Despite its potential for easy refurbishment and adaptability, the Nakagin Capsule Tower has not exactly fulfilled the hoped-for mission of its designers. A team of documentary filmmakers recently attempted to stay in the tower, only to find the majority of its units without plumbing or much in... View full entry
While solar panels have been subsidized in many cities for a while now, the blocky, rectangular panels aren’t heavily implemented in part because they tend to appear as, well, an addition, rather than a constitutive element of home design. That's about to change, as Tesla has announced a... View full entry
LIke everything else in the 21st century, infrastructure is no longer about big moves but rather about nuance, refinement, and creative strategy. This is the argument advocated by The Hill, which makes the case that all infrastructure projects should be resilient and made to serve multiple... View full entry
After being criticized for helping to displace renters by inadvertently motivating landlords to turn long-term rentals into short-term hotel-like quarters, Airbnb is getting political and donating $100,000 to Los Angeles' Proposition HHH, which would require city officials to raise tax dollars to... View full entry
Ministers approved the long-awaited decision at a cabinet committee meeting on Tuesday.
Transport Secretary Chris Grayling called the decision "truly momentous" and said expansion would improve the UK's connections with the rest of the world and support trade and jobs.
Although Heathrow has always been the favourite among businesses, it has attracted the most opposition from MPs with constituencies near the airport or under flight paths.
— bbc.co.uk
The expansion which had been publicly opposed by Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, Tory MP for Richmond Park, Zac Goldsmith and Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson has been widely debated for years. Funded with private sector cash the new runway will cost £17.6 billion but provide 260,000 more flights... View full entry
In terms of financial benefits to consumers from reduced utility bills, energy codes could save $126 billion dollars from 2010 to 2040. This equates to a CO2 reduction of 841 million metric tons (MMT). These savings are approximately equal to the greenhouse gases emitted by 177 million passenger vehicles driven for one year or the CO2 emissions from 245 coal power plants for one year. — U.S. Department of Energy » Building Energy Codes Program
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) evaluates impacts of model energy codes in residential and commercial buildings. The most recent assessment focuses on the current model codes and their prospective national and state-level impacts from 2010 through 2040. View full entry
But it is traffic that has sealed Dhaka’s reputation among academics and development specialists as the great symbol of 21st-century urban dysfunction, the world’s most broken city. It has made Dhaka a surreal place, a town that is both frenetic and paralyzed, and has altered the rhythms of daily life for its 17.5 million-plus residents. — NYT - T Magazine
Jody Rosen writes about Dhaka's legendary traffic congestion.For more check out; more incredible photos by Nicolas Chorier and get LIVE: Traffic updates for Dhaka city via The Daily Star. Or read about how the UNDP-designed Bus Finder Feature and Transport Pioneers program is trying to solve... View full entry
The review highlights the sector’s dysfunctional training model, its lack of innovation and collaboration, and its non-existent research and development culture.
Low productivity continues to hamper the sector, while recent high levels of cost inflation, driven by a shortage of workers, has stalled numerous housing schemes as they have become too expensive to build.
— globalconstructionreview.com
Read more UK industry news here: Mayor of London launches probe into the impact of foreign investment in city's real estateEngineering giant Arup announces imminent layoffs following Brexit voteThe former-football stars tackling England's affordable housing shortage View full entry
Forming a closer, more harmonious bond between humanity and nature is the underlying goal of Javier Senosiain's organic or so-called "bio-architecture." His buildings often take the shape of organic forms--in one case, mythic serpent Quetzalcoatl--while simultaneously harvesting rainwater and... View full entry
Although Cleveland often serves more as a punchline than a solution (the Cuyahoga River caught fire in 1969 due to pollution), a climate change conference convened by the United Nations and currently being held in Quito, Ecuador sees new potential in the city. As StreetsBlog reports, if Cleveland... View full entry
As part of its ongoing Riverline community project, Perkins+Will has proposed an entirely conceptual 80-story, 300 unit residential skyscraper made from timber called the River Beech Tower. Announced 145 years after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, this proposed tower would feature a massive... View full entry
Is flood mitigation the new frontier in urban planning? China, whose urban centers have regularly been experiencing infrastructure-shuttering floods, is actively encouraging its metropolises to start reshaping themselves to handle the new reality via the so-called "sponge city" program. As an... View full entry
Greenpeace, Sierra Club BC, and Stand.earth formed the Rainforest Solutions Project as part of the Tides Canada Initiative. The coalition has spent nearly two decades developing a sophisticated legal and policy framework called Ecosystem-Based Management to tackle the persisting struggle over Canada's treasured Great Bear Rainforest, while also negotiating the conflicting interests of multiple groups. — Bustler
Winning over six equally worthy finalist teams, the Rainforest Solutions Project addresses both natural and cultural preservation, and it enforces stronger ecological responsibility in industrial economic pursuits. The Project resulted in a landmark 250-year agreement between all stakeholders... View full entry
On Friday October 7th, Steven Holl and Senior Partner Chris McVoy will be on hand to officially open the firm's Visual Arts Building for the University of Iowa, which in addition to being the only building in the United States that uses an integrated hydronic radiant heating and cooling system in... View full entry
Can cities be built not only to be harmonious with their environment, but to outperform traditional architecture? The residents of Arcosanti, Arizona, which is profiled in this video excerpt from the Atlantic, seem to think so. Part campus, part permanent dwelling, Arcosanti embraces the concept... View full entry
