Architecture of Density

June 18, 2007 at 13:53
filed under art+design+technology, photography, Vancouver
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Featured below is a photo I took during my recent trip to Cuba and it strikes a strong resemblance to photographer Michael Wolf‘s ‘Architecture of Density’ series shot in Honk Kong.

Photographer Michael Wolf has the eye of a minimalist painter, only his has the grit
of city living in it — which makes his images all the more compelling.

I only recently discovered his work and I was drawn to it since it is a theme that I have also explored in my photography.

Here’s another one of my pictures, this one from Vancouver.

My fascination for this aspect of photography is captured in San Francisco Chronicle’s art critic Kenneth Baker’s essay about Wolf’s work:

Various images describe the facades of monstrously tall and repetitive residential high-
rise buildings, views cropped to make the structures appear as if they might extend
indefinitely, upwards and down. [...] These structures seem almost to float free of the planet and extend
themselves in space without constraint.

On a non-photographic related topic, density in urban areas and how it relates to the sustainability of cities is a subject of great importance, although I have not read Wolf’s book so I do not know if he touches on the subject. It is a central aspect of Vancouver’s urban planning initiatives, and while it is important to look towards the future, it is also interesting to look to the past to see what has been achieved in the past 25 years to reduce the city’s footprint.

These examples are taken from the city’s Ecodensity brochure so they might be a bit subjective but it is nonetheless interesting to reflect on how things have moved forward:

  1. Adding over 40,000 residents downtown close to jobs
  2. Developing neighborhood centers outside the downtown to have new housing near shops, services and transit
  3. New rapid transit and rapid buses
  4. 200 additional kilometers of cycling routes
  5. Car sharing cooperative with 3,000 members
  6. Increasing non-market housing units
  7. Urban gardens, ‘green streets’ and greenways
  8. Composting, recycling and yard trimming programs
  9. Pricing for waste removal and water supply based on amount used
  10. Pesticide ban on parkland and private land

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