Follow this tag to curate your own personalized Activity Stream and email alerts.
Researchers from Lanzhou University in China have shown that the slime mold Physarum polycephalum is able to solve the Traveling Salesman Problem, a combinatorial test with exponentially increasing complexity, in linear time. Using focused light stimulus as negative feedback to maintain the criteria of the task, the authors demonstrated that this model was able to reliably output a high-quality solution. — Sci-News.com
Through observing physarum polycephalum, nicknamed the "many-headed slime", researchers have used its natural network formation to help solve many spatial design problems. Slime mold has shown itself capable of recreating rail systems, solving mazes, and now, the Traveling Salesman Problem—a... View full entry
In dire need of urban planning memes on this last Friday of the year? Have we got a link for you: Planning Peeps has compiled 2018's gems trending among city planners and urbanism disciples. Check out some of our favorites below and visit Parts 1 and 2 of the full list. All images via... View full entry
Winston Churchill once observed that we shape the buildings and then the buildings shape us. I have written elsewhere about how architects and planners, albeit unwittingly, are complicit in producing an urban landscape that contributes to an unhealthy mental landscape.
Can we think of different ways to be in the city, of a different architecture that can “cure” loneliness?
— Tanzil Shafique in Fast Company
Tanzil Shafique, a Ph.D. researcher in urban design at the University of Melbourne, conducted a graduate design studio where students came up with potential architectural and urban responses to loneliness. View full entry
Time for a book giveaway! Archinect readers have a chance to win a copy of “Reprogramming the City”. Authored by writer and urban strategist Scott Burnham and designed by Samantha Altieri, this new book presents a collection of real-world examples of how existing urban elements can be... View full entry
Everyone can relate to daily commutes. Whether it's fifteen minutes or an hour, infrastructures in various cities dictate how transportation affects our daily lives. Through the use of data visualization, Craig Taylor, Data Visualization Design Manager at ITO World uses color and form to portray... View full entry
MVRDV has completed 'Future Towers,' a massive residential complex comprised of 1,068 homes, amenities, public facilities, parks and courtyards. Combining strategies from both Europe and India, where the project is located, the ambitious scheme is the Dutch firm's attempt to answer the prevalence... View full entry
One of ARO’s two concepts shows a huge white building emblazoned with the Amazon logo. [...] It’s a never-ending fulfillment center that the architects dub “Continuous Fulfillment.” According to ARO principals Adam Yarinsky and Stephen Cassell, the idea is an homage to a 1969 concept from the Italian radical architecture firm Superstudio called “The Continuous Monument.” The idea posits that technology will render the built environment uniform, turning buildings into white monoliths. — Fast Company
The billion-dollar cat is out of the bag, and Amazon will soon be ascending on Long Island City, New York and Crystal City/Arlington, Virginia to split its anticipated, tax-incentivized HQ2. As both regions prepare for the new neighbor to move in, Fast Company asked AIA New York State firm of the... View full entry
On this episode of Archinect Sessions we're joined with Alex Baca, a Washington DC-based journalist focused on smart cities, planning, bike advocacy and urban mobility devices. Recent news, and related controversy, surrounding Amazon’s newly announced move into New York City and Washington DC is... View full entry
The University of Pennsylvania's School of Design launched the new Witte-Sakamoto Family Prize and Award in City and Regional Planning, thanks to a $1.25 million gift from PennDesign alumnus William Witte and his wife Keiko Sakamoto. In conjunction with the prize, a new professional award for... View full entry
In proposing his prototype 21st-century city, Spilhaus correctly diagnosed many of the shortcomings of the 20th-century one. He cottoned on early to concepts such as air pollution, even speculating that it was changing the Earth’s atmosphere. — The Guardian
The Minnesota Experimental City has been documented in the film The Experimental City. Watch the trailer below... View full entry
The project, called 96th Street Station, is being designed with swooping canopies, skylights, and glazed screens to create a spacious environment for travelers... — Urbanize LA
After much anticipation, progress for the 96th Street Transit Station has made leaps and bounds in its development stage. Metro's new transit station aims to connect the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to its regional transit system. View of the planned light rail platforms. Image... View full entry
In Tonantzintla the smart cities proposal became a lightning rod for those concerned about a development that seemed to favour outsiders rather than residents...“They are ashamed of their roots,” [local resident Mercedes] Tecuapetla Quechol says. “They saw something they liked in the United States or in Europe, so they want to put it here.” — The Guardian
The Mexican town of Santa Maria Tonantzintla is caught in the all-too-familiar situation of preserving its centuries-old customs as newer smart-city technologies are being introduced. While city officials and planners argued that implementing new technology intends to benefit the community... View full entry
“Given the diversity of the buildings emerging within the Qianhai area, our preference was for a simple, bold, and confident insertion into the existing master plan,” says Spence. “The formality derives from the existing road grid and building plots, combined with our desire to maximize the area of raised green park linking the city to the bay. It creates a new horizon against which people can orientate.” — Fast Company
In the bustling city of Shenzen, the growing metropolis that bridges Hong Kong to China's mainland, an exciting sky garden project will bring the city's transportation infrastructure to the sky. The team at Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners are creating a mile long elevated pathway. The main... View full entry
Desire paths have been described as illustrating “the tension between the native and the built environment and our relationship to them”. Because they often form in areas where there are no pavements, they can be seen to “indicate [the] yearning” of those wishing to walk, a way for “city dwellers to ‘write back’ to city planners, giving feedback with their feet”. — The Guardian
Ellie Violet Bramley pens an ode to "desire paths"—organically grown foot paths off the prescribed paved sidewalks; pedestrians' yearning for urban movement outside of the planned city order. Example of an urban desire path getting paved in Chicago. Photo: Paul Sableman/Flickr. View full entry
They were planned after the second world war to whisk people above car-choked streets in the financial district, but remained unpopular and half-built. Now, pedestrian walkways are being reimagined for a 21st-century city — The Guardian
The "pedway" made its structural debut as a solution to providing a walkable, streamlined path for pedestrians in London's car stricken streets. However, what was devised as a plan to create an efficient walkway system, turned into an under appreciated and underwhelming concept. Examples of... View full entry
