Design
Houston is tackling the threat of destructive hurricanes and flooding
Cities across the United States are investing in infrastructure that will help make them more resistant to storms. A neighborhood in Greater Houston is building stormwater detention ponds, one of which helped prevent an estimated 200 homes from Read More...
Solve pollution and congestion? Turn parking lots into affordable communities
As high prices and growing populations have constrained housing supplies in the city centers, people have been pushed further and further out into the suburbs, where they begin to lean more heavily on cars. But traffic congestion, exacerbated by the proliferation of ride-sharing services like Uber, Read More...
Biomimicry: How designers are learning from the natural world
In 1989, Japan’s Shinkansen Bullet Train had a problem. It was really fast, pushing 170 miles per Read More...
The growing business of defensive urban design
Rob Reiter has a quick answer for people who ask him about how expensive it is to install his products: “It’s not a quarter as expensive as if they don’t do anything and something happens.” He’s talking about Read More...
Teaching people how to build machines that turn plastic into new material
The majority of the 300 million tons of plastic produced every year isn’t recycled, and recycling that does happen typically happens at an industrial scale in factories using equipment that can cost tens of thousands of dollars. But a growing number of designers are using a set of open-source, Read More...
Paris is getting a ‘white forest’ tower that will feature 2,000 plants
Construction on a greenery-covered tower, designed by the Italian firm Stefano Boeri Architetti, will soon start in the Parisian suburb of Villiers-sur-Marne in France. On the outside, 2,000 trees, plants, and shrubs will fill the building’s facade, roof, and balconies. Inside, the building Read More...
A small town in Iceland created a “levitating” crosswalk to slow traffic
Instead of installing speed bumps to get drivers to slow down, a city in Iceland recently painted a “floating” pedestrian crossing on the street. The eye-popping optical illusion makes it seem as if the crosswalk is levitating a few inches off the ground. When they get nearer and nearer to this Read More...
Elon Musk shares first photo of Boring Company’s underground LA tunnel
Elon Musk on Saturday shared the very first image of the Boring Company’s underground Los Angeles tunnel that is actively under construction. We’ve known for months now that Musk’s cleverly named tunnel-digging venture has been testing equipment and technology beneath SpaceX’s Read More...
Ride out climate change and rising waters on this beautiful floating home
While the city of Miami is in denial about the threat of climate change, a design firm within the city is getting prepared for the future. They have created an environmentally-friendly yacht that runs on solar energy and can go completely off the grid. For a better look at this beautiful, buoyant Read More...
Google wants to build the neighborhood of the future
Google has a vision for the “21st-century urban neighborhood” and it’s actually planning to build it. The tech-giant announced recently that it wants to build a town called Quayside on Toronto’s Eastern Waterfront that will feature buildings that can be completely reconfigured at speed. Read More...