Category: urban views

sampling the ‘seeing the better city’ December photo display

On By Chuck WolfeIn everyday urbanism, infill development, place decoding, placemaking, seeing the better city, urban juxtapositions, urban viewsLeave a comment

Why attend a photo expo about seeing the elements of urban space? Because it’s a simple way to help navigate urban change, and find ways to improve your city, town or neighborhood.

During the month of December, ten photographs from my pending book, Seeing the Better City, will be on display at Cafe Verite/Cupcake Royale in Seattle’s Madrona neighborhood, at 1101 34th Ave.  A kickoff event will take place on Saturday, December 3, from 4:00-6:00 p.m.

The photographs—largely drawn from the several “urban diary excerpts” throughout the book—will illustrate the roles that personal observation plays in understanding and improving our urban environments.

The following four photographs provide an overview of the photo display and related book topics.  They hint at the close to 100 photographs and the many historical and modern tools and techniques addressed in the book.

Does such imagery show us the cities we want to see?
Does such imagery show us the cities we want to see?
Consider how a patient immersion is necessary to understand a place, from the Introduction
Consider how a patient immersion is necessary to understand a place, from the Introduction
Carefully observe the role of human activity in an ordered built environment, from Chapter 4
Carefully observe the role of human activity in an ordered built environment, from Chapter 4
How to show juxtapositions of people and place through an urban diary, from Chapters 3 and 4
How to compile human connections to place through an urban diary, from Chapters 3 and 4

Images composed by the author Paris and Seattle. © 2009-2016 myurbanist. All Rights Reserved. Do not copy.

For more on using urban observation as a tool to affect change, Seeing the Better City will be available by early 2017 from Island Press, through local booksellers, and Amazon.

the ‘seeing the better city’ book trailer, and how to look around

On By Chuck WolfeIn environmental and land use law, everyday urbanism, pedestrianism, place decoding, placemaking, politics, seeing the better city, urban juxtapositions, urban viewsLeave a comment

To learn more about my pending book, Seeing the Better City (Island Press, by early 2017), see the newly released book trailer, embedded below.

The trailer provides a book overview, explains key themes, and highlights multiple photographs featured in Seeing the Better City.

observing the city: exploring dreams, not memes

On By Chuck WolfeIn everyday urbanism, place decoding, placemaking, seeing the better city, urban viewsLeave a comment

CWOLFE_PrivateMomentMilleniumBridge

The participation of diverse voices in city decision-making processes is critical to successful urban change. By diverse, I mean not just professionals, politicians and pundits, but everyday people who live and work in city spaces. But before we can participate, we need to hone the power of personal observation.

Like the Londoners depicted in these photographs, we all have stories to tell.

Over the past eight months I have written a book about observing the urban environment, called Seeing the Better City. After much research, many interviews, and sifting through countless experiences and photographs, I concluded that better cities will emerge if city-dwellers really learn to see and understand their urban environment and how human experience intersects with the built world.

In other words, we should strive for a “vocabulary of looking” as the foundation for participation in civic discussion.

A camera and smartphone are great tools for development of this exploration and vocabulary. We can focus on common urban themes, such as street corners, plazas, parks, and other shared spaces, and evaluate what appeals to each of us, and what does not. In my book, I suggest how cities might honor constructive visual input submitted by more than just architects.  Throughout, I provide my own examples, with words and photographs called urban diaries, as sample toolboxes for how to evaluate, narrate and summarize city character and urban change over time.

CWOLFE_ LondonColor

My goal is to find ways to improve civic discussion about what people see in the cities around them. Ultimately, I will be happy if city dwellers learn—with the help of many available resources—how to note carefully their emotional responses to the changes they observe, and premise understanding of urban issues on thoughtful baselines of their own, rather than only the pundit’s words.

Seeing the Better City will be available by early 2017 from Island Press, through local booksellers and Amazon.

© 2009-2016 myurbanist. All Rights Reserved. Do not copy.  For more information on the role of personal experience in understanding the changing city, see Urbanism Without Effort, an e-book from Island Press.

‘seeing the better city’ book project begins: a teaser

On By Chuck WolfeIn everyday urbanism, place decoding, urban abstractions, urban juxtapositions, urban views, urbanism without effortLeave a comment

SeeingtheBetterCity1

Long-time readers might enjoy the teaser post at Seeing the Better City about my new book project of the same name.  Stay tuned as the project described below unfolds in the coming months:

As ongoing urban processes visibly alter neighborhoods, downtowns and the places between, city dwellers need a practical toolkit to better see, understand and influence the evolution of their cities. In Seeing the Better City (forthcoming from Island Press), Chuck Wolfe outlines a comprehensive users’ guide to urban observation aimed at informing better, and more equitable, plans, policies and political decisions.

Seeing the Better City updates a historical, interdisciplinary tradition of urban observation, with the modern-day “urban diary”, an experiential method of documenting city life and form. Through evocative photography, use of smartphone apps, and other cutting-edge tools, Wolfe empowers readers to explore and document the urban spaces, structures and human activities around them.

For Wolfe’s earlier work, see Urbanism Without Effort (Island Press, 2013)

using urban universals to frame city life

On By Chuck WolfeIn everyday urbanism, infrastructure, pedestrianism, place decoding, placemaking, sustainability, urban juxtapositions, urban views, urbanism without effortLeave a comment

The two photographs below say both simple and remarkable things about how urban residents interact with each other, and the streets around them.

Neither photograph is more superior or more insightful. In fact, I see them as the same photograph, across the world.

The images suggest differential costs of building materials, streets, sidewalks and associated features. Yet, in each setting, the idle women stand in similar positions, and inferred, familiar stories emerge from observation of the passers-by.

What are the roles of form, function and design in each photograph? What scenes emerge from journeys from home to work, and the locations between? In the end, what really matters in cities, regardless of place and time?

Answers to these lofty questions lie in wait, for review in the images below.

DualImage_ChuckWolfe

Images composed by the author in Seattle and Arusha, Tanzania. © 2009-2015 myurbanist. All Rights Reserved. Do not copy.

For more information on the role of personal experience in understanding the changing city, see Urbanism Without Effort, an e-book from Island Press.