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The Palm Jumeirah has been Dubai’s most enduring work in progress for two decades.
Now developer Nakheel is adding the finishing touches.
Several major additions to the world’s biggest man-made island are approaching completion as it transitions from a near-perpetual construction site to a near-finished community—with hundreds of shops and restaurants set to open in the year ahead.
— Mansion Global
"Among the latest additions are a shopping mall and a tower that will form the centerpiece of the island, located close to the site originally earmarked for a 48-story Trump Tower," reports Mansion Global. Palm Jumeirah in 2012. Photo: Richard Schneider/Wikipedia.Meanwhile next door, the... View full entry
Join us at Archinect Outpost on March 23th, from 7–9pm to host Liam Young and his newly edited book: Machine Landscapes: Architectures of the Post-Anthropocene. Young and Geoff Manaugh will be in attendance to present their thoughts on the book, followed by a book signing. Machine Landscapes can... View full entry
More speculation on the always-relevant subject of "Old People in Big Cities Afraid of the Sky." #futurism #urbanism #demographics #climatecrisis #Mid21C — McKinsey & Company
Joe Frem, Vineet Rajadhyaksha and Jonathan Woetzel report on four major forces (the competition for talent, an increasingly connected world, the Anthropocene age, and technology’s ever-expanding role) shaping today’s cities and offer a 14-point vision for thriving cities of the future. h/t... View full entry
In the language of climate change, “adaptation” refers to ways to blunt the immediate effects of extreme weather, such as building seawalls, conserving drinking water, updating building codes, and helping more people get disaster insurance. [...]
But some researchers are going further, calling for what some call the “deep adaptation agenda.”
— Bloomberg
Bloomberg's Climate & Environment Reporter, Christopher Flavelle, lays out a range of climate change projections—from the general consensus to the more pessimistic—and how an array of 'deep adaptation' measures could help to mitigate the damage. "Rather than simply asking people to water... View full entry
This summer’s extreme weather has hit home some stark realities. Climate disaster is not slated to happen in some far-flung theoretical future. It’s here, and now. — MEDIUM
Penned by Nafeez Ahmed, investigative journalist, recovering academic, tracking the Crisis of Civilization, the article points to a more urgent than urgent times in terms of civilisation and not merely the climate change. Also an urgent quote from a friend internalizing the article for... View full entry
Underwater bedrooms, ‘Lohan Island’ and snow all year round – a decade after it was scuppered by the financial crash, the fantasy archipelago of 300 artificial ‘countries’ is back in business. Has anybody learned anything? — The Guardian
Remember The World? Dubai's lofty vision a decade-and-a-half ago to recreate the globe's map with artificial, celebrity-owned islands dredged from the Gulf floor that was just as grandiose and monumental as its financial crash in 2008? Well, it appears to be back in business again. The Guardian's... View full entry
Like a Shell futurologist, one can imagine multiple disastrous futures for Miami. Will it become a southern Super Venice, a la Kim Stanley Robinson’s New York of 2140...Perhaps the hard realism of Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Water Knife is more apt...Or imagine a super Katrina resulting in something a little more Odds Against Tomorrow: — the Brooklyn Rail
from Key Largo John Pennekamp nature center, by author, February 12, 2017Stephanie Wakefield penned some Field Notes from the Anthropocene, inspired by a recent honeymoon in Miami Beach. In which she explores 'experimentation' as a mode of dwelling in the Anthropocene and the emancipatory... View full entry
The Global Seed Vault, built in the Arctic as an impregnable deep freeze for the world’s most precious food seeds, is to undergo a multi-million dollar upgrade after water from melting permafrost flooded its access tunnel.
No seeds were damaged but the incident undermined the original belief that the vault would be a “failsafe” facility, securing the world’s food supply forever. Now the Norwegian government, which owns the vault, has committed $4.4m (NOK37m) to improvements.
— The Guardian
It was designed as an impregnable deep-freeze to protect the world’s most precious seeds from any global disaster and ensure humanity’s food supply forever. But the Global Seed Vault, buried in a mountain deep inside the Arctic circle, has been breached after global warming produced extraordinary temperatures over the winter, sending meltwater gushing into the entrance tunnel. — The Guardian
Containing almost one million packets of seeds, the Global Seed Vault is intended to serve as something of a biological back-up in the era of mass, man-made environmental destruction. It's buried under permafrost, which was thought to ensure that the structure would remain impregnable for... View full entry
When it comes to cleanliness, common sense suggest wealthier homes are at an advantage. Live-in maids and cleaning services should, ostensibly, help create antiseptic, exclusively human enclosures. Yet new research shows there’s a correlation between socioeconomics and the presence of bugs in... View full entry
"Climate change is happening so fast and on such a huge scale that it's forcing us to change the borders of a country," said head of the mapping expedition, Marco Ferrari... The borders of a country are "something we always consider as stable, as a political device, the foundation of the modern state, the most sacred thing, but this huge natural transformation makes clear how disruptive and alarming these changes are," he said. — Vice
"Even the biggest and most stable things, like glaciers, mountains—these huge objects, they can change in a few years. We live on a planet that changes, and we try to make rules, to give meaning, but this meaning is completely artificial because nature, basically, doesn't give a... View full entry
[...] the stalagmite rings were older than any known cave painting. It also meant that they couldn’t have been the work of Homo sapiens. Their builders must have been the only early humans in the south of France at the time: Neanderthals.
The discovery suggested that Neanderthals were more sophisticated than anyone had given them credit for. They wielded fire, ventured deep underground, and shaped the subterranean rock into complex constructions.
— theatlantic.com
Related stories in the Archinect news:The Age of the Anthropocene: a change as big as "the end of the last ice age"A Man Renovating His Home Discovered A Tunnel... To A Massive Underground CityMassive tomb complex unearthed in Beijing suburb View full entry
“A lot of people want to go back to something,” [said Ruth Gates]. “They think, If we just stop doing things, maybe the reef will come back to what it was. [...] Our project is acknowledging that a future is coming where nature is no longer fully natural.” [...]
The power of selective breeding is all around us. Dogs, cats, cows, chickens, pigs [...] But the super-coral project pushes into new territory. Already there’s a term for this sort of effort: assisted evolution.
— the New Yorker
“'In the food supply, in our pets, you name it—everywhere you turn, selectively bred stuff appears,' Gates observed. 'For some reason, in the framework of conservation—or an ecosystem that would be preserved by conservation—it seems like a radical idea. But it’s not like we’ve invented... View full entry
An influential group of scientists led by James Hansen, the former NASA scientist often credited with having drawn the first major attention to climate change in 1988 congressional testimony, has published a dire climate study that suggests the impact of global warming will be quicker and more catastrophic than generally envisioned. — the Washington Post
James Hansen, an indisputably important climate scientist and activist, alongside a group of other influential experts, has released a new, 52-page paper that revises much of mainstream expectations for global warming. Hansen has called it the most important work he's done.A synthesis of... View full entry
Earlier today, the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) announced that Graham Harman, Ph.D. will be joining its Liberal Arts faculty. Harman, who taught previously at the American University in Cairo, Egypt, has played a pivotal role in the development of "speculative realism"... View full entry