Rogue Inventor Saul Griffith Is Radicalizing R&D — With Inflatable Arms – post on Wired about Griffith, who runs a small independent R&D lab in San Francisco, Otherlab. He makes some interesting observations about research labs in general. But he’s also concerned with the way the industry works. Before World War …
Renewable energy to become world’s second-largest power generation source by 2015, says IEA – post on Renewable Energy Focus about a recent report from the International Energy Agency (IEA), World Energy Outlook 2012. In 2011, subsidies for renewables (including for biofuels) amounted to $88 billion – over the period to 2035 …
Why Listening Is So Much More Than Hearing – NYTimes.com – great article on the importance of hearing, why listening matters, and the role of attention, especially in the digital world. Briefly explains a bit of the neuroscience behind both. Hearing, in short, is easy. You and every other …
BLOG : Design for Emotion – Posts on this blog include parts of Chapter One of the book of the same name. Design for Emotion is a guide to understanding and applying emotion and personality to create products, applications and websites that are more desirable, usable and useful.
Q&A: Robert Ivy, CEO, the American Institute of Architects | SmartPlanet – Ivy talks about how architecture effects public health. A huge area where design can affect public health is materials selection. Our choices of materials make an enormous difference in both individual and mass health. An unhealthy system can …
Exhibition in San Francisco – Grand Reductions: Ten diagrams that changed urban planning – “suggests the simple illustration’s power to encapsulate complex ideas.” You can see the ten in this post from The Atlantic Cities. “The diagram can cut both ways: It can either be a distillation in …
Green City, Clean Waters | Philadelphia Water Department – “Green City, Clean Waters is Philadelphia’s 25-year plan to protect and enhance our watersheds by managing stormwater with innovative green infrastructure.” Image is of stormwater wetland.
Timothy Prestero: Design for people, not awards | Video on TED.com – There are so many good quotes in this 15-min TED talk that you might as well check it out for yourself. The speaker takes us through his journey of designing a device to keep newborns in developing countries warm …
Designing Colleges For More Than Just Connectivity – about the results of Gensler research into the design of Campus 3.0, the step beyond a totally wired campus. A survey of 250 students revealed a need for far more possibilities for collaboration, for inspirational spaces, and for quiet study spaces. A …
The bleeding edge of self-healing skin-like materials – BBC post about research being done by U of Illinois engineer Nancy Sottos on self-healing polymers. Inspired by human skin, Sottos creates plastics that “bleed” when cut and can heal themselves over and over again. Her work is paving the way for …
Mapping tool reveals all of NYC’s secret public spaces – post on PSFK about the new website, POPS, from APOPS (Advocates for Privately-Owned Public Spaces) showing the location of all 500+ privately owned public spaces (POPS) in New York along with descriptions, including scaled site plans. Skyscraper developers cut a deal with …
Solar Carve Tower / Studio Gang Architects – proposed mid-rise for New York City curves to optimize sunlight access for nearby High Line.
Texas Tech’s College of Human Sciences is partnering with Sky Factory Australia to study the “effects of virtual skylights on hospital patients.” The initial study will generate brain maps of the neural pathways and regions associated with patient’s perception of the SkyCeilings™ unique imagery. Read about it in …
Check out ArchitypeReview’s issue on Architectural Graphics. This site is a great place to look for examples of specific building types, as you can see from their Issues page.
Bridging the Empathy Gap – Metropolis POV post by HOK’s Henry Chao on the trend towards the “globalization of Western medicine” and its effect on the design of healthcare facilities around the world. This trend is forcing the convergence of scientific treatment with culturally responsive delivery. I call this “bridging …
Resizing the Global Contract R&D Services Market – good overview of a study of the market done by Tufts CSDD. A 2011 analysis by Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development (Tufts CSDD) found a nearly four-fold increase in the number of contract research organizations (CROs) in the …
Kamppi Chapel of Silence – small chapel in a busy urban section of Helsinki was designed by K2S Architects. Light touching down on the curved surface and the feeling of warm materials define the space. The chapels inner walls are made of thick oiled alder planks. The furniture is …
Healthy Hospital Study Finds Savings in Plain Sight – a nine-hospital study from the Health Care Research Collaborative finds plenty of savings in waste management, energy use, and operating room supply procurement. “This study turns on its head the belief that introducing environmental sustainability measures increases operating costs,” said …