Grassroots urban strategy - Riga

[admin]

Hello, I would like you to inform you - maybe someone find it interesting - about civic initiative concerning development of Riga, Latvia.

[Cato]

Don The poster did say 'maybe someone find it interesting' Well he found at least one person who's interested, me. I've been recently involved in chasing some work in Latvia, so this isn't just a passing interest. This site may be just pie in the sky, but in these ex-Soviet Bloc countries ya never know. It's a very exciting region to work in these days IMHO.

Cato

[gruhn]

Picked up a picture book on Riga a few years ago. Lovely. Guess I'd better get my sorry ass in gear if they're gonna be "improving" it. Shame the site's bust.

[Adam Weiss]

I'm jealous. My mother was born in Riga. My grandfather on my mother's side worked as an architect beofre leaving at the outset of WWII.

Even if I couldn't do work there, I'd love to visit. My parents went last year. Judging from the pictures and what they had to say, Latvia is a goregous country. Very European feeling, but alot cheaper and there are virtually no annoying tourists. And Riga is only a 1.5 hour flight from Frankfurt Germany.

The 'rigaplans' project? I certainly find it interesting even separate from my own sentimental links to Latvia. It reminds me of the work I saw at the Rice School of Architecture. Which is not to say it's bad. On the contrary. As a theoretical and design effort, it certainly has merit. And it'd be very interesting to see if the municipal government of Riga adopts any of its ideologies in future planning.

[Cato]

mother's

We have one client based out of Tel Aviv that's been re-establishing connections in these old Soviet-Bloc countries in the last decade. They have representatives who have roots in these countries who go back and help them establish offices/projects. We've been seeing projects pop up in places like Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Croatia, Serbia, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Russia. I've been joking in the office that we should create a 'Coalition of the Willing' Studio since we've been doing work in most of those countries. ;-)

Latvia

I haven't had a chance to get to Latvia yet, but I'm hoping it will happen in the near future. I've heard it's very nice there, but hopefully I won't have to go in the wintertime. The problem with going to these countries for a business trip is that the majority of your site-seeing is done through windows: cabs, hotels, and offices. It seems like the only time you have to site-see is if you're schedule allows a weekend stay-over, something which doesn't happen nearly enough.