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This post is brought to you by Combo Competitions Emotions, Architecture, Opioids (deadline extended to September 6) is an ideas competition seeking to explore the emotional impact of architecture, its effect on how people feel and behave - and how it can be of use in the struggle against... View full entry
The new Tupelo shelters are designed to be easily and strategically combined with additional rigid-walled Tupelo shelters as well as soft tent shelters. [...] the new shelter’s dynamic design can adapt to fit needs in healthcare for treatment and testing, and perhaps in the evolving classroom setting as well. The shelter can be “flat-packed,” meaning the shelter walls can be stacked on top of each other for high-volume, rapid transportation to affected areas. — Composites World
Rhode Island-based Core Composites, a leading company that has built and designed advanced composite-based, rigid-wall shelters for the U.S. military, is working to quickly develop an easily deployable shelter that can be used for COVID-19 testing and treatment, and to aid over-capacity hospitals. View full entry
Some members have signed a petition on the worker advocacy platform Coworker.org calling on WeWork to close its 848 locations worldwide. There are more than 300 locations in the United States.
Jill Raney, a Washington-based WeWork member who launched the petition, says the company’s decision to remain open during a public health crisis is “unconscionable.” They said it effectively forces businesses with small margins to choose between wasting money or putting themselves at risk.
— The Washington Post
As the number of coronavirus cases in the U.S. increases rapidly, WeWork has remained open even after some members have tested positive for the virus in at least seven of their New York locations as well as in LA and Chicago, according to The Washington Post. Other members have signed an online... View full entry
According to a statement released by SXSW today, the City of Austin has canceled the March dates for SXSW and SXSW EDU. Initially scheduled to occur from March 13 to March 22, this is the first time in 34 years that the conference has been called off. "We are devastated to share this news with... View full entry
With some overseas cities shut down and companies in the U.S. urging those returning from high-risk areas to stay away from the office, workers world-wide are hunkering down for what might be a new normal [...]
powered by technology like videoconference services and workplace-collaboration software, many members of the new remote workforce say they are finally able to get some work done without constant interruptions from open-office setups or days packed with in-person meetings.
— The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal takes a look at the sudden rise in remote working arrangements as the world economy grapples with the spreading coronavirus threat. The report touches on the situation faced by Texas-based designers Jing Johnson of Prism Renderings and her husband Warren Johnson of... View full entry
The samples he collects will help scientists better understand how the massive increase in seasonal wildfires burning through residential areas might be affecting our health. Where smoke once contained the remnants of only biomass (trees and other organic matter), fires are now burning up homes—structures that contain thousands of synthetic chemicals, paints, plastics, and metals that smolder and combust into tiny particles. — National Geographic
Air pollution worsened in the United States in 2017 and 2018, new data shows, a reversal after years of sustained improvement with significant implications for public health.
In 2018 alone, eroding air quality was linked to nearly 10,000 additional deaths in the U.S. relative to the 2016 benchmark, the year in which small-particle pollution reached a two-decade low, according to researchers at Carnegie Mellon University.
— The Washington Post
The Washington Post reports that "concentrations of the pollutant have risen about 5.5 percent since 2016," and points out several contributing factors that the Carnegie Mellon study identified: increased natural gas use and vehicle traffic, risen severity and frequency of wildfires, and the... View full entry
For 20 years, the American Lung Association has gathered and analyzed data from official air quality monitors creating its annual "State of the Air" report. It's been reported by the association that more than four in ten people currently live in areas where pollution levels are too dangerous to... View full entry
Shade is often understood as a luxury amenity, lending calm to courtyards and tree-lined boulevards, cooling and obscuring jewel boxes and glass cubes. But as deadly, hundred-degree heatwaves become commonplace, we have to learn to see shade as a civic resource that is shared by all. In the shade, overheated bodies return to equilibrium. [...] Shade is thus an index of inequality, a requirement for public health, and a mandate for urban planners and designers. — Places Journal
In this longform piece, writer Sam Bloch delves into the history of how shade has served as an index of inequality in the urban design of Los Angeles, and how the city (and perhaps other locations) should learn to consider shade as an important public health requirement. “People living in poor... View full entry
House Observations of Microbial and Environmental Chemistry—was the world’s first large-scale collaborative investigation into the chemistry of indoor air. [...] The experiment’s early results are just now emerging, and they seem to show that the combined emissions of humans and their daily activities—cooking, cleaning, metabolizing—are more interesting, and potentially more lethal, than anyone had imagined. — The New Yorker
In this New Yorker piece, writer Nicola Twilley observes one of the experiments of HOMEChem, who investigates the atmospheric chemistry of our indoor environments and how everyday activities can greatly affect its air quality. “Dozens of the chemicals measured by the HOMEchem team are known to... View full entry
It might sound like a plot cooked up by a cartoon villain, but a city in southwestern China is aiming to launch into space an artificial moon that could replace streetlights by bathing the ground in a “dusk-like glow.”
[...] the satellite’s mirror-like exterior would reflect sunlight down to Earth, creating a glow about eight times brighter than the moon. The artificial moon, which he said would orbit about 500 kilometers above Earth, could save $174 million in electricity from streetlights.
— NBC News
The capital of China's Sichuan province, Chengdu, could have its own illumination satellite 'moon' up in the skies by 2020, according to the People's Daily. Light pollution, and its documented health effects on humans and nocturnal wildlife, doesn't seem to be much of a concern to the officials... View full entry
Shit, I Smoke! was created by Brazilian-born designer Marcelo Coelho and Paris-born app developer Amaury Martiny in just a week, after they read a study that analyzed air pollution and its equivalent to cigarette smoking. [...] Using the formula in [the study], [the app] uses live pollution data from hundreds of air quality stations in cities around the globe and converts the station’s PM2.5 number into the number of cigarettes being inhaled by a person in real time. — Citylab
“For both Coelho and Martiny, the app isn’t only a useful tool to inform users about their city’s air quality; it also makes this information more accessible and easier to comprehend.” View full entry
An experimental tower over 100 metres (328 feet) high in northern China – dubbed the world’s biggest air purifier by its operators – has brought a noticeable improvement in air quality, according to the scientist leading the project, as authorities seek ways to tackle the nation’s chronic smog problem. [...]
The head of the research, Cao Junji, said improvements in air quality had been observed over an area of 10 square kilometres (3.86 square miles) in the city over the past few months [...].
— South China Morning Post
Now that the experimental smog-eating tower is up and running in the city of Xian, authorities are hoping to build much bigger, scaled-up versions in other Chinese cities soon: "A full-sized tower would reach 500 metres (1,640 feet) high with a diameter of 200 metres (656 feet)," the South China... View full entry
Beijing will suspend construction of major public projects in the city this winter in an effort to improve the capital’s notorious air quality, official media said on Sunday, citing the municipal commission of housing and urban-rural development.
All construction of road and water projects, as well as demolition of housing, will be banned from Nov. 15 to March 15 within the city’s six major districts and surrounding suburbs, said the Xinhua report.
— Reuters
"China is in the fourth year of a 'war on pollution,'" Reuters reports, "designed to reverse the damage done by decades of untrammelled economic growth and allay concerns that hazardous smog and widespread water and soil contamination are causing hundreds of thousands of early deaths every year." View full entry
The American Medical Association (AMA) has just adopted an official policy statement about street lighting: cool it and dim it.
The statement, adopted unanimously at the AMA's annual meeting in Chicago on June 14, comes in response to the rise of new LED street lighting sweeping the country. An AMA committee issued guidelines on how communities can choose LED streetlights to "minimize potential harmful human health and environmental effects."
— CNN
There are two basic issues at hand. First, new, "white" LED lighting, which have a color temperature of between 4000K and 5000K, can cause discomfort and glare. This is because the light is concentrate and has high blue content, which can cause severe glare and force pupillary constriction... View full entry
