Growing up in a designer’s family

    Modernists At Play – the children of mid-20th century architects and designers talk about their childhoods.  From this Metropolis post: Michael Gotkin, a landscape architect who is currently writing a book on modernist play environments, says the concept of children’s play was radically reinvented by artists, architects, landscape architects, …

frog enables community design thinking

    Check out the free Collective Action Toolkit (CAT) from frog design or read this post from Co.Design. The Collective Action Toolkit (CAT) is a package of resources and activities that enable groups of people anywhere to organize, build trust, and collaboratively create solutions for problems impacting their community. … …

Munich’s metro stations

  The Architectural Spectacle That Is Munich’s Metro – interview with Nick Frank, an art director who’s taken striking photos of Munich’s subway stations.  He says the best time to find them without people is early Sunday mornings. We caught up with Frank to discuss the architecture of his architectural shots.

New energy infographic – Reinventing Fire

Blueprint to the new energy era – great infographic from the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) contrasting America’s energy sources and usage today and in 2050.   Click the ‘Reinventing Fire’ tab on the menu bar and you’ll see details for Transportation, Buildings, Industry, Electricity.  See also a 27-min TED talk by …

Google grant for healthy buildings

  A healthy grant to support healthy buildings | Official Google Blog – Google recently gave $3 million to the USGBC to support research into green building materials, especially in the workplace.  Read more about it on BuildingGreen: In one of the biggest announcements to come out of Greenbuild 2012 in …

Talkitect – architecture, art, & design

Just discovered Talkitect | architecture, art, & design, a blog covering contemporary architecture and design.  The posts aren’t that frequent but they’re pretty interesting.  Some examples: Bambooline Berlin by Peter Ruge Architekten – “Bambooline Berlin explores the city’s urban development and proposes a new approach for the temporary, interim use of sustainable …

Best cities for creating jobs

These Are the Cities That Can Show Us How to Create Jobs – The Atlantic Cities – A recent analysis of competitiveness and job growth across U.S. metros conducted by Economic Modeling Specialists could not be more timely. It provides a detailed assessment of the metros that have generated the most robust job growth based on …

Plant Communication

  The Secret Life of Plants: Plant Communication – scientists may discover the physiology behind the old adage that talking to your plants makes them grow better.  This article gives a brief overview of the different ways plants communicate – autosignaling (within themselves), plant-insect, and plant-plant communication. Though plants do not …

10 Smartest European Cities

    The Top 10 Smartest European Cities – first of two posts from Co.Exist written by Boyd Cohen.  The next one will be The Top 10 North American Cities, out next month. In an attempt to improve the rankings, I developed a metric called the Smart Cities Wheel, which contains six …