Brand Avenue

Cut-Out Charlotte

Below, part of an incredible stop-motion video by artist Rob Carter that uses aerial photos to illustrate a history of the city of Charlotte, North Carolina. (via)

Carter notes that the video is more than a depiction of Charlotte's explosive growth:

Charlotte is one of the fastest growing cities in the country, primarily due to the continuing influx of the banking community, resulting in an unusually fast architectural and population expansion that shows no sign of faltering despite the current economic climate. However, this new downtown Metropolis is therefore subject to the whim of the market and the interest of the giant corporations that choose to do business there. Made entirely from images printed on paper, the animation literally represents this sped up urban planners dream, but suggests the frailty of that dream, however concrete it may feel on the ground today. Ultimately the video continues the city development into an imagined hubristic future, of more and more skyscrapers and sports arenas and into a bleak environmental future. It is an extreme representation of the already serious water shortages that face many expanding American cities today; but this is less a warning, as much as a statement of our paper thin significance no matter how many monuments of steel, glass and concrete we build.

Watch the whole video, here.

The Carpets of Vegas

Below, some of the work of Chris Maluszynski, who has spent four years photographing the acres of intricately patterned carpeting that winds through the insides of Las Vegas' casinos.

 Maluszynski explains how the carpets reflect and extend a sense of one place's unnerving energy:

"Vegas is I feel the most surreal place in the world. In the middle of the desert you have this huge neon-lit metropolis, which is bizarre in itself. Everywhere you look when you are on The Strip or Downtown there are flashing lights to mesmerise you. I found myself trying to give my eyes a rest from the chaos by looking at the floor, but there is no respite even there...

It seems that every inch of everything out there has been designed to bombard your brain into staying awake....The casinos have no windows or natural light so you have no idea what time of day it is. It's all about keeping you stimulated. Tourists spend money when they are not asleep."

More.

Hidden Potential

Below Washington DC's Dupont Circle, and some of the Capital's most prestigious real estate, a hidden world lies waiting to be rediscovered:

In cold, pitch-black tunnels strewn with garbage, spider webs and half-empty bottles of liquor lie 100,000 square feet of white-tiled space left behind in 1962, after the last streetcar cleared the Dupont Circle trolley station. Trolley tracks line the crescent-shaped concrete tunnels. The trolley-shaped facades of the short-lived Dupont Down Under food court, which failed miserably in 1996, fill one of the former station platforms.

This is where architect Julian Hunt envisions a series of hip galleries called Dupont Underground, where up to 1,500 people at a time would take in avant-garde art shows and exhibits of experimental architecture. Museum-quality lighting would fill curved hallways, and a sophisticated ventilation system would keep the humidity to art gallery standards....The proposal, promoted by a group of artists and architects called the Arts Coalition for Dupont Underground, is the latest pitch for reopening the trolley station abandoned beneath one of the city's most expensive and colorful neighborhoods.

More.

Sometime In The Not-Too-Distant Future

Awesome. (Via)

"You Are Right Where You Need To Be"

Cross Border Communication, Windsor, Ontario.

GOOD Magazine reports on an "artist-led urban improvement group" bent on rectifying the relationship between the neighboring cities of Windsor, Ontario, and Detroit, Michigan:

Not long ago, if you had stood at the edge of Detroit and looked south– across the river to the neighboring city of Windsor, Ontario– you might have spotted an odd but fascinating, billboard-sized projection. “We’re in this together,” it beamed in thick block letters. Using a borrowed projector and Windsor’s riverside Chrysler building as canvas, Justin Langlois and his posse from Broken City Lab launched their Cross Border Communication project in the Fall of 2009 with a series of dispatches for the people of Detroit. “The message was meant to be read in a few different ways,” says Langlois. “It’s both we need to work on things together and we kind of screwed each other… so we’re in this together.”

More.  Earlier. (And be sure to check out the great Broken City Lab website.)

Natural Gas and Urban Energy

Sandridge Natural Gas Headquarters, Oklahoma City, OK.

Two major corporate headquarters projects for natural gas companies in Oklahoma City promise to dramatically remake that city's central core. There's a buzz associated with all that energy:

A one-time cow town, oil town, and even a tent city (when it was founded during the 1889 land rush), Oklahoma City is urgently trying to reinvent itself as the next big city in America. If "America is the Saudi Arabia of natural gas," as T. Boone Pickens puts it, then Oklahoma City is its Riyadh. It's home to three of the largest independent producers--Chesapeake, Devon, and Sandridge--which are helping to underwrite its urban ambitions.

Devon Energy recently broke ground on a 50-story tower that will become the state's tallest building upon completion:

Devon’s building, however, is not the only construction project in Oklahoma City. In December, residents approved a $777 million tax package for a 70-acre central park, convention center, streetcar system, aquatic centers, boating facilities and trails that will be built over the next nine years. A $140 million makeover of downtown, including new sidewalks, bicycle lanes and two-way streets, also starts in May courtesy of Devon.

More. Also.