> Singapore's "strata malls" let individuals own shops outright, not rent them. Any building change needs 80% owner approval. Result: retirees treating shops as social clubs, refusing million-dollar buyouts. These malls become uncurated havens for niche businesses and retirement communities disguised as retail.
There are some interesting observations about commercial retail condominiums in Toronto. Several "dead malls" with quirky shops and low foot traffic are retail condos (i.e. with individually owned units, not rented from the building owner): Aura (Yonge & Gerrard), Chinatown Centre (Spadina & Sullivan). Because the units are owned, they can't be kicked out on a whim in order to change the variety of shops in the mall.
OG Title : Adaptive Reuse Across Asia: Singapore's Fragmented Ownership, Japan's Rural Revival, & Korea's Material Limits
It was a bit long and whatnot, so I edited down. Turns out to be a pretty good interview about a guy (Calvin Chua) who teach Urban Design in North Korea for a bit
The interviewee sounds like a insufferable navel-gazing professor. A lot of platitudes and very evasive about anything concrete. (the interview section doesn't add anything new to the top intro/description)
"the agenda of rethinking the peripheries" - how can this not elicit an eye-roll..?
At least props to the interviewer for calling him out on "heroic architecture". A very "humanities" move, make up some bullshit term, don't explain it, make your interlocuter guess and feel like an idiot.
the TLDR of the main thesis is when you redesign a space, try to see if you can preserve the existing social structures and perceive how people interact with architecture before you roll in with the bulldozers. But it doesn't really present any concrete examples, so whatever..
It seems there are maybe kernels of some good ideas, but then everyone started to enjoy the smell of their own farts too much
Interesting stuff. I did not realize it was even possible to build a 40-story building without using steel. (I mean, I presume they use some, just a lot less if the walls are load-bearing.)
Looking at Wikipedia[1], the ≥40 storey buildings look pretty typical, I assume you're correct that they are using some. Some look like older designs with external shear walls, which reduce the exterior windows. That said, it's certainly possible to build tall buildings without structural steel reinforcing - can look at all the tall old cathedrals, pyramids, etc that surpass 140m height (40 storeys at 3.5m each)
The issue with trying to study US YIMBY through the lens of Asian urban planning is that most of these Asian countries have very different approaches to civil rights and private property than America. Japan has the added complication of routine natural disasters forcing rebuilds of housing. Singapore is a tiny city-state with a strong single party unicameral government (no separate parliaments, no municipal/state/federal divide) and a willingness to use eminent domain powers (and you don't "own" property there, most land is not freehold, you are merely temporarily leasing it from the state). South Korea is more similar to the US with a high percentage of rental owners but they also have a negative population growth (same as Japan). The less said about North Korea the better. People in these countries are also used to public transport, which is completely unacceptable to most Americans used to car ownership.
In short, some of these models are nice to be admired from afar and I definitely recommend going in person to to experience them, but I doubt there's truly any interesting takeaways that truly useful for the US.
You can substitute EU for US and large parts of the point remains. The context of the EU and Asia is also very different. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. We should still look at what others do, but we need to be careful extrapolating as sometimes things are the way they are because of some factor nobody is even aware of.
> Singapore's "strata malls" let individuals own shops outright, not rent them. Any building change needs 80% owner approval. Result: retirees treating shops as social clubs, refusing million-dollar buyouts. These malls become uncurated havens for niche businesses and retirement communities disguised as retail.
Note that "strata" means "condominium": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strata_title , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condominium .
There are some interesting observations about commercial retail condominiums in Toronto. Several "dead malls" with quirky shops and low foot traffic are retail condos (i.e. with individually owned units, not rented from the building owner): Aura (Yonge & Gerrard), Chinatown Centre (Spadina & Sullivan). Because the units are owned, they can't be kicked out on a whim in order to change the variety of shops in the mall.
OG Title : Adaptive Reuse Across Asia: Singapore's Fragmented Ownership, Japan's Rural Revival, & Korea's Material Limits
It was a bit long and whatnot, so I edited down. Turns out to be a pretty good interview about a guy (Calvin Chua) who teach Urban Design in North Korea for a bit
The interviewee sounds like a insufferable navel-gazing professor. A lot of platitudes and very evasive about anything concrete. (the interview section doesn't add anything new to the top intro/description)
"the agenda of rethinking the peripheries" - how can this not elicit an eye-roll..?
At least props to the interviewer for calling him out on "heroic architecture". A very "humanities" move, make up some bullshit term, don't explain it, make your interlocuter guess and feel like an idiot.
the TLDR of the main thesis is when you redesign a space, try to see if you can preserve the existing social structures and perceive how people interact with architecture before you roll in with the bulldozers. But it doesn't really present any concrete examples, so whatever..
It seems there are maybe kernels of some good ideas, but then everyone started to enjoy the smell of their own farts too much
Interesting stuff. I did not realize it was even possible to build a 40-story building without using steel. (I mean, I presume they use some, just a lot less if the walls are load-bearing.)
Looking at Wikipedia[1], the ≥40 storey buildings look pretty typical, I assume you're correct that they are using some. Some look like older designs with external shear walls, which reduce the exterior windows. That said, it's certainly possible to build tall buildings without structural steel reinforcing - can look at all the tall old cathedrals, pyramids, etc that surpass 140m height (40 storeys at 3.5m each)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_N...
Given that it's North Korea, I wouldn't be surprised if their standards are rather low and it's obliterated in an earthquake.
It's not clear to me if it is a good idea or even safe.
This might be one of those "yeah it's possible".
The issue with trying to study US YIMBY through the lens of Asian urban planning is that most of these Asian countries have very different approaches to civil rights and private property than America. Japan has the added complication of routine natural disasters forcing rebuilds of housing. Singapore is a tiny city-state with a strong single party unicameral government (no separate parliaments, no municipal/state/federal divide) and a willingness to use eminent domain powers (and you don't "own" property there, most land is not freehold, you are merely temporarily leasing it from the state). South Korea is more similar to the US with a high percentage of rental owners but they also have a negative population growth (same as Japan). The less said about North Korea the better. People in these countries are also used to public transport, which is completely unacceptable to most Americans used to car ownership.
In short, some of these models are nice to be admired from afar and I definitely recommend going in person to to experience them, but I doubt there's truly any interesting takeaways that truly useful for the US.
None of this has anything at all to do with the contents of the article.
I'm from the EU, not the US.
You can substitute EU for US and large parts of the point remains. The context of the EU and Asia is also very different. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. We should still look at what others do, but we need to be careful extrapolating as sometimes things are the way they are because of some factor nobody is even aware of.
USA isn't the centre of the world.