The beauty of stairs

SHORT FILM

Helena Kardová & Tsveta Lozanova, Monocle, 16 June 2017

Staircase design is an outward display of creativity. These statements of architecture keep our bodies and minds active, running up a flight of stairs gets your heart pumping and the magnificent views at the end of an ascent can spark innovative ideas.

Architects Architecture & Engineering Community Japan Short Films

Healthy cities: vim and vigour

SHORT FILM

Anette Lien, Monocle, 27 January 2017

In Japan’s Unzen City, the adventurous ideas of Taku Habino, the head of Habino Sekkei Architecture have revolutionised early childhood development in the city’s nurseries.

To visit Japanese architecture firm Hibino Sekkei’s website, click here. For a survey of their work from ArchDaily, click here.

The materials of city planning are: sky, space, trees, steel and cement; in that order and that hierarchy.

Le Corbusier, architect

If anybody at any time wanted to pay professionals to make a city planning idea which would kill city life, it could not have done better than what the modernists accomplished.

Jan Gehl, architect

You know, it is life that is right and the architect who is wrong.

Le Corbusier, architect

Designing a dream city is easy; rebuilding a living one takes imagination.

Jane Jacobs, journalist

Architecture & Engineering Developers Short Films The Public Realm UK

King’s Cross: urban transformation

SHORT FILM

Pauline den Hartog Jager, Monocle, 12 May 2016

It is expected that this year around 30,000 people will be visiting King’s Cross every day, for that we have to thank its developers Argent, who have focused just as much on a manifesto of good living, as they have on a bottom line. “Once we had been confirmed, one of our first jobs was to write this first document called, ‘Principles for a Human City’ which was published in July 2001, and we set out 10 principles for what we though should be a fantastic piece of this world city.”

Architecture & Engineering City Branding Magazines Short Films The Public Realm

Urban Provocations

SHORT FILM

Andrew Tuck, Monocle, 26 April 2016

…but too often you’re faced with another project that repeats the default design solutions of the day and ignores the simple fixes that were needed all along. Here are some Monocle dos and don’ts, and polite provocations, for making better cities.