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☆ Culinary Hubs Put a Twist on Home Cooking
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-20 | by ( Arielle Paul | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Nestled in the dense, residential Los Angeles neighborhood of Victor Heights, a tightly packed plot of Craftsman and Victorian homes has stood the test of time, serving as single-family residences in one of the city’s oldest neighborhoods. Yet these bungalows will soon serve a new purpose — micro restaurants offering Taiwanese pineapple cake and freshly ground hamburgers in a compound called Alpine Courtyard, morphing the pleasures of dining out with the nostalgic comforts of home. This adaptive reuse is part of a growing national trend: From Los Angeles to Nashville, developers are transforming clusters of old homes into walkable culinary hubs for the surrounding high-density neighborhoods. Advocates see the conversions as a better use for weathered abodes that have been blighted by time and negligence, sustainably preserving the homes while serving the economic needs of the neighborhood.

Locations: Los Angeles, Victor Heights, Nashville

☆ How an L.A. Rams Training Complex Could Help Transform Urban Sprawl
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-23 | by ( Arielle Paul | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The San Fernando Valley, once an endless ramble of orange groves in Southern California that evolved into the porn capital of the world in the 1970s and later gave way to big-box retailers and strip malls, will now become the home of the 2021 season’s Super Bowl champions, the Los Angeles Rams. In a $650 million land deal by the team’s owner, Stan Kroenke, Rams executives laid out their vision last week for revitalizing nearly 100 acres in the valley’s Woodland Hills neighborhood into a sports-centric, live-work-play development, including a practice facility and team headquarters. The deal includes two properties owned by Westfield, a shopping center developer that is pulling out of the U.S. market, as well as an abandoned 13-story building and parking lot that Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield owned. After the coronavirus pandemic hastened the embrace of online retail and remote work, blighted malls and office buildings have closed their doors. The vacant properties and their adjoining parking lots now offer a chance to redevelop valuable square footage in neighborhoods like Woodland Hills.

Persons: Stan Kroenke Organizations: Bowl, Los Angeles Rams, Rams, Westfield Locations: San Fernando Valley, Southern California, Woodland, U.S

☆ Dubai’s Costly Water World
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-18 | by ( Arielle Paul | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

At Deep Dive Dubai, the equivalent of six Olympic-size swimming pools of water fills an underwater city shaped like a giant oyster, inspired by the emirate’s pearl-diving heritage. At the foot of the building, the 30-acre Burj Lake and its five dancing fountains use a wastewater reclamation system by Hitachi that reuses the Burj Khalifa’s sewage water to replace fountain water lost each day. The construction of Dubai’s artificial islands also strains the Gulf’s water resources. One study found that the average water temperature around Palm Jumeirah island, designed by HHCP Architects, increased by roughly 13 degrees over 19 years. “Developing close to the water is much more preferred than developing in the desert landscape, and you are increasing the coastline,” Dr. Alawadi said.

Persons: Adrian Smith, Alawadi, Smith Organizations: Dive, Emaar, Hitachi, HHCP Architects Locations: Dive Dubai, Burj, Burj Lake, Persian, Dubai

☆ Burning Man Becomes Latest Adversary in Geothermal Feud
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-17 | by ( Arielle Paul | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

One of the darkest towns in America lies roughly 100 miles north of Reno, where the lights are few and rarely lit until one week each summer when pyrotechnics and LEDs set the sky and mountains aglow. In tiny Gerlach, just outside the Black Rock Desert in Nevada, residents have watched the Burning Man festival grow over the last 30 years to a spectacle of nearly 80,000 countercultural hippies and tech billionaires, offering an economic lifeline for the unincorporated town. Now, Burning Man and Gerlach are more tightly aligned, joining conservationists and a Native American tribe in an alliance against a powerful adversary: Ormat Technology, the largest geothermal power company in the country. Both Burning Man and Ormat share a vision for a greener future, yet neither can agree on the road to get there. The festival promotes self-reliance and leaving no trace of its ephemeral metropolis, yet it contributes an enormous carbon footprint; the power company is vested in the future by battling climate change, but its clean energy facilities pose a threat to local habitats while reaping a sizable profit.

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