Design
Solar Carve tower in New York will make sure its neighbors have light
The more skyscrapers built in cities, the more potential for leaving people in the shade. It's a serious issue that's sparked protests from New York residents and causes permission to be regularly denied for towers that cast too much shadow. With that in mind, architecture firm Studio Gang have Read More...
Buildings that breathe: Italian architect’s ‘Vertical Forest’ to sprout in China
Italian architect Stefano Boeri has a penchant for designing living, breathing buildings. It began in Milan with the Bosco Verticale (Italian for “Vertical Forest”), two looming skyscrapers covered in thousands of trees, shrubs, and flowering plants. The environmental idea was simple: Read More...
Harnessing the power of nature to improve our cities
People feel happier, healthier, and more social when they engage with nature. Their cognitive abilities go up and stress levels go down. So why is nature so often thought to be found only “out there” in the wilderness, or perhaps suburbia? For Timothy Beatley, a professor at the Read More...
Solutions inspired by nature: Here's the best of biomimicry
With each member of the animal kingdom comes a specific function, crafted after millions of years of evolution. The research and development lab of nature has found many solutions that can help solve challenges for humans. The name for emulating designs found in nature is biomimicry, and it's used Read More...
The Netherlands' highest wooden building can change its function like a chameleon
The tenants of Patch22, the highest wooden apartment building in the Netherlands, can design and create their own floor plans thanks to the project’s impressive level of flexibility. Architecture firm FRANTZEN et al architecten designed Patch22 with multifunctionality in mind– the team Read More...
Ikea's flat pack refugee shelters wins design of the year
A flat-pack refugee shelter designed by Ikea has been crowned design of the year in the prestigious Beazley design competition. The ready-to-assemble shelter was created by the Swedish furniture giant in partnership with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). It Read More...
The radical model fighting the housing crisis: property prices based on income
A forbidding clock tower rises above the arched windows of a former Victorian workhouse in east London’s Mile End, behind a hoarding which trumpets the conversion of the crusty old pile into an enclave of luxury apartments. The mortuary, morbidly located next to a graveyard at the end of this Read More...
To solve old problems, study new species
Nature is wonderfully abundant, diverse and mysterious — but biological research today tends to focus on only seven species, including rats, chickens, fruit flies and us. We're studying an astonishingly narrow sliver of life, says biologist Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado, and hoping it'll Read More...
Three-mile-high futuristic skyscraper has a smog-eating, self-cleaning coating
What will the world look like in 2062? Manufacturing company Arconic gives us a preview with their latest campaign called “The Jetsons“. The firm’s engineers teamed up with futurists to update the world of the Jetsons with new design marvels like flying cars and three-mile-high Read More...
Investors are leaving fossil fuels in the dust in favor of greener funds
Just because Donald Trump is putting his money on fossil fuels doesn’t mean the investment community is doing the same. In fact, a new reports shows investors controlling more than $5 trillion in assets have committed to dropping some or all fossil fuel stocks from their portfolios. On top of Read More...