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"Life in a city can be dirty, cramped and inefficient, and the way it's built can make those aspects even worse.\nHowever, sometimes architects go beyond simply making functional spaces to create a more positive impact on their homes. From vertical gyms to man-made marshes, architectural design can build solutions to key urban problems.\nSee also: The Best Apps for the World's Biggest Cities\nHere are six projects that have made, or can make, a major difference. \n1. East River Blueway Plan (New York City)\nWhat it does: Opens access to East River and hampers flooding\nThe key to keeping New York drier during a hurricane is making things a little bit wetter before it happens again.\nNo, the streets of the Big Apple won't be flooded to create an American Venice, but a four-mile strip of Manhattan along the East River will be turned into wetlands and pedestrian walkways. The project, called the East River Blueway, will give New Yorkers more space along the riverbank to roam, while creating a natural barrier that will help fight off flooding if another major storm like Hurricane Sandy hits the city.\nBut flood abatement isn't the only thing the project is intended to do. Claire Weisz, principal at WXY Architecture, says her firm's project is also about reclaiming the East River shore for the people who live on it.\n\"This will create a kind of role model, the next generation of environmental edge or park. I think it will finally bring attention to the East River and those communities,\" she says. \"This will be a game-changer.\" \n2. Bud Clark Commons (Portland, Oregon)\nWhat it does: Helps the city's homeless men and women in an environmentally friendly way\n\nEconomic and environmental interests don't always line up (see: oil industry), but the Bud Clark Commons bridges the divide, helping Portland's homeless population get a fresh start in a sustainable building.\nCompleted in 2011 and named after a former mayor of Portland, the commons features 130 studio apartments for homeless men and women subsidized by public housing allotments and Section 8 project vouchers. It also has a 90-bed transitional shelter for men who can't quite afford their own place yet. The shelter provides sleeping, living and dining areas, along with food storage facilities, a bathroom and a dining area.\nThere's also a resource center that provides men and women in need with a wide variety of services that help them navigate the proper government channels for help, while sustaining their minds and bodies.\nOn the environmental side, the building is LEED Platinum-certified, and it features greywater recycling, zero stormwater runoff and solar hot water.\n3. The Creative Corridor (Little Rock, Arkansas)\nWhat it does: Creates an arts district along the city's Main Street\nLittle Rock as a great arts city? Don't count it out just yet.\nThe Creative Corridor project is slated to take a neglected four-block stretch of the city's Main Street, give it a facelift and little bit of breathing room, and incorporate artistic elements to pump economic life into a currently unsafe area.\n\"There's still a lot of perceptions \u2014 and maybe sometimes rightfully so \u2014 that Downtown Little Rock isn't a safe place,\" says Stephen Luoni, director of the University of Arkansas Community Design Center and one of the project's designers. \"What our design had to do is recalibrate it as a classic American main street, and change its purpose from a shopping street to a 24/7 livability street.\"\nLuoni says that beyond its artistic contributions, the project will also bring non-traffic social services, dining, assembly centers and recreation centers, a major component of a project brought to life with a tremendous amount of leadership, investment and enthusiasm from stakeholders.\n\"We really look at the street as an instrument for delivering more urban and ecological services to show what a city could be,\" he says. \"I think it's going to show Little Rock and others the ability of the street in creating value, in creating livability.\"\nSee also: Underground Cities: The Next Frontier Might Be Underneath Your Feet\n4. Pearl Brewery Redevelopment (San Antonio, Texas)\nWhat it did: Took a 19th-century brewery and turned in into a culinary wonderland\n\nThe Pearl Brewer has gone from an abandoned relic to an integral part of San Antonio's historic riverfront.Image: Flickr, Katie HauglandWhat do you do with an 131-year-old, 67,000 square-foot, abandoned brewery? Make it a riverside food emporium, of course.\nPearl Brewery operated along the banks of the San Antonio River until it churned out its last beer in 1985. It lingered abandoned until 2002, when a massive redevelopment project started to bring it back to life. \nIt now hosts several restaurants featuring everything from Italian food to seafood specialties, a Latin American food store, several boutique stores and offices. There's also stable, studio and amphitheater overlooking the city's famous River Walk.\n5. Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation Campus (Seattle, Washington)\nWhat it does: Restores a wildlife habitat while hosting a major philanthropic organization\n\nImage: Flickr, Lester Public LibraryThe site of the Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation campus once hosted railway trestles, homesteads, farming, a street-car barn and a bus barn, according to Architect Magazine. Now, it hosts the second-largest LEED-NC Platinum building in the world, designed by Seattle-based firm NBBJ,  which helps restore 40% of the campus back to being a wild bird habitat.\nThis is done with two acres of vegetated roofs on parking structures, which feature edible plants like blueberries, huckleberries and red flowering currant. There's also an intricate rainwater filtering system and 46 solar hot water collectors, saving energy along with birds \u2014 and if the foundation's will is done, the world.\n6. Vertical Gyms (Caracas, Venezuela)\nWhat it did: Gave a Venezuelan barrio a rec center and cut crime by 30% in the process\n\nThe Barrio La Cruz neighborhood in Caracas is a difficult place to live, but Urban-Think Tank, an activist architecture firm, built a vertical climbing gym that stacks strength-training areas, tracks, soccer fields and other recreational spaces on top of each other.\nThe firm claims that the crime rate in the barrio dropped 30% after the gym was built, and it currently entertains 15,000 visitors per month.\nHave something to add to this story? Share it in the comments."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2014/07/03/architecture-city-life/>