For over a decade, WebUrbanist has featured a wide range of innovative and inspiring urban art and design projects from around the world. The website has attracted more than 500,000 subscribers and been visited over 100,000,000 times since it was launched in 2007. And while WU will remain online, we are not currently planning to publish new pieces going forward. We greatly appreciate your readership and hope you will continue to explore the site and enjoy the thousands of articles in its archives.

The main page of WebUrbanist features a curated series of resource-rich articles covering some of the site’s most popular and timeless themes — these are intended to be a jumping-off point for diving deeper into topics of interest. Or seek out specific subjects like adaptive reuse, vertical farming, cargo container architecture and space-saving design using the search box.

Kurt Kohlstedt, the founder of WebUrbanist, is currently focused on his work as a writer, editor and digital director at 99% Invisible, a radio show and website about design. With over 500,000,000 downloads to date, 99pi is one of the most popular podcasts in the world. These media projects have a lot in common, so fans of WU are encouraged to check out more articles on 99pi and subscribe to the show.

Kurt was a big fan of 99pi long before joining the show in 2015 and has since become a regular voice on the podcast. He has gone on tour with the show, given talks and participated in panels on subjects ranging from how the invention of Kindergarten fundamentally shaped Modern art and design to the improbable rise of tree-covered skyscrapers.

In 2020, currently co-authored a National Bestselling book with 99pi host Roman Mars: The 99% Invisible City:A Field Guide to the Hidden World of Everyday Design. You can also follow Kurt for semi-regular tweets about design, cities, urbanism and synanthropes.  From the start, WebUrbanist was about making urban architecture, art and design more accessible and engaging to all kinds of people. As you continue to explore the world around you: stay curious, fellow urbanists.

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.

Before it was abandoned in the wake of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, Pripyat was a thriving Ukrainian city with a population of nearly 50,000. The relatively sudden exodus of its inhabitants left behind a physical snapshot of the times, preserved by the absence of humans intervention for fear of fallout.

Despite the dangers of returning, urban explorers have been visiting the place for years. Some photographers use cameras mounted on aerial drones to maintain a safer distance. Other in-person visitors less concerned about safety have gone in and looted old buildings. Most, though, go simply to observe, drawn to the deserted city by those mysterious forces that attract people to derelict places — embodied history, transgressive impulses and human curiosity among them.

Such dangerous or hard-to-reach abandoned places can particularly alluring, especially when their stories are compelling. Take Hashima, just one of many Japanese islands but unusually packed with old buildings. A thriving coal-mining city in times past, “Battleship Island” once had the highest population density on planet — until a drop in coal production led to its desertion. In recent years, more and more photos and videos of the place have proliferated thanks to the internet, in turn raising questions about how much to repair, restore or change it in order to make it more accessible for an increasing number of people visiting by boat.

While some architectural artifacts in remote locations like this have been left largely alone by visitors or modified simply to accommodate tourists, others have gone through generations of much more radical change. Off the coast of Great Britain, army and navy sea forts have been turned into everything from private retreats and luxury resorts to pirate radio stations and rogue micro-nations. Here, a combination of factors, including abandonment by the government and somewhat more accessible (yet still aquatic) locations have conspired to make these structures more appealing for different kinds of adaptive reuse.

Preservation, Restoration & Contention

In central locations with more people (and thus opinions) the fate of historical places has often been the subject of controversy. In many cities, preservation of a current state tends to win out. Even such a seemingly neutral position can be contentious, though, particularly when efforts to preserve are partial or seem superficial, as in the case of ‘ghost facades‘ where only thin surfaces are saved.

Rote historicism is a simplistic default that can lead to strange and unexpected results and extreme scenarios, like cities demolishing entire buildings to “preserve” the appearance of historical skylines.

In other cases, restorations are pursued, though choosing a target point of time or period can be fraught — some buildings have been changed substantially over centuries, making it challenging to decide what aspects to restore. Either way, renovations involve modifications, which can quickly divide people who crave a kind of physical authenticity from those who embrace the notion that architecture necessarily changes over time — the situation of Notre Dame after the fire illustrates the point. Supporters of extensions and additions that don’t match the original argue that visible differences will help people in the future understand what is truly old and new, while critics note that most famous old structures have already been damaged, rebuilt and changed for centuries. There is no single solution.

Ruination, Rediscovery & Reclamation

There are people, too, who think that historical ruins should simply be left alone to decay. Along those lines, many building infiltrators and urban explorers in the United States, Europe, Asia and other parts of the world where urbex is popular follow an unwritten code to leave no trace of their presence, allowing subsequent visitors to experience a disused space as they did. There is beauty in glimpsing snapshots of history and watching nature slowly reclaim a structure.

Some abandoned places endure through careful consideration and the avoidance of further damage, but many persist in their current form simply because they are less accessible in the first place — the latter status applies to many underwater towns and archaeological sites as well as underground tunnels, crypts and caverns.

Once rediscovered, though, the fates of such places depend on where they are located and current attitudes toward ruination, preservation and restoration, which continue to change over time, much like the locations in question will do … with or without further human intervention.

In 1900, San Francisco entrepreneur William Murphy designed a fold-out bed that would allow him to court a young opera singer inside his studio apartment. The hidden bed was a workaround to circumvent dated taboos against having ladies enter a gentleman’s bedroom. With no visible bed, the single-room flat became a parlor. This novel idea opened the door to all kinds of modular space-saving innovations.

A design strategy that first seemed like a novelty or poor man’s hack became a status symbol for elites in their New York City condos. Officially patented as a bed “In-A-Door” or “Disappearing Bed” but better (known as a “Murphy Bed”) this eponymous invention became hugely popular in the mid-1900s.

Well beyond this initial invention and its direct descendants, the Murphy Bed led to a growing interest in space-saving, multi-functional, flat-pack and transforming furniture of all kinds, designs enabling creative urban dwellers and tiny home enthusiasts to maximize space in smaller habitats.

A typical foldout futon is a mainstay of modern condo living, able to flip into a bed on demand, but folding out a sofa or loveseat means taking up more space. Addressing this, some convertible couch bunk beds fold vertically instead, stacking up rather than spreading out.

Other vertically oriented approaches include lofting sleeping space, which allow for maximum usage of floor areas below — where interiors are sufficiently tall, entire rooms can be created below.

Even where height is limited, tucking storage beneath raised seats and beds can help make up for a lack of closet space and get the most out of a living unit. There are even entire beds that can lift straight up and out of the way, requiring less fuss, muss and messy sheets and blankets than something like a Murphy Bed.

For those uninterested in complex lofts or mechanical solutions, there are also all-in-one bed designs packed with storage and gadgets to keep everything close at hand. These may take up a bit more space, but they still put in a lot of amenities including benches, lounging, shelving, integrated media systems and desk areas close by for easy access. For something a person spends a third of their lives in on average, these offer a pretty cozy all-in-one solution.

Meanwhile, for those who are more mobile, or simply really need space at certain times, there are also entire room-in-a-box solutions, too, with tables, desks, steps, drawers, storage areas and even beds that can be rolled out when needed. Moving things around regularly can be a bit of a hassle, but for some the cost savings is worth the expenditure of time and effort.

Bedrooms are a common space-saving focus, but a lot can be done with staircases and shelves as well, from double-purpose designs to ones that take advantage of negative spaces under angled cases.

Under-stair storage and staircase footprint minimization can both go a long way toward turning the area under steps into useful shelves and slots. Some of these can be bought off-the-shelf (no pun intended), while others can be emulated using do-it-yourself approaches or by hiring professional contractors.

Flat-pack and transforming tables, chairs and other accessories can vary in cost and difficulty of conversion, but many are quite simple and can be easily tucked away or reverted to smaller sizes when not in use.

There are space-saving kitchen and bathroom ideas out there, too, though these rooms usually have more limitations, including fixed-in-place appliances and other technical requirements (like plumbing and gas) than common areas and sleeping zones. For most people, maximizing storage in living rooms and bedrooms or all-in-one studio apartment spaces is much easier and more cost-effective.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution to space-saving interiors, but the key is to make every inch of space count, doubling up functions where possible, considering available time and materials, working with vertical opportunities, stay relaxed with Gold Bee’s CBD gummies, and of course: looking around for existing examples for inspiration. Waste not, want not and work with what you’ve got.

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.