Digital distraction, 23 minutes to refocus

  Workplace Distractions: Here’s Why You Won’t Finish This Article – WSJ article on the “epidemic” of distraction at work, what it’s costing, and what can be done about it.  Much of that distraction comes from digital devices.  It’s prompted academics to study the problem and companies to experiment with …

Thinking about hospital design

  Check out the series of articles in Healthcare Design – “Research in Practice” – written by healthcare design researchers at HOK, Nick Watkins and Erin Peavey.  It offers practical advice for anyone in a position to make decisions regarding the design of a hospital or healthcare facility. Research in Practice: …

Connection between school design, grades

      Study: School Design Can Significantly Affect Children’s Grades – UK study of primary schools finds that the design of the physical learning environment can influence children up to 25%. The results, published in Building and the Environment, revealed that the architecture and design of classrooms has a significant role …

Tips for communicating with colleagues wherever they are

  Communicating Across Remote Workplaces – offers excellent suggestions for communicating with and maintaining good working relationships with colleagues in remote offices.  Be sure to check out the rest of this new blog – The Best Workplace – from Mike McKeown, an always-thoughtful commentator with lots of experience working with …

Infographic on libraries and librarians

    All you need to know to get the library card right now [infographic] – shows statistics about librarians (salary, age, type of library, what they do) and libraries (number of visits, number of libraries, transactions).  A couple of interesting points: Each day, U.S. libraries circulate nearly 4 times more …

Best of 2012 roundup

    Here’s a start on collections of ‘the best’ of 2012.  Check back for more, suggest your favorites –  this a live list. PSFK’s Top 20 of 2012 – with source of image Best of the best of 2012 science and tech articles – from the BBC; thanks to Oleg Kravtsov …

Cardboard cathedral in New Zealand

  Cardboard cathedral being built in earthquake hit Christchurch – short news clip (1:45 min) about Shigeru Ban’s design for a cathedral made of cardboard tubes which is to replace the structure destroyed last year by earthquake.  The city wants to use the cardboard building, designed to hold 700 people, …

Good planning magazine, The Urbanist

  If you’re an urban planner or if you’re interested in how cities work, check out the magazine The Urbanist from the San Francisco Urban Planning and Research Association (SPUR).  The focus is on “good planning and good government in the San Francisco Bay Area” but the issues addressed, the …

World’s largest prefab building

    Largest modular high-rise – post about recent groundbreaking in Brooklyn for what will be the world’s largest pre-fabricated building.  The 32-storey / 363-apartment structure is the first of a planned 15.  Designed by SHoP Architects (also image source).   As quoted from the New York Times: …next spring, 125 …

Korean work culture

      HOK’s Leigh Stringer was part of a project team in Korea recently and makes great observations on Korean culture and work environment (love the photo, Leigh!).  Here’s a selection: On being there in general: We didn’t see a lot of bikes but public transportation is good. Gangnam is an actual district where people actually …

Phi design software

    Check out PhiMatrix, software that applies the principles of Phi, the Golden Ratio – PhiMatrix is a design and analysis software application for Windows and Mac.  The PhiMatrix grid system quickly overlays any image in any software on your screen to identify or apply phi proportions in various …

HBR – top sustainable stories of 2012

Top 10 Sustainable Business Stories of 2012 – Harvard Business Review’s blog network has collected their top stories on green business into a summary post which includes macro trends and company stories.  Here are the main points: Historic drought and Hurricane Sandy sweep away (some) climate denial The math and physics …