Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, communities living in cities need cleaner air to breathe and outdoor public space to be social yet physically distanced.
All tagged city design
How Working from Home Could Revitalise Rust Belt Cities
For years, we have been promised a work-from-home revolution, and it seems that the pandemic has finally brought it to pass.
Connected City Streets Mean Healthier Residents and Communities
Neighbourhoods with well-connected streets can evolve into more walkable, complete neighbourhoods or denser settlements as needed.
Buildings Consume Lots of Energy – Here’s How to Design Whole Communities That Give Back as Much as They Take
In recent years, construction designs have advanced dramatically. Net zero energy buildings, which produce the energy they need on site from renewable sources, increasingly are the default choice. But to speed the transition to zero carbon emissions, I believe the United States must think bigger and focus on designing or redeveloping entire communities that are zero energy.
Seeing the Smart City: Mapping Technologies in Canada
Advocacy and activism in the smart city is an important endeavour and comes at a critical time that sees smart city development outpace any deep awareness of their defining logic or process of implementation.
Algorithms Are Designing Better Buildings
More recently, new tools have begun to combine this kind of information with algorithms to automate and optimise aspects of the building process. This ranges from interpreting regulations and providing calculations for structural evaluations to making procurement more precise.
After Coronavirus: How Seasonal Migration and Empty Centres Might Change Our Cities
The changes to urban space brought by the coronavirus have many people asking what the post-pandemic city might look like.
No Need To Give Up on Crowded Cities - We Can Make Density So Much Better
The more immediate need is to focus on improving conditions in our major cities. Our smaller towns matter, but we can’t neglect the urgent need to get better at doing the bigger ones right.
The Suburbs Can Help Cities in the Fight Against Climate Change
Today’s suburban lifestyles are grossly unsustainable as a rule. At its most extreme, suburban settlement in ecologically sensitive areas is clearly reckless. But can we afford to caricature the suburbs and their inhabitants as dreamers living in a nightmare?
'Blue' Space: Access to Water Features Can Boost City Dwellers' Mental Health
What if you’re in one of the 49 countries in the world, or 27 American states, that are landlocked with no ocean shore? For natural capital to deliver health benefits to people, it needs to be right next to them, integrated into the everyday fabric of their world.
The Experiences of People with Disabilities Show We Need a New Understanding of Urban Safety
The experiences of people with disabilities offer important insights into the complexities of urban safety, because of the varied encounters with space that impairment can bring. Their experiences show that safety is a fluid concept.
Temporary Urban Solutions Help Us Deal With Crisis - And Can Lead To Radical Shifts in City Space
Our research into the temporary use of land and buildings shows the ways in which short-term development is deployed during times of crisis.
Project Highlight: Benches of Central Park
What most visitors of New York City’s Central Park may not know is that thousands of benches situated throughout the park are produced by Kenneth Lynch & Sons.
Don’t forget the footpath – it’s vital public space
Footpaths in urban areas support complex social systems and a wide variety of uses. They are a vital public space and deserve more attention in the planning and design of our cities.
Townsville floods show cities that don’t adapt to risks face disaster
This article explores how to design and create resilient urban landscapes.
Our changing views of the city: A new urban celebration
The orthodoxy of urbanity, as something to celebrate, represents a 180 degree about-face from the way those charged with the city’s care and maintenance viewed cities a mere generation ago.
Vancouver’s urban conundrum: Let’s design better cities
Design is a problem-solving discipline and one that, like engineering, seeks answers to difficult challenges.
Can a tech company build a city? Ask Google
Sidewalk Labs, the urban innovation startup owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet, has announced a partnership with the City of Toronto to develop a new waterfront precinct.
From Oslo to Paris, these major cities have plans to go car-free
The Gran Vía will only allow access to bikes, buses, and taxis before Madrid's Mayor Manuela Carmena leaves office in May 2019. It's part of a larger effort to ban all diesel cars in Madrid by 2025.
Why We Need to View Cities as Being Complex Systems
The design of cities haven't changed much since the 1950's. They are not safer, healthier, or adapting to our recent needs. It's why it's time for a change.