Hopsca revisited

Hopsca is a form of mixed use planning that creates an economic hub for a specific purpose at a very large scale, a city scale. It is also known as Urban Complex or a city within a city. Hopsca stands for Hotel, Offices, Parks, Shopping malls, Convention and Apartments.

Hopsca offers a possible solution for urban development that is sustainable, efficient, and diverse. Hopsca integrates different uses and functions in a single location, reducing the need for transportation and increasing the convenience and accessibility for residents and visitors. 

Hopsca also optimizes the use of resources and space, enhancing the environmental and economic performance of the urban area. Hopsca also provides a variety of services and amenities, improving the social and cultural vitality of the urban area.

Hopsca has been used to develop urban areas in different countries and regions, such as China, Singapore, Japan, Korea, Australia, etc. Some examples of hopsca projects are:

Raffles City

A series of hopsca projects developed by CapitaLand in various cities in China and Singapore. They feature hotels, offices, shopping malls, residences, and other facilities. 

Tokyo Midtown

A hopsca project developed by Mitsui Fudosan in Tokyo, Japan. It features a hotel, offices, shopping mall, museum, park, residences, and other facilities. 

Songdo International Business District

A hopsca project developed by Gale International and POSCO E&C in Incheon, Korea. It features offices, shopping malls, convention center, park, residences, and other facilities.

Brisbane Showgrounds

A hopsca project developed by Lendlease in Brisbane, Australia. It features offices, shopping mall, convention center, park, residences, and other facilities .

I think hopsca is an interesting and innovative concept that can offer many benefits and opportunities for urban planning and development. I think it can also pose some challenges and risks that need to be addressed and managed carefully.

How to block Pinterest from search

So,

I hear many things:

     Can I block Pinterest links when I Google? Please help!

     How to remove pinterest from google image searches?

     Dear Google: Pinterest is not an image source!

Even tho Google is the number 1 search for some time now there's a few things that still bug me, and one is searching for something and Pinterest coming up.

I have no interest in using Pinterest, I don't want to sign up for it. It's a site that really shouldn't be capitalising on copyrighted images.

So, here's how to block it and you'll need to use this Chrome extension to do it.

Personal block list (by Google)

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/personal-blocklist-by-goo/nolijncfnkgaikbjbdaogikpmpbdcdef?hl=en

it provides the link, like in the below picture to remove a site from search.

Once it's done there's nothing else to do about blocking sites.

CAMPBELL COUNCIL TRAINING

As a specialist consultancy and pioneer of Australian placemaking, Place Partners is considered an expert in the field and are often asked to provide specialist training. Place Partners offers a range of short and longer training courses tailored to meet the needs of each organisation and the team who require education in this space.

Campbelltown City Council engaged Place Partners to provide in house placemaking training to council staff, and undertake a pilot project with them as a case study for transformative learning. Place Partners conducted a two-day intensive placemaking training workshop in April 2017. This included an introduction to Placemaking, Genius Loci and Authentic Place Branding, Place Activation and Programming, and Community Engagement.

The training equipped Campbelltown City Council staff with placemaking knowledge and skills by fostering collaboration and cultural change among the recently restricted planning, development and culture divisions of council.

To learn more about placemaking training, visit Place Partners.

http://placepartners.com.au/how-we-can-help/training/

Rhodopsin mediated photoreversal: A response to Blue-Light Hazard and LEDs: Fact or Fiction?

A response to the misinforming article published by Architectural Lighting Technology by Alice Liao

Rhodopsin mediated photoreversal - By Mr B Dove.

Rhodopsin mediated photoreversal is the actual process by which blue light (approx. 460nm and shorter wavelengths) damages the retinal pigment epithelial tissue, causing damage and eventually deterioration of the retina. The energy from the photons in blue light causes the phototransduction cascade to be instantly reversed, and for the cell to constantly fire until it kills itself. This only occurs with a SPD that has large amounts of blue wavelength light, and an absence of other wavelengths (which normally prevents photoreversal).

The critical thing to understand about this damaging process is that its dependent on the WAVELENGTH, NOT THE INTENSITY. Let me repeat that. Its NOT based on intensity.

Even very low intensity light, with a spectral power distribution that includes disproportionately more blue light than other wavelengths, causes rhodopsin mediated photoreversal and damage. That's why these studies and articles that claim that LEDs aren't as intense as sunlight and are therefore safe, are absolutely ridiculous. 

The human retina adapts to bright light and becomes exponentially less sensitive. That's another reason why using high intensity light source studies is pointless. Yes, extremely bright light from the Sun, arc lights or welders will damage your eyes, but NOT through the same process that low intensity blue light does. That is NOT why blue LEDs, fluorescents, or really any source of very blue light is bad: rhodopsin mediated photoreversal is.

And before you say "but the sky is blue", keep in mind that overhead daylight is 5500K CCT and the sky is blue, but overall the atmosphere filters sunlight to a very yellow 5500K CCT. More importantly, the SPD of sunlight is mostly infrared through green on Earth and NOT blue. In space it's much bluer and more damaging, but astronauts wear the appropriate protection.

TL:DR Low intensity blue light is MORE eye damaging than bright sunlight.

Reference

Architectural Lighting 2016 http://www.archlighting.com/technology/blue-light-hazard-and-leds-fact-or-fiction_o

Grimm, C 2001 www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11157889

Yau, K 2009 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2885920/

Zhou J 2011 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3100371/

Should we preserve 728 Pennant Hills Road by Michael Dysart?

This house, a simple house in Carlingford has been transformed into a conventional house. I could not imagine people traveling to view a house, with the intent of thinking it's something to be prized.

Is it a case of being nostalgic about a past becuase it's the financial and economic rational McMansion that is the dominant house type. 

The idea of space within a house these days would be regarded as a luxury, for somebody who can afford it.

Is the loss of one building a los at all? After all, it's only a building that people live in. Something that shows how Australia embraced internationalism and incorporated it's own vernacular.

Architectural observations

I've been looking at a lot of sketches by Architects of late and I've come to a few conclusions.

1. Are buildings just modernist caves?

2. If the scale between buildings and their surrounds match, they look natural.

3. The spaces between, most commonly called negative space is called that because it doesn't have a positive building there.

Which really is only half of the story of people's lives, as they don't just exist in a building but also in the community outside.

Civic Planning

Introduction or A title to start this conversation

Planning seems to have been on a journey to find itself within the academic and societal structures within our society from when we've starred to develop plans for our town and cities. I had been the domain of other professions like Architecture, Engineering and even an Administrative arm of some councils, but planning has been able to establish itself as a credible science on itself.

Town & Country Planning; Civic Planning, Urban Regional Planning; Urban Development.

As far as I'm aware, the above is all Planning, but not even planning or financial planning. Just like the medical field has doctors and philosophical doctors, the establishment and promotion of the notion of a doctor means something also scientific but you would never call a person who works in planning as a doctor (unless you've done a doctorate).

So what is Planning?

Planning is Simcity, obviously! You just click on the areas that are residential, commercial and Industrial, and it's done... NOT! Planning is a broad area and field. It encompasses not only development assessment of housing but it includes transport planning, forward planning, master planning, developing regional plans, federal plans for the country. Planning, is mainly an issue of governance. Planning is not Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Engineering nor is it Urban Design. It is not involved with the intricacies of design details, but the policy implementation of those themes. 

Planning is Social Engineering

So in one way you can say it is Social Engineering as it determines appropriate uses an are to it's best potential in a non biased way. This is where conflicts between locals and planning policy come to a head. Some planning schemes have been stated to of being in effect that even a nuclear power station if it complies to all of it's conditions can be built within a residential area. This in my opinion is where planning fails. Where policy and common sense leave a gap so that a development can become political and be pushed around within the public realm despite the financial funding of private enterprise is stifled and restricted.

Planning & Politics

Planning, as it affects people and their livelihoods becomes in its nature, political. We are after all, political when it comes to things that affect our worlds. If a development goes ahead and casts shadows and creates noise along your boundary, of couse you are going to be upset. If it can be proven that these things are not going to impede on your livelihood, then realistically, the development by all rights should go ahead, if those criteria are criteria that can be established as conditional. That might sounds jargony, but in reality this is how planning is achieved.