photography posts, articles, and infographics | Sustainable Cities Collective

Composing the Urbanist Calendar, 2012

December 26, 2011 by Chuck Wolfe
with 359 views

The last week of the year is typically reserved for retrospective, and “best of” assessments. Yet, it can also be a time of hope, resolution, and prediction—an interlude of oracles and dreams. Picture this about 2012—an urbanist calendar with places in mind—framed by international snapshots in time. Each month of this urbanist calendar... [read more]

A Simple Portrait of an Urban Place

December 2, 2011 by Chuck Wolfe
with 327 views

From time to time, a single image captures the look and feel of city life, and successfully depicts an urban place where people come together. This morning, I had the opportunity on the “Place Matters” radio show to explain the role of photography in placemaking, as a tool to better define the personal, contextual experience of a... [read more]

Contemplating ‘The Genius of a Place’

November 10, 2011 by Chuck Wolfe
with 398 views

The genius of the old ways, near Cortona in the 1950's If universal questions about the dynamics of place need a stage to be answered, there is no better theater than Cortona, Italy, home to Frances Mayes’ Under the Tuscan Sun, and a symbol of the romantic ambience of a simpler life. There, American expatriate and film producer Sarah... [read more]

Why Ordinary Urban Experiences Motivate Change

November 7, 2011 by Chuck Wolfe
with 512 views

One of my favorite motivational scenes, that inspires city reinvention, is the one above. The photo shows the first part of the Nice, France tramway—a city-center transit line which has helped change an automobile-oriented downtown. Experiencing this image in real-time, applying the full range of human senses, compelled my... [read more]

Visual Adventures of the Urban Bicycle

November 7, 2011 by Chuck Wolfe
with 919 views

Today, across the world, in multiple contexts, the allure of the bicycle knows no bounds.Commencing with the atmosphere of Florence, at night above, the images presented here provide multiple examples of the urban bicycle in practice, whether whimsical, functional or historical. In European cities, original, wooden velocipedes are... [read more]

Documenting People and Place Through Photography

October 25, 2011 by Chuck Wolfe
with 361 views

In 2007, I began an organized effort to document cities, towns and villages in a systematic way, with attention to how people blend with place. Almost five years later, I have amassed a work in progress, comprising a collection of thousands of photographs from around the world. Recently, I reviewed all of the assembled images with the... [read more]

The Importance of Nightlife to Vibrant Cities

September 27, 2011 by Chuck Wolfe
with 501 views

Safety, proximity and interaction: the stuff of poetry, metrics or both? If “cities, like cats, will reveal themselves at night,” as the English poet Rupert Brooke suggests, then how many of us should fear for our safety in the urban darkness? Is a nighttime city better measured by the numbers, rather than by such human perception... [read more]

Rediscovering the Urban Eye of a Child

September 22, 2011 by Chuck Wolfe
with 212 views

Prior to rediscovering four photographs, now digitized here, my thoughts about cameras did not entertain the child’s sense of the city. But upon rediscovery, I recalled a not unusual, hand-me-down dynamic of family tradition. My father was an urban planning professor, and, while growing up, I watched him photograph for purposes of later sketching, teaching and advocating the role of urban imagery. [read more]

Exploring the Sustainable City of Stone

September 6, 2011 by Chuck Wolfe
with 300 views

In the provinces of southeastern Italy, the landscape is changing, as a new world of alternative energy infrastructure blends insular hill towns, turbines and solar panels across traditional farmland. Yet, on the same horizons other, age-old reflections of local sustainable practices echo time-honored human traditions, as lessons for... [read more]

Confronting the Urban Mirror

September 2, 2011 by Chuck Wolfe
with 296 views

To my mind, one of the most compelling features of a provocative urban environment is a place where people watch people—which becomes a small-scale human observatory. Such places are often indicative of safe public environments, including active streets, corners and squares. They are particularly prevalent in cultures where neighbors readily interact, and the seams between public and private are softer than zoning setbacks, while still allowing for a private world. [read more]

Pics: Discerning Successful Elements of People, Place and Urbanism

August 29, 2011 by Chuck Wolfe
with 706 views

Nothing is better for advocates of urbanism than simple immersion in the look and feel of a successful, authentic place. After a week of observation in the cities, towns and villages of Pugila, Italy, most notable is the age-old, multi-dimensional relationship between people and such places, especially given American aspirations—often... [read more]

Uncovering Embedded 'Patterns of Place' in the City

August 1, 2011 by Chuck Wolfe
with 297 views

Amid the roads, sidewalks and places that you have visited before, there are often embedded patterns to uncover, read and reinterpret. This exploration is an archaeology which involves more than unearthing distinct artifacts from another era. For me, it includes observing the place-based impacts of four interactive factors: The... [read more]