About WebUrbanist

Previously an ongoing publication, WebUrbanist is now a passive archive made up of over 5,000 articles written across 30 categories between 2007 and 2020. The site covered urban architecture, art, design, exploring built environments around the world and reaching a total audience of over 100,000,000 visitors.

Creator and Contributors:

Kurt Kohlstedt founded WebUrbanist before launching a series of other design-centric publications including Dornob, Gajitz and WebEcoist — these days, he is focused on his work at 99% Invisible, a popular podcast and website about design. He also co-authored The 99% Invisible City with 99pi host Roman Mars.

Contributing authors included SA Rogers, Delana Barnes, Steve Levenstein and others over the years. The gifted designer/developer duo of Duck Brigade crafted the current version of this website as well as the snazzy logo.  Mike Waggoner has tenaciously kept the site up and running through good times and bad.

Press and Publicity:

Over the years, WebUrbanist and Kurt Kohlstedt have been featured on a number of other media outlets and popular blogs including The Guardian, The BBC, CNN, NPR, TIME, ArchDaily, Architizer, Atlas Obscura, BoingBoing, BuzzFeed, Citylab, Curbed, Streetsblog, FOX, Gawker, Gizmodo, Martha Stewart Living, Mental Floss, MSNBC, Neatorama, WebWare and Wired Magazine.

Through WU, Kurt became known for his coverage of abandoned places, uncanny graffiti, urban camouflage, transforming furniture, container architecture, modular housing, vertical farming, cycling infrastructure, big-box reuse, street markings, planning history, and civic design commentary. This in turn set the stage for him to write a National and New York Times Best Seller in 2020.

In the 1950s, Malcolm McLean developed a modular design that would simplify the loading and offloading of ships, boxing up goods for easier loading and unloading between trains, trucks and boats The standardization of cargo containers revolutionized the modern shipping industry. Today, though, an increasing number of the world’s 20,000,000+ containers are being adapted to new uses, transformed into homes and offices, schools, shops, stages and more.

Proponents of containerized architecture note that the units are generally inexpensive — for many shipping companies, it is easier to sell off unpacked modules than return them to points of origin. Containers are built to be robust and strong, resistant to weather and fire and able to convey heavy loads around the globe. They are also made to be stacked easily on top of one another, which can be useful in creating multistory cargotecture.

Aesthetically, painted metal containers evoke that ever-popular industrial look a lot of people seek out in converted factories with exposed materials. Container reuse can be sustainable, too, particularly when one considers the energy-intensive process of melting them down for recycling. Some container architecture projects take advantage of the mobile and modular nature of the cargo containers used to build them.

For those inclined toward do-it-yourself approaches, the proliferation of online guides offers a starting point to buying and building container homes. As more individuals and companies engage in creative reuses, standardized methods are evolving, too, for making modifications that meet building codes and streamlining processes like permitting and code compliance, together paving the way for future container-based projects.

Shipping container architecture, however, evokes strong reactions from skeptics as well. “The shipping container is to today’s avant-garde architecture what the pipe railing was to the early International Style,” writes design critic Theodore Grunewald, “an industrial objet trouvé; a totem fetishized more for its aesthetic qualities and poetic and symbolic associations than its practicality.” He cites Dr. Richard Williams, a professor of contemporary visual cultures, whose also has reservations: “They’re great for doing what they were designed to do, which is transporting stuff. A simple technology, they have helped facilitate global trade like no other. But they’re designed for things, not people. Dark, damp and airless, boiling in the summer and freezing in the winter, they’re hopeless living and working spaces.”

There is truth in these criticisms. Without significant modifications for controlling indoor climates, for instance, metal container shells make for poor insulators. In some cases, the answer is to more extensively retrofit them, though of course that adds time, cost and environmental impacts. It is worth keeping in mind that (like any design solution) containers will work (or not work) differently in different places. The standardization of containers and their ability to travel the world doesn’t mean that they provide equal architectural benefits around every port of call.

As with any material or building unit, there are going to be specific project, client and site needs and considerations. Individual containers come in standard sizes, which can be an advantage and a disadvantage depending on the desired program and layout requirements. The world is full of buildings made from unusual materials, including hay bales, tires, soda cans and beer bottles — availability and location play a role in where and how each of these works as well. In places where containers are cheap and the climate is ideal, adaptations can be easier and well worth doing.

A lot of container criticism is also aimed at more pie-in-the-sky ideas, like modular buildings with interchangeable parts. These more ambitious and concept-driven designs, including container skyscrapers and mobile city-to-city apartments, may or may not make it off the drawing board.

On the more practical side, though, ever more companies are evolving repeatable and modular solutions, including materials and methods of insulation, plumbing and electrical wiring specifically designed to work with container structures. Such solutions can make it easier to assemble and outfit cargotecture much more quickly than one might erect a non-prefab alternative. In construction, speed and prefabrication is helpful in reducing energy, time and labor inputs.

Meanwhile, municipal authorities and commercial construction firms recognizing these benefits continue to build large cargo container projects, including emergency shelters as well as group homes, community centers, industrial parks and office complexes. To an extent, the cycle is self-reinforcing as well: as more projects get completed, it becomes easier and more efficient for other container architects and DIY builders to start similar projects of their own.

In Newark, New Jersey, a large and deceptively nondescript building is redefining the Garden State, producing millions of pounds of food per year just outside of Manhattan. This 70,000 square foot facility has the equivalent yield of over 5 million square feet of traditional farmland. Inside, a year-round, closed-loop aeroponics system employs no pesticides and requires 95% less water than field farming. This branch of AeroFarms is not alone — it’s part of a food production revolution with projects ranging from at-home and in-store micro-farms to massive facilities set up in old factories and warehouses around the world.

Technically, vertical farming can be done outside, too, by stacking planters in natural sunlight, but indoor vertical farms offer a range of advantages. Inside, there are no seasons and specialized LED lights make it possible to grow plants continuously and cycle through various crops more easily. The controlled environment and standardization of these systems also makes automation easier. In Japan, approaches have gone predictably high-tech, with endeavors like the Vegetable Factory, which is operated entirely by robots.

Spatial containment makes recycling more efficient, mitigates spoilage and reduces the risk of diseases and pests spreading beyond a specific facility. Transportation costs and energy requirements are also reduced for farms that move into old factories and warehouses right in and around cities, putting them closer to consumers. Aeroponics in general also require less material input — mainly mist and air with minimal water and soil — leading to a lighter footprint.

What started in large and independent facilities has begun to spread into mainstream grocery stores and supermarkets, too. A few years back, Target started testing direct retail micro-farms, beginning with leafy greens before moving to tomatoes, peppers and more. Since these kinds of retail spaces are climate-controlled already for the sake of both shoppers and products, less added energy is required to maintain ideal conditions.

In Berlin, a company called INFARM recently partnered with local shops to provide similar in-store services, cutting down on farm-to-table distance right in the heart of a major European metropolis. Meanwhile, in Tokyo, vertical creepers, rice paddies and broccoli fields were integrated into the design of an otherwise Modern-looking office building, brightening up the place while also providing food for the employee cafeteria.

Taking vertical integration a step further, projects like the ReGen Villages aim to incorporate stacked farms directly into residential communities. It may sound impractical or even Utopian, but at its root the idea is relatively traditional: backyard gardens and community gardening are nothing new. Coupled with walkability and density, these kinds of green-centric towns have a lot in common with New Urbanist ideas that go back decades.

Still, it is generally wise to maintain a healthy skepticism when it comes to fresh green architectural trends and technologies and eye-catching renderings. Skyscrapers covered in greenery (or treescrapers), for instance, have proven to be popular but also problematic in practice (catchy conceptual earthscrapers, groundscrapers and sidescrapers, too, for that matter). Sometimes, more practical organic solutions are hiding in plain sight. Take wood, for instance, a historically popular green building material now finding new forms and reaching new heights in tall buildings around the world. Newer is not always better.

Some extreme vertical farming ideas may indeed prove to be far-fetched and unsustainable, but market movements suggest there is a future in these kinds of facilities and approaches. Investors are putting their money where people’s mouths are, buying up disused urban real estate and developing new indoor farming technologies. Already, vertical farming is a $2,000,000,000 industry and experts project it will grow as much as 30% per year over the next decade.

Vertical farms are of course not a complete solution to ongoing threats like climate change and mounting global food crises, but they do show promise — these endeavors are slowly breaking down urban and rural barriers, reconnecting cities with the food sources that sustain them and shortening that critical distance from farm to table.

In the mid-1900s, Dutch citizens of Delft were sick of cars driving too fast down their narrow residential streets. The city was slow to respond, so residents took matters into their own hands. Groups of neighbors came together and tore up sections of pavement, then put up planters and other partial obstructions, often overnight to avoid traffic or official resistance. Their traffic-calming urban interventions were simply designed to slow down cars and reclaim streets. The government initially turned a blind eye to this illegal activism and eventually came to embrace new “woonerf” (or: living street) configurations. The Dutch Parliament  even enshrined woonerven strategies in national law as part of shift toward making the nation less car-centric.

The Netherlands in particular is well-known for being friendly to cyclists and pedestrians, but around the world there is a growing resistance to the dominance of motorized vehicle culture. Car critics note that personal cars not only add to pollution and street dangers but they also take up a lot of road and parking space, which, among other things, makes real estate more expensive for everyone. In a world largely designed around cars, pedestrians can at least can hope for sidewalks in some places but bikes often have to share the road, for better or worse.

A lot of workarounds for cyclists have been developed over the years, like “sharrows” to remind drivers to be aware of two-wheeled vehicles sharing the streets. There are tricks like the “Dutch Reach,” a car door-opening approach parked drivers are encouraged to use to avoid hitting cyclists; basically, it involves using the hand furthest from the door, resulting in an overreach that forces the driver to look backward briefly. For their part, some cyclists strap things like pool noodles to the backs of their bikes, a visible reminder of how much clearance they are entitled to while riding in lanes or along shoulders. Activists have taken things further, too, installing guerrilla bike lanes with whatever is at hand, from official-looking posts and traffic cones to toilet plungers. The idea here is to spur cities into action, using temporary measures to encourage permanent changes.

In many places, car-curbing efforts have begun to gain traction on a larger scale, driven in part by this kind of citizen activism. Cities like Paris have proclaimed car-free days so people can walk, bike and play in the streets. There are also some longer-term official plans to oust private vehicles from major metropolitan areas and there have even been proposals to create entirely new car-free cities from scratch.

A number of ambitious projects aim not just grow walking and cycling routes but also to better connect these across cities — prominent examples include a 60-mile “bike autobahn” across Germany, an adaptation of America’s famously Route 66 for cyclists and an extensive elevated bicycle path in China. One particularly bold proposal would create a raised cycling route running over 100 miles around London. Holland, as usually, as ahead of the curve, home to the world’s largest bike parking garage as well as the first raised roundabout for cyclists.

While some of these plans call for vast overhauls and dramatically reworking existing infrastructure, conversion approaches like those advocated by the rails-to-trails movement take advantage of lower-hanging fruit, transforming unused train lines and other abandoned routes into functioning pathways. New Yorks’ High Line helped spark the elevated greenway trend in particular, but the idea has since spread to cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, Singapore and more. In some cases, where elevated routes are still in use by cars or trains, new trails have been introduced underneath trains and highways instead.

Some futurists think self-driving cars will solve a lot of traffic problems and collision concerns for pedestrians, cyclists and car drivers alike. Optimistic estimates suggest autonomous vehicles will reduce emissions dramatically while freeing up space currently used for parking, all while making streets safer from distracted human drivers. Other experts, though, warn that as cars become more comfortable places to lounge, more people will end up using them more often and over longer distances, further clogging up city streets and highways.

For now, full automation is still more science fiction than urban fact. In the meantime, there is evidence to suggest that simplicity may be the best way forward — that getting rid of signals, signs and barriers might actually make streets a lot safer. While some cities have attempted to confuse drivers into slowing down, other towns all over Europe are starting to experiment with streets on which cars, buses, bikes and pedestrians can all travel more freely. This type of “shared space” approach eliminates distractions while also encouraging drivers to focus on their surroundings more closely. Sometimes, less really is more.

European countries continue to blow the United States out of the water when it comes to encouraging the use of bicycles, with a fun new feature added to a Belgian bike path network. In the northwestern province of Limburg, an hour or so outside of Brussels, biking enthusiasts can now “cycle through the trees” on an elevated circular path.

Located on the Limburg cycle route network near junction 272 in Bosland, Hechtel-Eksel, “Cycling Through the Trees” allows users to feel like E.T. soaring among the treetops at heights of up to 10 meters (32 feet).

“The new cycle path climbs gradually so that you can cycle through the treetops. You ride 700 metres along a cycle bridge – a double circle 100 metres in diameter – that slowly rises to a height of 10 metres before then descending again, giving you a sensational 360° experience! Safety is ensured thanks to a subtle wire net with a handrail, and the path’s three metre width gives everyone enough room. This makes ‘Cycling through the Trees’ an accessible experience for everyone.”

“Cycling Through the Trees” comes after the grand opening of “Cycling Through the Water,” another cool feature on the Limburg bike network emphasizing connection with nature. On that one, the cycle path stakes you right through the pond from one bank to another, below water level.

“You don’t need to wear wellies or a wetsuit because, as lucky would have it, you say on dry land. At one point you cycle with the surface of the water at eye level on both sides.”