Archinect - News

In 2020, will behavioral science be the answer to architecture tackling climate change?

2020-01-02T16:42:00-05:00

Now that 2020 is here, many are looking to the new year with optimism and initiative to face the world's pressing issue of climate change. Amid the constant reminders of the globe's current climate crisis, a December editorial piece and report from Nature.com elicits a reason to reflect on what can be done.

After reading through the piece, I'm reminded of the words "sustainability" and "sustainable development" and how their definition and usage have transitioned over the years. According to the Nature article, "The change in meaning can be traced to the 1987 report Our Common Future, chaired by Norway's then-prime minister, Gro Harlem Brundtland. The report involved social scientists, natural scientists, industrialists, environmentalists, and policymakers emerging from their silos to talk to each other to understand how humans alter the global environment. The report helped such collaborative processes to become mainstream, alongside the idea of treating the environment and develop...

The Conscious Cities Conference is fast approaching! Register now

2016-02-22T03:00:00-05:00

The inaugural Conscious Cities Conference is a little over one week away. Happening at Arup's London office on March 1, the one-day conference is the UK's first event of its kind and is part of the year-long Health, Wellbeing and Architecture programming from the Museum of Architecture and THECUBE. Don't forget to register if you haven't yet.

The Conscious Cities Conference will delve into the evolving relationship between human behavior and the built environment, and the economic impact it creates. The conference will address four different themes that focus on the connection between neuroscience and architecture, with leading experts from both fields responding to thematic questions throughout the event.

Professor Carlo Ratti, director of MIT's SENSEable City Lab, will deliver the keynote speech. Other confirmed speakers include:

Philip Tidd, Consulting Practice Area Leader, Principal, Gensler
Dr. Jon Goodbun, Senior Lecturer in Architecture, University of Westminster
Panos Mavros, res...

Register for the Conscious Cities Conference, featuring keynote Carlo Ratti of MIT's SENSEable City Lab

2016-02-08T20:31:00-05:00

The Conscious Cities Conference will delve into the evolving relationship between human behavior and the built environment, and the economic impact it creates. Taking place at Arup's London office on March 1, the one-day conference is the UK's first event of its kind and is part of the year-long Health, Wellbeing and Architecture programming from the Museum of Architecture and THECUBE.

The collision of technology with the millennial mindset of knowledge exchange and collaboration is changing the way people work and live. As a result, architects, planners, developers and policy-makers must respond to the urgency for cities to meet these new needs by creating the right infrastructure to support growth.

Conscious Cities will address four different themes that focus on the connection between neuroscience and architecture, with leading experts from both fields responding to the following questions:

How does the built environment affect behavior and cognition?
How can the latest findings in n...

MIT's "Placelet" sensors technologize old-fashioned observation methods for placemaking

2015-08-18T19:49:00-04:00

With a $35,000 grant from the Knight Prototype Fund, [MITs Elizabeth Christoforetti] and her team are working on a project called Placelet, which will track how pedestrians move through a particular space. They’re developing a network of sensors that will track the scale and speed of pedestrians [and vehicles] over long periods of time. The sensors, [currently being tested in downtown Boston], will also track the 'sensory experience' by recording the noise level and air quality of that space.

Designing and understanding the "Happy City"

2013-12-09T20:24:00-05:00

"For years, urban designers and architects have claimed happiness as their goal," Montgomery says. "And yet none of the claims have been supported by empirical evidence. Which isn't to say they're not right. It's just to say that we don't know. That we haven't known." In this spirit of empirical discovery, Montgomery takes readers around the world in search of the places where urban design has (and has not) improved quality-of-life.

Human behavior can be extremely difficult to quantify, and determining its exact context even harder. But some cities just seem happier than others, no matter how difficult that status is to qualify. In his book, Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design, Charles Montgomery tries to create an empirical basis for that causal link between happiness and urban design, through case studies of cities where those two concepts are clearly intertwined. Montgomery spoke with Eric Jaffe at The Atlantic Cities about his research for the book, and how we measure happiness.

Sensitive to the fact that what works in Bogotá might not fly in Oslo, Montgomery is not out to find hard-and-fast rules for happiness. He instead wants to tease out methods of urban design that civic governments may use to become more sensitive, responsive and accountable to their citizens' well-being.