Prairie cities in North America remind me of The Great Divorce

Every time I come back to visit my hometown of Calgary after being in Seoul, I'm struck by the emptiness of the neighborhoods and the (comparatively) massive houses that generally house maybe three, four, five people. Even neighborhoods that have been around for decades still have little to offer a visitor besides houses and sidewalks. Here's a typical neighborhood in the city:


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Within about an hour's walking distance is a library, about three coffee shops, and a few stores. Only the neighborhoods nearby downtown and a few others that have been relatively well designed are worth living in for anyone without a car.

On Google Maps it's interesting to compare the size of two locations by opening up two maps with the exact same scale and switching back and forth between them. Allow me to show the comparative size of Calgary (1 million) and Seoul (technically 10 million in the city itself, but 25 million in the metro area):

Seoul ends up somewhat larger than Calgary when you include the metro area, but the city itself (the area in the centre shaped kind of like the Cheshire Cat's smile) alone is smaller than Calgary, and a rough approximation of the comparative density of the two places would be about 15 to 1. That is, for every person you find in Calgary you'll find fifteen in Seoul.

This makes a huge difference in public transportation. Calgary is as sprawly as a city can get, with the only barrier to expansion being a native reservation in the southwest (Tsuu T'ina). Seoul has the sea on the west, and a number of hilly/mountainous areas as well. Those mountainous areas are the grey spots on the map, by the way. As a result the million spread out people in Calgary means the subway (C-Train) has but 37 stations, while Seoul has over 300 stations, with dozens more under construction.

Calgary is not unique either, as urban sprawl is directly related to the amount of fuel used, which means more dependence upon cars and less of an impetus for public transport:

Vancouver is an example of the opposite, a city that has a number of natural boundaries (sea on the west, US border to the south, mountains to the northeast) that keep urban density high, and as a result public transportation there is excellent.

So what is the solution? Hard to say, as I believe the problem to be more to do with state of mind than anything that better planning could solve. As long as people believe that one can only be happy living in a big place far away from others (the city in The Great Divorce was a good example of that), they will be willing to take out as big a mortgage as can be obtained in order to make it happen.

Of course, it doesn't hurt to have a talk at Ted.com about the problem, peppered with curses.

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Lithuanian windmills have faces

Weird, Lithuanian windmills almost alll seem to have faces, and some more than one. Half the ones on Google images (malūnas = windmill) have them too - like here, here (this one's screaming) and here. Then there's this house with a tiny connecting mill, and this one looks like something like Mononokehime.

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Guédelon, the present day yet medieval castle being built now in France

Take a look at this site I noticed yesterday - it's about a castle named Guédelon being constructed in France, one that is being made not only in a 13th century style but also using only tools and techniques available at that time. As soon as you access the site a video will pop up introducing the castle and if you want to skip that just click on a different part of the page outside the video, and the video is also available in three languages - French, English, and German. The site itself is also in Dutch, but on the Dutch page the video is just imagery and music and there is no voice to accompany it.

It's pretty easy to find too, just type in Guedelon into Google Maps and it'll give you this:

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In addition to ten reviews, all of which are extremely positive. It's impossible to be anything but for a project such as this.

Participation: there is a page on the site that says you can participate in the building of the castle, and all it requires is basic French and a willingness to participate.

The US also seems to have a project like this, called Ozark Medieval Fortress, which is near St. Louis but technically in Arkansas. According to the site this project was inspired in part by Guédelon, and is especially exciting in that it will be the first medieval castle on American soil.

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Tiny church in North Wales that seats a total of six

A rare gem I came across today on Reddit (I say rare because the ratio of noise and meta threads to real content seems to be growing week by week) on a thread here - the church looks like this:

To see the rest of the images including the inside, see here.

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Oslo's opera house in Bjørvika wins European Mies Van Der Rohe Award for architecture

No surprise for something that looks as nice as this:


Dagbladet has the story in Norwegian. Quick summary:

The EU believes Snøhetta's opera in Bjørvika is Europe's best building. At ten o'clock on Wednesday it was announced that Norwegian architects would get the Mies Van Der Rohe Award 2009, the EU's own prize for architecture...jury forman Francis Rambert wrote on the opera that "The Norwegian Opera & Ballet in Oslo is more than just a building. It is first and foremost a living space(?), a gift to the city. The building can be seen as a catalyst for all the energy in the city."

This is also apparently the biggest prize for architecture that has been given not just in Norway but also in Scandinavia. The competition involved a total of 340 buildings.

Construction of the opera house took four years and cost $670 million...or so they thought. It actually came in under budget and ended up costing $625 million instead. You can see the four years of construction condensed into three minutes in a video here.

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