‘Tis the season when you might appreciate a break from end-of-year and holiday preparations. Take 5+ minutes to watch the Som Sabadell flashmob and you’ll be smiling. What makes this particular flashmob so wonderful (aside from Beethoven’s Ode to Joy) is the way whoever filmed it has captured the mood …
e-News #88: Outdoor Lighting, More Light is Better…Or is It? – the latest newsletter from Energy Design Resources has good information about balancing the need for illumination at night and minimizing light pollution, including tables of recommendations from design guidelines. EDR is California-based, but the data applies no matter …
Interviews with Zaha Hadid – links to eight interviews with Zaha Hadid, “one of the youngest people and only women to ever win the prestigious Pritzker Prize – the highest award in architecture.” One is from 2010, three from 2011, the rest from 2012.
A $5 Light For The Developing World With An Ingenious Fuel: Gravity – provides illumination similar to a kerosene lamp and runs for about half an hour, but it’s safer and free, especially when the alternative is no light. Simply push the bag of sand up to start another half …
Designers talk about books that have inspired them on Designers & Books‘ section on Designers. Choose from 127 (as of today; what you see here is the first of three pages) “architects, fashion designers, graphic designers, interior designers, landscape architects, product designers, urban designers, and other design professionals” and …
Ravi Shankar, master of the sitar, had an immense influence on both Eastern and Western music, often through his friendships with musicians like George Harrison, Philip Glass, and John Coltrane. To honor his memory – he died yesterday (Dec 11) – here are a couple of clips that give …
Wind, solar power paired with storage could be cost-effective way to power grid – Recent research from the University of Delaware and Delaware Technical Community College says this can be done by 2030 at costs comparable to today’s. The study drew on data from 13 states, about one fifth …
The website Find a Spring lists natural springs from around the world. As you can see from the map, North America and Europe have by far the most listings, but it looks like other regions are starting to be filled in – India, Thailand, Japan, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, …
The Importance of Soil and Its Conservation [Video] – this 5+ min video is packed with statistics about soil and how we use and thoughtlessly misuse this most valuable of resources. See more at Global Soil Forum, a European partnership that recently sponsored the first Global Soils Week. The Global Soil …
A second life in the South Bronx – commentary on WAN (World Architecture News) about one project – Hunt’s Point Landing – in the 20-project South Bronx Greenway effort to reclaim the brownfields and industrial sites that make up much of the riverfront of the South Bronx. Details and background are …
Check out LinkedIn today’s series The Biggest Ideas of 2013 for a variety of thoughtful posts on living happily and productively, work-life balance, business, technology, how we think and a host of other topics. They’re short and worth a look when you need a bit of inspiration or encouragement.
Oscar Niemeyer died last week at the age of 104, a Brazilian master of modernist architecture famous for his inventive use of concrete and for the architecture of Brasilia. Type his name into Google these days and you’ll get pages of appreciations of his work. Here’s a selection – …
A Never-Before-Seen Satellite View of Earth’s Cities at Night – 2:10-min video clip showing light coming from the Earth, as seen from Space via the satellite Suomi NPP. You’ll see city lights certainly, but also wildfires and gas flares from oil fields. More here, from NASA.
Spying On Our Walking Habits With Kinects, To Create Smarter Spaces – research at MIT’s Senseable City Lab (led by Carlo Ratti) uses the X-box add-on Kinect to track pedestrian behavior. By understanding how people walking through a long corridor react to objects in their path and to oncoming foot …
A Treehouse Made From The Trunk Of A 100-Foot Tree – park structure in Indiana uses every part of one huge tree trunk, assembled puzzle-like by Visiondivision. The shingles are maintenance free for 80 years.
How Places Like Columbus, Indiana, Outrank Silicon Valley – everyone knows that Silicon Valley is a hotbed of start-up activity. But there are smaller American cities “where recessions have been remarkably absent, where manufacturing thrives, where populations continue to rise” and people are finding jobs. A recent survey, Leading Locations for …
Living Architecture Monitor magazine – if you’re into green roofs and walls, take a look at the quarterly publication Living Architecture Monitor. It works with the organization Green Roofs for Healthy Cities (GRHC), and is focused on North America. Scroll down on the home page to see past digital editions. …
The World’s Leading Cities for Start-Ups – top five are Silicon Valley, Tel Aviv, Los Angeles, Seattle, New York. The post includes a list of runner up cities as well as the chart (shown here) of cities around the world that are best at nurturing high-tech start-ups. A new report from the Startup …