing the principles of emergent urbanism has been published by the International Journal of Architectural Research volume 3 issue 2. You can download the complete article or read the whole issue.

Make little plans

Mathieu Helie — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 02:34:43 +0000

In Cities and the Wealth of Nations, Jane Jacobs quotes a Japanese economist about his country's capitalist revolution following the Meiji Restoration. He said that the greatest periods of creativity and productivity had been experienced when the country was adrift, not focused on any particular goal but open to all opportunities.

Squatter urbanism comes to America

Mathieu Helie — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 18:35:00 +0000

In previous posts I argued that the only way a modern housing subdivision was possible was by the creation of a permanent, extreme housing crisis by the authorities attempting to control development. Now this housing crisis is catching up with American cities and a phenomenon that was until then limited to dysfunctional third world countries, squatter camps, is popping up all over the country.

A cuter form of sprawl

Mathieu Helie — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 02:19:14 +0000

The National Post reports about the failures of Canada's most famous New Urbanist experience, Cornell in the Toronto Suburbs.

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.

Regional complexity and local community

Mathieu Helie — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 03:09:03 +0000

The housing crisis afflicting Britain has reached such an intolerable level that Prime Minister Gordon Brown is announcing what amounts to a nationalization of planning regulations (report via Planetizen). This comes on the heels of the mayor of Greater London being granted the power to override planning rules of boroughs in order solve the capital's even more outrageous housing situation, as recently as 2007.