Browsing Tag
Design
157 posts
Are We Building Skyscrapers Upside Down?
In a traditional skyscraper, the widest part of the building is at its base, and as the building…
The 25 Must-See Libraries In The World
“True, knowledge is power. But we forget, knowledge is also beautiful in the abstract and in real.” These…
Enjoy The Fun Of Wild Swimming In The City
With David Walliams leading the way and plans for a floating lido on the Thames, the desire to…
How Unpopular Buildings Came Back In Fashion
Post-war concrete architecture was decried by many as ugly – but now Brutalist buildings are back in fashion,…
DIY Guide : How To Build A City From Scratch
From Songdo, South Korea to Lavasa, India via Egypt’s unnamed new capital, everywhere you look it seems someone’s…
New Visions Of The City Through The Arts
David Banks was one of two winners of our Active by Design IdeasTap competition with his proposal for…
8 Amazing Artificial Arbors Across The World
For years, humans have been making weird trees out of bottles, stoplights, padlocks, and all manner of other…
How The Right Signs Point To The Right Way To Success
Street signs, airport signs, signs in shopping malls and railway stations: they’re all around us, but we only…
How Public Feedback Transformed Auckland’s Bus Shelters
Auckland bus shelters are set for a new design following public feedback. During July and August 2014 Auckland…
New Design Makes Its Way To Antarctic Research
The Halley VI Antarctic Research Station, the first fully-relocatable research station, was designed by Hugh Broughton Architects with…
World Class Sustainable And Unique Building Designs
The 12 world class sustainable building designs are featured in a new infographic created by Classic Window Replacements…
Designing Google’s HQ Like Designing Software
Designed by Thomas Heatherwick and Bjarke Ingels, the company’s new California headquarters are glass domes set in a…
How 3D Colorful Pathways Transform Tokyo Transit
At the personal level, your daily commute might seem tedious, even mind-numbing. But on a macroscopic scale, public…
How Boomers Will Shape The Future Of Our Cities
The principal of CannonDesign predicts that his generation will be active participants in making our urban environments healthier.…
Can Visionary Design Renew City Living
By the middle of this century, our cities are likely to be hotter, experience more dramatic changes in…
What Makes A City Attractive?
Is there an “art of making attractive cities”? London-based alternative education group The School of Life (founded by…
How To Overhaul A City With Prototypes
Next month, the 250,000 daily travelers along Market Street — San Francisco’s three-mile-long central artery — will discover…
Discover Art That’s Meant To Be Touched
New art installations dot Brooklyn Bridge Park, and they’re designed specifically to be touched or used by parkgoers.…
How Ecocapsules Can Become Our Micro Homes
Ecocapsule is a small, egg-shaped abode that could be the perfect home for someone who wants to let…
These 10 Sliced Houses Are Residential Architectural Illusions
From suburbs to children’s toys, the iconic image of the simple five-sided section of a house is ubiquitous,…
The Best Active Designs That Help People Live Healthier Lives
Design influences our health and quality of life, for better or worse and in ways we might not…
Futuristic Smart City Models of Paris
Inhabitat favorite Vincent Callebaut just unveiled plans to transform Paris into a futuristic “smart” city that looks more…
Are tiny homes the next big thing for cities?
As urban populations swell, as the number of singles increases — and as city officials try to make…
A Sky Portal From Subway Depths
The centerpiece of New York’s New Fulton Center, the Sky-Reflector Net recalls an era when transit design aspired…
Design For Our Acoustics
Design briefs hardly ever include a description of the acoustic experience that should be achieved. Yet acoustics…
Urban Design == Service Design
High-speed data and mobile communications technology is allowing us to think differently about how we plan and develop…
Better Design Needed For Drinking Fountains
People would rather pay two bucks for a sealed, clean drink than stoop over a dirty-looking public trough.…
What Will A Smart City Look Like In The Future?
By 2050 there will be five billion urbanites, but, with pressure on resources and climate disruption, how will…
Reflexive Urbanism : A City Alive
For some early twentieth century commentators, the twenty-first century was going to be about electronic mediation of space.…
Births And Rebirths Of Cities
I’m writing this from Belgrade – a city that, [13+] years ago, was the target of a NATO bombing…
From Hell To Electropolis: How Comics Depict Cities
Delirius, the planet-sized city. William Gull shaking his bloody fists at the NatWest tower. The gentle Julius Knipl,…
Projecting City Realities In Comics
Raised in New York, fed by newspapers and nourished by urban life, comics tell the secrets of cities…
Urban Environment Design And Bad Guys
Whose job is it to prevent crime? The police? The courts? Certainly. However, I’d argue that crime prevention…
Architecture Gets All To Live At The Top
One designer’s solution to class conflict caused by blocked views. The biggest class conflict for coming generations will…
NYC Underrated Basic Human Right, Public Drinking Water
Water as a liquid has no shape. It acquires definition from its surroundings, providing boundaries and edges to…
On The Future Of Architecture – Bjarke Ingels
The puckish Danish architect Bjarke Ingels has built his career on defying convention and distancing himself from his…
Architects And Second-Tier Cities, Partners For Progress
Ambitious architects tend to cluster in the same metropolises: New York, Chicago, L.A. (not to mention Beijing and…
7 Ways Architecture Can Tackle Global Warming
Architecture is one of the key drivers of climate change. Between construction and the energy required to keep…
Smart Is As Smart Does. Stupid Just Does Nothing.
[infobox]I never realised how dumb our cities are until I saw what a smart one looks like.[/infobox] There’s…
Ikea : 7 Predictions For What Your Home Will Look Like In 2020
From silicon furniture to the death of storage, Marcus Engman of Ikea Sweden talks about the near-future of…
Engineers And The Poetics Of Space
Who really designs buildings? Although both engineers and architects regard the mysterious activity we call ‘design’ as their…
We Need Agile Cities
If we are to make cities work for people in the future, to enable economic growth without depleting…
Making Darkness Visible
“Rather than looking to turn night into day, we should embrace the darkness.” Today’s 24/7 economy is made…
Floating On The Dock Of The Bay : A Waterfront Revival
The small-scale, DIY nature of Izmir’s modular docks won the project a silver medal in our World Cities…
A Top-down Approach To Flood Prevention
Gravity offers a simple and cheap way to attenuate stormwater flows – by storing water temporarily on a…
How Are Women Changing Our Cities?
‘Urbanistas’ explores the work of women innovators in architecture and urban design. Curator Lucy Bullivant explains why the…
Evolving Cities And Culture
Innovation is critical to economic growth, progress, and the fate of the planet. Although innovation may seem to…
Science For Designers: Scaling And Fractals
With apologies to real estate agents, we’d like to say that the three most important factors in design…
Science For Designers: The Meaning Of Complexity
Today’s designers seem to love using new ideas coming from science. They embrace them as analogies, metaphors, and…
James Kunstler: How Bad Architecture Wrecked Cities
In James Howard Kunstler’s view, public spaces should be inspired centres of civic life and the physical manifestation…