paris | selophane.blog

Article: Un velo a day keeps the traffic away.

A Bike Station in Paris

Horns honking, cabbies swearing, streets filled with a slow moving mass of metal particles, pedestrians choking on exhaust fumes: Traffic. Nothing says Urban center like a heaping helping of fossil fuel consumption, or does it? Paris and Vienna have both rolled out free short term bicycle rentals (albeit at different scales) as a social experiment and attempt to reduce reliance on automobiles and ease traffic within the urban centers of these two European Cities (read about it here).

This is something that could work in the Old Growth Cities along the eastern seaboard of the US, as long as it is kept free for short term rides and deployed in massive numbers (like Paris). If you coupled this with a good commuter rail system this could make up for a non-extensive subway system: it would be a method of getting people from the rail terminus to their destinations. I can see this working like the zip car phenomenon, but in reverse. Instead of renting one on those rare occasions where you need to drive out of town, people could rent bikes daily (if there was enough of a supply) to go to and from work and the store. Of course this would not help commuters from the suburbs, but since it could alleviate casual car use amongst residents it would reduce some of the daily traffic. I could imagine NY, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and DC all benefitting greatly from this kind of program.

Article: New York as the City of Lights

If you can’t be London, why not be Paris? At least that’s what NYC seems to think according to an article in New York Magazine. The article discusses that with the failure of the congestion surcharge, New York City officials are looking towards the changes that Paris has made since the turn of the century (from 20th to 21st) to be a more resident/pedestrian friendly place; specifically Paris-Plage, bike sharing and the new bus lanes and routes. It appears that NY may be looking at making some streets pedestrian only during the summer, and adding more bike routes.

Having lived in Paris for a summer, I believe that parts of New York City that the are the most talked about – lower manhattan and midtown – are already as Paris-like as they can get; It is the outer boroughs that need to be brought up to speed. The reason for this is mass transit. The Métro is extensive within Paris much as it is in Manhattan (though the Métro does seem to run more trains it closes at 2am). This allows rapid movement within the city for pedestrians, sometimes it can be faster than driving. In addition, nothing short of a massive double parking towing campaign paired with making all avenues and certain cross town streets (like each decade 30th, 40th, 50th, etc) no parking will clear the congestion from midtown. Also, Paris is much smaller than most people realize. The entirety of Paris is the same square footage as Manhattan. Once you add in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island, NYC is easily 6 times as large by land area. This difference in scale can be held responsible for a great deal of the traffic. People who live in the boroughs still commute to Manhattan; many by car. This daily vehicular movement by residents is just not present in Paris. Yes there are commuters from the Banlieu’s, but with the expense cost of driving over there the numbers are just not comparable.

I personally feel that NY would do better to look to Tokyo and other cities plagued by high density urban sprawl such as LA and Mexico City, not just for ideas on what to perfect, but also to identify what to avoid.

Article: Jean Nouvel Wins Architecture’s Top Prize

L'Institute de Monde Arab in Paris

According to the Washington Post (click here for the article) Jean Nouvel has been awarded the Pritzker Prize. A more fully illustrated blog post can be found at Gizmodo (click here for the post).

This intrigues me because Jean Nouvel is one of the contemporary architects whose buildings were used quite often as precedent studies in school. He joins other distinguished contemporary precedent study architects like Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, and Herzog and de Mueron.

I have only seen one of his buildings in person, the institute of the Arab World in Paris. I was only able to see it from the outside, but that is where most of the design concept lies. The skin, which is patterned off of an Islamic geometric progression and screening methods, is made of a geometric/fractal-like pattern of operable irises that adjust to limit the solar gain. When I visited the building, it appeared to have some issues with the operation of these irises. Some of them were stuck in the open and others in the closed position.