FEATURE REPORT/ ARTICLE OF THE WEEK
‘Forget Carnegie Hall. Musicians rush to rural Colorado to play the Tank‘
Authored by David Kelly
Can old, seemingly dilapidated and abandoned buildings be revived and re-adapted into something of value?
That’s exactly what happened in Rangely, Colorado, where strange acoustics have made the Tank in a destination for musicians from around the world.
The Tank’s origins are murky, but it has quietly morphed into something extraordinary. Initially there were fevered rumors of seances, devil worship and other lurid goings-on inside. Then a couple of musicians came along who fell in love with the space. Soon, a collection of artists and musicians from all over the world worked on a common cause with the conservative town in rural Colorado to develop the tank and it’s neighborhood into a better connected space.
With a solid community support and outreach, the Tank Center for Sonic Arts was born and is now a growing performance venue.
It’s the perfect example demonstrating the endless possibilities and wonders that community engagement and ownership brings in for urban growth of any area.
Read the whole piece here.
Published by Los Angeles Times.
ONLINE PUBLICATION OF THE WEEK
‘Adaptive Urbanism‘
Published by International Congress on Adaptive Urbanism – Christchurch, New Zealand
With the changing times and demands, approach towards urbanism and usage of public and private spaces is changing. In this new age, Adaptive Urbanism projects, and the people behind them, are majorly interdisciplinary. This report tries to delve further into the topic and raise the following questions;
- Where does power typically lie, and how and where can it be relocated?
- How do these projects work with property: short-term leases or license agreements
with private owners? - How does the property relationship affect the process, outputs and outcomes?
- How are, how can and how should these activities be funded?
- What are the different types, methods and philosophies of community engagement, and how do you determine which is suitable in a given context?
- How can we lower the technical barriers to entry such as legal agreements, insurance, permits, resource and building consents?
- Why and how can adaptive urbanism be used to foster a culture of experimentation?
- How can experimentation extend not just to delivered projects, but also to the processes and social structures that surround them?
Read the publication here.
VIDEO / PODCAST OF THE WEEK
‘How to revive a neighborhood‘
Created by TEDx
“But what do you do in neighborhoods when ain’t nobody interested in living there? That the people who have the means to leave have already left? What do we do with these abandoned buildings? And so I was trying to wake them up using culture.”
Theaster Gates, a potter by training and a social activist by calling, wanted to do something about the sorry state of his neighborhood on the south side of Chicago. So he did, transforming abandoned buildings to create community hubs that connect and inspire those who still live there (and draw in those who don’t).
He strongly believes that beauty is a basic service. He feels that when there are certain under-resourced cities or neighborhoods or communities, culture is the only thing that can help get people reinvested in their place even if to make a poetic demand. The political demands that are necessary hence follow creating something more beautiful than what the initial intention might had been.
This best serves the purpose of reviving dead spaces while adding to the economy and empowering the local communities involved, ensuring a sustainable and wholesome urban growth.
Urban Design Collective 
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