Guilt-Free Shopping: Mexico City's Eco-Friendly Underground Mall

San Francisco-based architecture firm, KMD Architects, developed an innovative design for a 700,000 shopping mall with three levels of parking that will be built entirely underground in Mexico City. Directly above it will be the city's Central Park - complete with trees, a jogging track, grass and a performance area.

The mall will be one of Mexico's most sustainable buildings. The green-roof park will insulate the building, reducing air conditioning; on-site solar electric facilities will reduce energy consumption; and massive conical skylights will allow natural light into the building.

The design was the winner of the Design Competition for an Urban Park in Mexico City.

Take Back the Streets of LA this Friday Sept. 17 for Park(ing) Day

PARK(ing) Day: User-Generated Urbanism from Brandon Bloch on Vimeo.

PARK(ing) Day is a annual open-source global event where citizens, artists and activists collaborate to temporarily transform metered parking spaces into “PARK(ing)” spaces: temporary public places. The project began in 2005 when Rebar, a San Francisco art and design studio, converted a single metered parking space into a temporary public park in downtown San Francisco. Since 2005, PARK(ing) Day has evolved into a global movement, with organizations and individuals (operating independently of Rebar but following an established set of guidelines) creating new forms of temporary public space in urban contexts around the world. For LA, 2010 will mark the fourth year of participation. 

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Design for Parisian Mini-Parks Unites Urban and Natural

Stefan Gzyl's new project “Parc Disponible” is one of the finalists on an international competition recently held in Paris on ways to incorporate nature into the urban environment in original ways. “Parc Disponible” is a glass box enclosing a mini-park for individual use within the city. 

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