Princeton University researchers have announced the development of a low-cost, nontoxic coating that can preserve iconic stone structures from decay. Comprised of hydroxyapatite, a calcium compound that can be found in bones and teeth, the solution seeps into the stone’s surface, binding cracks... View full entry
This post is brought to you by BIM 360 Team Your latest building design project is moving forward quickly. But you discovered a small hitch yesterday: the MEP engineers referred to an old version of the structural model while modifying the duct work. Luckily, the team spotted and resolved the... View full entry
For the latest in the newish series, Small Studio Snapshots, Nicholas Korody chatted with Los Angeles-based studio MILLIØNS. Daniel Elmore felt "these guys sound legit in their intentions and I'm looking forward to seeing what they produce in the future...The rest of the article is uncommonly... View full entry
How does Santiago Calatrava's Oculus encapsulate the complex history and significance of its site? In this brief video from filmmaker Jeff Durkin, Calatrava's elaborate transit hub canopy is sited in its aesthetic and social contexts via a series of carefully selected voice-over news clips and... View full entry
In any great hack, speed and convenience reduce formerly tedious, mind-numbing tasks into relatively easy operations. This appears to be the case with Volodymyr Kurbatov's tips on hand sketching numerous POVs/scenarios for virtual reality simulations. He breaks down the process with helpful... View full entry
The Japanese technology giant wanted a place to experiment with solar power and renewable energy, autonomous vehicles and other technologies. And it needed a public partner and community support. It found that in Denver, DIA, Xcel Energy, developer LC Fulenwider and many others. — Denver Post
Tamara Chuang highlights some of the technology (ranging from consumer electronics, to "smart" public infrastructure) Panasonic was hawking at CES 2017. Some of which will be employed at Peña Station Next, a new TOD, smart city lab on the edge of Denver International Airport. Last month, she... View full entry
Christo's proposed silver-fabric-panel draped "Over the River" project has been in the making for about 25 years, after he started hunting for a natural host site in 1992 and then gradually garnered the neccessary official approvals and permits over the following decades for a 42-mile stretch... View full entry
Designed by Johan Karlsson, Dennis Kanter, Christian Gustafsson, John van Leer, Tim de Haas, Nicolò Barlera, the IKEA Foundation and UNHCR, the photovoltaic panel-powered refugee shelter "Better Shelter" has been named the Beazley Design of the Year, beating out the five other category winners to... View full entry
Combining the swiftness of contemporary dating with the decades-long process of urban planning, the city of Santa Monica has introduced "CitySwipe," an app that allows you to comment on everything from transportation to building design to the availability of fine dining in Santa Monica's... View full entry
There’s a lot of talk these days about jobs—bringing them “back” and creating new ones. But, as Bloomberg reports, high labor costs incentivize corporations to automate. What’s more? Apparently robots are about to do what they did to US manufacturing in the developing world. According to... View full entry
The vast majority of Uber’s full-time drivers return home to their beds at the end of a day’s work. But all over the country, there are many who don’t. These drivers live near, but not in, expensive cities where they can tap higher fares, ferrying wealthier, white-collar workers to their jobs and out to dinner—but where they can’t make enough money to get by, even with longer hours. — Bloomberg
To maximize their time, drivers find supermarket parking lots, airports and hostels where they catch several hours of sleep after taking riders home from bars and before starting the morning commute. View full entry
Essentially people, all of us when we go to design something we often go out and do it and will make one or we’ll have three designs and…then we run out of time or money or patience and we say good enough. The computer doesn’t get bored in that same way. It doesn’t run out of time so you can literally test millions of versions and get a much better answer. So really what we are doing is automating the building of these prototypes. — MarketPlace
In the summer of 2014, Anthony McGinty and Michelle Sosa were hired by Los Angeles World Airports to lead a unique, new classified intelligence unit on the West Coast. After only two years, their global scope and analytic capabilities promise to rival the agencies of a small nation-state. Their roles suggest an intriguing new direction for infrastructure protection in an era when threats are as internationally networked as they are hard to predict. — The Atlantic
Being the world's fifth-busiest airport (74,937,004 travelers passed through LAX in 2015) makes this infrastructure megaproject one of the top-ranked terrorist and aviation targets in the country. With billions of dollars spent on the usual airport expansion and modernization projects in recent... View full entry
Uber has A rocky history with city governments—to put it mildly... Now, Uber is making something of a peace offering. The company is launching a new service that could help cities master their traffic. It’s called Uber Movement, and it uses information on the billions of rides Uber has completed. — Wired
Uber Movement is free for the select planning agencies and researchers granted access to it. With it, you can gauge travel times between any two locations. Since, as Uber's chief of transportation policy notes, Uber doesn't actually do any urban planning, they figure they might as well give all... View full entry
Madrid's mayor, Manuela Carmena, is serious about kicking personal cars off the road in the city center.
On a November 5 show on Spanish radio networkCadena Ser, she confirmed that Madrid's main avenue, the Gran Vía, will only allow access to bikes, buses, and taxis before she leaves office in May 2019, as noted by CityLab.
— Independent.co.uk
Are people in love with not having to drive to dense urban locales? (Answer: for the most part, yes.) Following the lead of numerous cities that are seeking either to reduce car traffic or obliterate it altogether, Madrid's mayor actually outlawed personal vehicles from the city's main... View full entry
