Lately I have been quite fascinated by the impact of Twitter, and in the process I must admit I got a little too addicted for my own good. But I’m also in the midst of learning a whole bunch of things about Twitter users and human motivation. Recently I was explaining to my 60 year… [Read more…]
February 22, 2011
There is so much to say about the pan-revolution and upheaval taking place in the Arab world right now, where to start? Tunisia and Egypt are in the process of winning the right to turn a new page of their history, but this also confronts them with the challenge of maintaining their respective tourist industries… [Read more…]
February 21, 2011
How far should you go with an advertisement campaign to prove a point? That is what the French are debating right now. France’s biggest ecological association, France Nature Environnement had bought some prime space in the RATP Paris Metro for a series of posters against aggressive chemicals and man-made disasters, but most of their posters… [Read more…]
February 16, 2011
Kate Orff is a New York based landscape architect who started a project with oyster farms designed to rehabilitate freshwaters – you can watch her presentation here on TED. From coast to coast, America is suffering from its sprawl which has homogenized and diminished the diversity and richness of its land. This has disconnected Americans… [Read more…]
February 12, 2011
But sold out. Sorry for the disappointement. A little bit about who they’re planning to have and talk about: - Local Social Media Specialist and Guru Mitch Joel ( 6 Pixels of Separation, president of Twist Image) - the Evolution of our consuming instinct : read more here if you want to know about this… [Read more…]
February 10, 2011
I wasn’t going to post anything today as I already put online some previous articles on Kyoto and Graffiti I found in my hard drive and online. But this project looks really exciting. There is a joint university research project called Mobile Media Lab, I stumbled on this site while admiring local graphic design, Studio… [Read more…]
February 8, 2011
Today, I met with a potential client for the urban design company I work for, here in Montreal. A very interesting person, and might I add, who was quite different from most of the clients and prospects we usually meet. This led us to an interesting conversation about project approval. Now I have previously worked… [Read more…]
February 7, 2011
It has been a little more than a decade since URC emerged in the UK, and it seems that is has worked pretty for well for cities like Manchester with its New East Manchester initiative. With its trail of post-industrial cities, the UK should be a natural leader for such initiatives. While I don’t have… [Read more…]
February 6, 2011
Huge Kudos for OpenPlans from New York City for proving to us that not only have geeks left the streets but now they are also helping everybody plan for a better city. An exciting mix of journalism, open source code, transit planning and urban planning, OpenPlans has set up programs such as Streetfilms to promote… [Read more…]
February 5, 2011
A quick post about paper.li, a website that allows you to spread out all that info tweets feed you in the same way you would be reading the newspaper. If you have an iPad you probably wouldn’t find it as appealing, as I believe Flipboard offers the same, if not better, but for us mere… [Read more…]
January 31, 2011
Somebody posted this video not too long ago on Facebook. Very appropriate location for the Web 2.0 generation to make fun of the Today Show hosts, who, back in 1994, were trying to figure out what the internet was. My favorite part is hearing one of the techies or the director actually jumping in off… [Read more…]
January 20, 2011
Toute petite, la rue St-Norbert est vite oubliée à Montréal. Elle forme un lien entre le CEGEP du vieux Montréal et la rue St-Laurent, bordée de condos. Un bel article en anglais sur Spacing Montréal fait état des tentatives de sauvetage de la rue par les habitants du quartier, mais en vain. Il y a… [Read more…]
January 15, 2011
I started the year off with not much of a bang, however I was pretty proud of myself for managing to convince 3 generations of loved ones to play charades, and in a family as geeky as mine, that’s a miracle. However, once the effect of champagne wore off, it didn’t take long for us… [Read more…]
December 1, 2010
This post tries to answer question # 2 asked by MONU mag’s article about Post-industrial city and their image. Integrate How diverse is the City’s culture? What type of barriers exist between different social groups: physical, emotional, economical, geographical? Of course, Montreal is a bilingual city – in principle. When I moved here, I was… [Read more…]
November 16, 2010
I discovered this (fairly new?) magazine called MONU, “Magazine on Urbanism” and this cosmopolitan, alternative, sort of recycled looking paper mag has captured my heart. One particular piece caught my attention: “Ask Yourself: Is the City You Live In Right For You?” the authors, 2 ambitious women – one architect and one desginer – from… [Read more…]
November 12, 2010
Detroit, in most people’s minds, is Blight at its best, with houses so cheap they do not even begin to compare with student loans. At school and amongst other design professionals, I always found an “indiana jones” planner or architect who ventured down there, only to come back with horror stories about drug abuse, abandoned… [Read more…]
October 14, 2010
This summer, the Beach volley park was just another initiative from the very active and interesting BIA of Montreal’s Gay Village, un monde un village. Designed as an incentive for enjoying outdoor activities, this park was located in a neighborhood where scattered pocket parks are seldom used for actual recreation. I wish I had seen … [Read more…]
February 25, 2011
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