Norman Foster of architecture firm Foster + Partners met with Kharkiv mayor Ihor Terekhov in April to offer his support and discuss a vision for a masterplanned reconstruction of the country’s second largest city. During that meeting, he submitted his “Kharkiv Manifesto,” promising to put his best efforts into making the city state-of-the-art in both infrastructure and layout.

“I undertake to assemble the best minds with the best planning, architectural, design, and engineering skills in the world to bear on the rebirth of the city of Kharkiv,” Foster wrote. “In the spirit of combining a planetary awareness with local action, I would seek to bring together the top Ukrainian talents with worldwide expertise and advice.”

Mayor Terekhov has also laid out his vision for the city, in which at least a quarter of the housing, hospitals, schools, and cultural centers have been destroyed. He hopes to see their investments in technology and healthcare restored, as well as the repair and preservation of historic buildings, many of which were styled in traditional Art Nouveau style.

Due to the centuries-long conflict with Russia over the Ukrainian border, the mayor also wants to see the city prepared for future attacks. Specifying that their urgent needs were for hospitals, schools, kindergartens, and offices for their robust IT businesses, Terekhov wants each of those places to have built-in bomb shelters. He also suggested that residential buildings should have underground parking lots that could be converted into emergency shelters.

The next step from Foster’s perspective (once the city is safe from more Russian attacks — Russian forces are still close enough to shell Kharkiv regularly from their current position) is to create a city masterplan that would include combining “the most loved and revered heritage from the past with the most desirable and greenest elements of infrastructure and buildings.” Foster hopes to “deliver the city of the future now” as well as to “plan for its life decades ahead.”

The 86-year-old Foster has had plenty of experience building the future. His is well known as one of the principal figures in British modernist architecture, having designed the Gherkin and Millennium Bridge in London, the Reichstag in Berlin, and the Apple Park campus in Silicon Valley. His firm was among many that protested the Russian aggression with not only words but actions. On his Instagram account in March, Foster posted, “We deplore the Russian invasion of Ukraine and as a result, we have stopped work on all our projects in Russia.”

Terekhov seemed pleased with the direction Foster wants to take. In Facebook footage from their video meeting, the mayor said, “I’ve seen your work and I would really like to see this new, progressive style in our city. I would like us to get a city center that would become one of the highlights of Europe.”

The post Norman Foster Partners with Mayor of Destroyed Kharkiv to Rebuild the “City of the Future” first appeared on Dornob.

But what Cruz, Carlson and others are conveniently ignoring is the fact that many of America’s highways were built during the height of segregation and repeatedly used to separate predominantly minority neighborhoods from white communities. The new highways created hard, often impassible barriers between these communities, sometimes separating neighborhoods from their churches, schools, and businesses. These lines were often drawn in a direct response to requests by white community members, who didn’t want the highways disrupting their own neighborhoods. Many homes in the path of a proposed highway, typically owned by Black and brown people, were seized by eminent domain.

Bloomberg offers one striking example in the form of St. Paul, Minnesota’s Rondo neighborhood, writing: “In the first half of the 20th century it was home to most of St. Paul’s African American residents. The neighborhood’s center was Rondo Avenue, a thriving corridor for Black-owned business and wealth. Grocery stores, barber shops, drug stores, tailors, carpenters, and car shops lined Rondo Avenue, providing spaces to do business, meet, shop, and socialize during segregation and the Jim Crow era.”

By the 60s, that business core was gone, replaced by the new Interstate 94. Homes that used to be a short walk from the shops were now up against the busy six-lane highway, and the neighborhood was split in two. A nonprofit called Reconnect Rondo aims to fix that with a land bridge that reconnects both sides while creating up to 22 acres of commercial, residential, and park space. This example illustrates how the funds from the new public works program, called “Reconnecting Communities,” can help reconnect other neighborhoods cut off by historic investments.

Other places where highways were built right through historically Black and brown communities include Miami, New Orleans, Houston, Chattanooga, Cincinnati, and Detroit, among many more. When communities were walled off by highways, they had fewer access to resources, jobs, and desirable community amenities like green spaces that were still enjoyed by the white neighborhoods on the other side of the highways. The impact was devastating, especially to once-vibrant neighborhoods that previously enjoyed economic and cultural prosperity.

Many of these highways built in the 1950s and 60s are nearing the end of their lifespans. The Biden Administration has proposed tearing down viaducts and replacing them with boulevards, burying highways beneath new tracts of affordable housing, or elevating new highways above neighborhoods for minimal disruption.

No action taken today can redress the historic harm that was done to these communities (though direct financial compensation would be a start). And, inevitably, figuring out exactly how to rebuild these highways without negatively impacting new communities will be tricky. But dismantling highways built with racist intent can be one small, crucial part of the process of dismantling systemic racism in this country.

The post Will Biden’s Infrastructure Help Remedy America’s Racist Highways? first appeared on Dornob.

Last month, temperatures climbed to as high as 115 degrees in typically cloudy places like Seattle, wreaking havoc in the region. Sudden deaths, wildfires, infrastructure damage, and heat-related emergencies were just some of the side effects of this uncharacteristic and dangerous heat wave. Sadly, temps like these will most likely become the norm as climate change continues to cause extreme weather patterns, such as the ridge that centered itself over the region in June.

But how can areas like the Pacific Northwest rethink their infrastructure to better prepare for such devastating weather patterns?

The answer is a new approach to architecture that departs from the standard, combined with a few more familiar design concepts previously used in the region.

Currently, most homes in the region are designed for much cooler weather, with appropriate ventilation and insulation meant to regulate temperatures and cool them more effectively, rendering standard air conditioning mostly unnecessary. However, in light of last month’s record-breaking temperatures, architects in the Pacific Northwest are focusing on ways to depart from the region’s previously successful strategy of little or no-effort temperature control.

Mike Fowler, a Seattle-based architect at the firm Mithun, is just one of many architects who’s looking toward new ways for architecture to evolve – and design approaches historically used in more extreme climates may provide the answer.

These strategies are already being employed in other areas around the world, as architects are forced to rethink design concepts in response to ever-increasing temperatures. Some of these methods, including using new construction materials; employing advanced heat modeling techniques; and incorporating other, more traditional (and even ancient) architectural and design principles, are proving effective in keeping homes cooler, all without the need for air conditioning. That means less energy consumption and a more sustainable way of living and keeping cool.

Another such approach that’s proven successful is the building standard known as Passive House. With (official) origins in 1990s Germany, the Passive House concept has since been modified to accommodate varying climates in countries across the globe. The standard essentially turns homes into sealed energy efficient “envelopes” with extremely high insulation, making them more impervious to the temperatures outdoors. To accomplish this, homes are built with windows that are triple-paned, contain heat pumps that are extremely energy efficient, and have highly insulated wall systems. This idea of “passive building” is nothing new – it’s been used for centuries in hotter climates all over the world. However, with temperatures rising in places like the Pacific Northwest, architects are turning to these concepts for new ways to stay cool while also becoming more energy efficient.

Fowler, for one, is on board with Passive House standards, and works with groups like Passive House Northwest to encourage architects and builders to employ these principles. He says that “the pitch [involves] one chance to invest in your building envelope — the windows, roof, and walls. Do it right so that something you build now is going to be resilient into the future.”

Even without meeting “the official standard,” Passive House design concepts are influencing other architects around the world, including the firm Studio Ma in Phoenix, which focuses on designing elements right into their buildings to keep them passively cool. The use of shading, overhangs, and cantilevers also keeps buildings cool in the desert heat. Combined with lighter materials on the outside of the building that have better insulation (versus heavier stone and masonry), the houses’ temperatures can be managed much more effectively.

Christopher Alt, a co-founder of Studio Ma, says that “some people call it ‘outsulation’ because the insulation is on the outside, but it’s very dependent on the climate you’re in.” He feels that though the solution is different in Arizona, the same kind of thinking applies in regions like the Pacific Northwest. Though the two areas have very different climates, the Passive House standard can still be modified and adapted accordingly to incorporate architecture that addresses any region’s specific cooling needs.

Other architects have found that incorporating passive cooling methods into design concepts from the ground up can be both more affordable and energy-efficient. Marlene Imirzian, who runs an architectural firm with offices in California and Arizona, has been using passive cooling elements in many of her projects, and has found that these practices can significantly cut energy consumption – and costs. “It’s not about highly specialized systems. It’s about using natural flows…and designing [spaces] to allow for air movement,” she says.

In many cases, this means implementing practices from the ground up, and building with the goal of reducing energy use while keeping cooler, as part of the initial design strategy. Imirzian’s firm, who had the winning entry in Phoenix’s zero net energy home competition, proved just that, incorporating passive cooling concepts into a 2,100-square-foot home that would cost about the same as an air conditioned home, but requires way less energy to cool. “If we start doing these single family homes well,” Imirzian says, “we can significantly reduce energy use.”

With temperatures on the rise and predictions that, because of climate change, we can expect more extremes in the coming years, architects and designers are rethinking long-held ideas about how homes are built – by looking to the past. With an eye toward less energy consumption via cooling methods that don’t involve air conditioning, these innovative processes could have long-term implications that extend beyond extremely hot climates. As Imirzian says, “[They could be] very, very transferable around the world.” And that’s great news for our warming planet, which needs sustainable solutions now more than ever.

The post Could This Ancient Design Technique Help Keep Homes Cooler Without A.C.? first appeared on Dornob.

Together with the International Olympic Committee, Beijing has set out to make things right by taking a more sustainable approach to hosting the winter games in 2022. As the first city in the world to host both the Summer and Winter Olympics, Beijing will integrate its venues from 2008 and other urban structures into a spectacular new setting for cold weather sports. This complex will host curling, ice hockey, skating, snowboarding, and freestyle skiing, while the nearby towns of Chongli and Yangqing will host alpine skiing, sliding, and all other snow events.

Architecture firm Maison h won a competition to design a stunning Winter Olympic Museum in Chongli — the first museum of its kind anywhere in the world. With solar panels mounted to the roof and a self-shading design that protects its interiors from the harsh local climate, it will run entirely on renewable energy.

The coolest part of the museum is definitely a new ski slope that will pass under an existing highway, terminating adjacent to the building itself. It’ll also have a dedicated Olympic Academy with libraries and research facilities focused on the Winter Olympics, a virtual reality experience center, and a cable car station.

“A new highway and high-speed train will connect the Chongli region to Beijing in 46 minutes,” says Maison h. “For Chongli, this is a critical opportunity to become the center of development of winter sports in China, utilizing its natural mountainous resources and giving back long-term opportunities for the rural region.”

“It is in this spirit that the Chongli local government conceived a plan to revitalize the town center with the addition of the world’s first Winter Sports Museum and Academy to best convey the Olympic spirit to future generations. Following an open public bidding process, maison h was selected for a competition with two other teams for both the building design and town center redevelopment.”

The building’s design takes inspiration from the surrounding landscape, with each level sloping to ground level to provide direct access. Maison h weaves different programmatic elements together to create layers of light, airy spaces with plenty of opportunities for exploration and interaction. The firm adds that the complex will showcase “a twofold strategy of reuse and rejuvenation for urban venues and sustainable development for regional venues providing infrastructure and long-term benefits to rural regions.”

Of course, the sustainability of the new complex hinges on whether or not it’s actually successful in drawing in millions of urbanites to ski each winter, long after the 2022 games are over. And while it’s great that many of the 2008 structures will finally be cleaned up and/or reused, one can only hope that they’ll have a better plan for reusing many of the other elements that go into the games this time around.

The post A Ski Slope Passes Beneath a Highway at the Beijing Winter Olympic Museum first appeared on Dornob.

Even the earliest building blueprints included considerations for what was happening in the world at the time. For example, forts like Brimstone Hill Fortress on the Caribbean Island of St. Kitts were intentionally placed on higher ground so as to provide their occupants with optimal views of approaching invaders. Even in the medieval age of castles, monarchs included lookout towers, moats, and other seemingly impenetrable lines of defense to serve specific purposes. Later, the idea of urban safety influenced designs for municipal buildings and residential housing alike. Today we have a different kind of enemy to protect against: individuals who perpetrate mass shootings or other types of terror attacks.

As a result of these attacks, we’re already seeing huge changes in urban planning. This encompasses infrastructure to mitigate attacks on high-rise buildings from car and other streetside bombs. It also entails putting barriers up around buildings and monuments. However, these steps do little to protect against the damage one might cause once they’re inside those buildings.

The statistics are alarming to say the least. As of December 1st, 2019, there have been 385 mass shootings in the U.S. this year, according to data from the nonprofit Gun Violence Archive (GVA). That’s an average of more than one mass shooting per day. Even worse, 29 of these incidents resulted in mass murders, which begs the question, “What can we do about it?” The answer might just be in architectural protection.

This idea integrates more than typical safety precautions that protect against crime, such as placing bars on the windows or installing deadbolts. In fact, it requires an entirely new way of thinking about architecture. That’s because terror attacks and shootings (and even mass stabbings) happen in a second. There’s no time to rely on a police response. Studies of mass shootings in recent years calculate the average time between an attacker entering the building and the end of the shooting is less than ten minutes. Crisis architecture means installing systems that work to save lives by offering protection the moment a crisis begins.

Although there have been attacks in workplaces, churches, and even movie theaters before, the dozens of school shootings in just the past decade make for the best example of how crisis architecture could prevent tragedies in the future. Learning from past attacks, schools recognize the need to be able to lock classrooms from the inside, easily lockdown an entire campus, and use cameras to spot attackers before they even enter the building. Unfortunately, measures like these have mostly been met with uncertainty by school districts for several reasons, including issues with student privacy, lack of viable information about what works, and high costs.

Crisis architecture is the idea that systems can be standardized and integrated from the blueprint stage rather than by looking towards temporary solutions for individual situations. This allows all the systems within the building to work together in a discreet and fluid way as a functional part of the overall design.

Specifically, War on the Rocks identifies eight key functionalities that would maximize physical defenses for public buildings.

1. Enable Creation of Distance: This basically means improving traffic flow within the building by incorporating more corridors and stairways to handle mass migrations.
2. Safe Exit from Multiple Points: The design should provide multiple avenues for safely getting out of the building in the case of an attack.
3. Incorporate Angles to Limit a Shooter’s Line of Sight: Build in natural and appealing blockades that limit endless site in long hallways or from a doorway. This gives victims places to seek shelter and limits an attacker’s ability to target people.
4. Provide Adequate Cover and Concealment: This includes the incorporation of bullet-proof features, as well as wall and furniture placement for better concealment.
5. Enable Rapid Hardening of a Facility: This covers systems such as deadbolts, window coverings, and ballistic doors that automatically engage at the sound of an alarm.
6. Implement “Human-Centered Design” Concepts: Work with the basic human fight-or-flight response to predict how people will act during a crisis.
7. Training and Design Need to be Mutually Supporting: This means coordinating crisis training with the infrastructure in ways that make it possible to either stay in one’s current location or quickly and safely escape.
8. Integrate Systems to Increase the Situational Awareness of First Responders: Installation of systems that give first responders the information they need.

So the question remains, given the desired level of security and all the associated costs, is crisis architecture the way of the future?

The post Is “Crisis Architecture” the Way of the Future? first appeared on Dornob.

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Michael Zeto, AT&T’s Vice President and General Manager of Smart Cities, explains: “We’re exploring possibilities with the City of LA to create a technology-first environment that can improve experiences for residents and visitors across the community. We’re looking to help the city improve problems like traffic congestion and public safety.”

European cities were some of the earliest adopters of smart city technology, though US cities are starting to come around. In many of these places, sensors used in Internet of Things (IoT) devices already connect components across municipal infrastructures to gather data. LA hopes to make that data more user-friendly in the future by providing residents and visitors with mobile apps to help them do things like avoid traffic jams, find street parking, and report overflowing dumpsters.

“Access to information is the foundation of equality, opportunity, and prosperity,” says Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti. “We are establishing unique partnerships as we deploy new networks and technologies across LA — and we’re excited to be discussing with AT&T how to empower Angelenos with new tools that could make their lives easier and our communities stronger.”

Other solutions being explored range from digital kiosks and infrastructure to structural monitoring. A key point is that this plan aims to benefit the disenfranchised neighborhoods that are traditionally left off the list when it comes to municipal improvements.

5G Network and Small Cell Technology

According to CTIA, “A small-cell installation consists of small radio equipment and antennas that can be placed on structures such as streetlights, the sides of buildings, or poles. They are about the size of a pizza box and are essential for transmitting data to and from a wireless device.” This technology is vital to creating a 5G network, which will supposedly be up to 100 times faster than the current 4G network.

To make LA “smart,” the city needs to rapidly install a great number of small cells and begin deployment of a 5G network. More than 222 petabytes of data run through our global network as is, so it’s safe to say that a truly smart city would not be possible without without 5G.

In October of 2018, Los Angeles partnered with Verizon to test an initial 5G rollout. Lampposts throughout downtown were wired with small cell technology and fiber optic cables. Of course, that array won’t really do anyone good until early 2019, when Samsung and Verizon are expected to release the world’s first-ever 5G smartphones. This means that 5G will be a competition between carriers as early as next year. Driven by competition, experts predict that 5G will be available in most major cities, if not globally, by the start of 2020.

The post LA to Become One of the Smartest Cities in America first appeared on Dornob.

A five-year research project led to the development and testing of the Roboat: a robotic boat that, besides being an alternative to ground transportation, is expected to have many uses in the near future. The project itself is a collaboration between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions, marking the first substantial effort focused on the use of autonomous boats in urban areas. When ready for deployment, the full-scale prototypes will have a hull of about six by 13 feet. They will also be equipped with sensors, GPS, micro-controllers, water quality testers, cameras for positioning, and Laser Imaging Detection and Ranging (LIDAR).

Most impressively, each Roboat will be programmed to self-assemble and dismantle depending on several different short-term needs. They could transform into bridges for pedestrians when alternative pathways between districts are required, or they could add extra square feet of walkway to an existing sidewalk by lining up one after the other. Roboats will also be used as individual taxis to ferry people around the city’s canal system.

Temporary storage spaces could be freed up for other uses if people started storing their belongings on boats rather than in buildings. Mail deliveries could be made faster and more efficiently if bike couriers worked in tandem with Roboats that were programmed to follow certain routes. Even food deliveries could use Roboats the same way, with onboard heating systems helping to keep food warm along the way.

A collection of Roboats could form a concert stage in the middle of a canal. They could be used to carry special scenes for national holidays, with the nativity floating around the city on Christmas Day and Dutch flags flying high for Holland’s National Remembrance Day. Similar collections of Roboats could combine themselves to create a floating food market, which itself would be capable of moving from one end of the city to the other. Even in areas with low bridges, it seems more than possible to temporarily unload the Roboats, watch as they disassemble themselves and move to another spot, and later reload them with whatever they were previously carrying.

Waste management is another area where future Roboats could potentially be employed, collecting waste all throughout the city as a way to reduce the number of trucks on the road.

As Daniella Rus, Director of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, said in a recent article: “Some of the activities that are usually taking place on land, and that cause disturbance in how the city moves, can be done on a temporary basis on the water.”

With all the recent advancement in autonomous vehicles changing the way our cities operate, the development of Roboats shows us that there are still parts of the city that we might be using ineffectively. In this case, those spaces happen to be flowing in plain sight.

The post Can Autonomous Boats Change a City? first appeared on Dornob.

Similar to many roundabouts around the world, L.A.’s 100-foot-diameter Riverside Roundabout has a monument at its center: not an obelisk, statue, or flag, but rather a collection of small monuments. Faces of Elysian Valley depicts the faces of local residents, chosen at random from a volunteer pool of about 200 people. Created by Greenmeme, these nine egg-shaped sculptures were built using California granite and range from eight to 12 feet tall. Each granite face was produced by 3D scanners, allowing every forehead, eyelid, nose, cheek, lip, and chin to be accurately represented.

The faces have been intricately positioned in a way that will help drivers be better aware of how traffic is moving in the roundabout, in keeping with a traffic engineering requirement that helps motorists safely navigate areas like these. A granite traffic barrier was made from whatever stone was left from the Faces, protecting the center of the roundabout from the traffic coming from its three main thoroughfares.

During the day, the sculptures look like monuments, with shadows concealing certain features depending on which way the sun is hitting them. At night, the lighting gives the Faces a haunting aura, which makes them look almost more alive than they do during the day.

There’s another, more sustainable face to the Riverside Roundabout that drivers cannot see. Beneath it all lies a 25,000-gallon cistern meant to capture rainwater. Some of that water is used to feed the vegetation in the roundabout. Keep in mind that Los Angeles gets very little rain for most of the year, except in January and February when rainy weeks are somewhat common. The sustainable roundabout makes up another part of the city’s vast storm drain system, but it’s also much more than that. People from the community use it as a park to relax in — something unheard of in other parts of the world, where the congestion alone would make such adventures undesirable. Even Mayor Garcetti could not help but show up to take a photo.

It could be that the Riverside Roundabout is so different for Los Angeles that the residents have taken to it differently than residents in other cities might. Where others see a dangerous intersection, the Angelenos who live around the sustainable roundabout see a small park reflective of who they are.

The post The Many Faces of LA’s New Sustainable Roundabout first appeared on Dornob.

We have Carlo Ratti Associati (CRA), an international firm based in Torino, Italy, to thank for the technology behind dynamic streets. The firm has extensively studied the ways sensors and other devices can be integrated into the physical surfaces we interact with as part of our daily lives. CRA’s outstanding track record is exactly why Alphabet’s subsidiary, Sidewalk Labs, reached out to them to create a modular paving system that could be used to change the function of certain streets. The prototype was first put on display in July of 2018 in Toronto, where Sidewalk Labs is planning to build an entire digital community. CRA and Sidewalk Labs wanted to use this prototype to see exactly how people would interact with a street that responded to their immediate needs.

By “dynamic,” CRA means that the system can be reconfigured whenever needed. For example, a dynamic street could be used as a one-way street in one direction for morning rush hour, turned into a two-way street for the rest of the day, and then be reconfigured as a one-way street in the opposite direction for evening rush hour. Some days, that same street could even become pedestrian or cyclist only. This would allow public events like outdoor festivals, live concerts, and block parties to much more easily be held on those streets.

Each paver is hexagonal in shape but flat in form, allowing vertical objects such as bollards for bike lanes or electrical equipment from city workers to be plugged in wherever necessary. At the center of every paver is a light that can be used to establish lanes for traffic, crosswalks, bike lanes, parking indicators, loading zones, and traffic flow. For now, the pavers are made of wood, but once they get out of the prototype phase, the company hopes to make them out of concrete. In a winter city like Toronto, with cars driving on snow tires, snow removal dump trucks pushing large steel shovels, and rivers of de-icing substances being poured out onto the streets, their material will have to be particularly tough.

On his firm’s website, CRA’s founding partner and chairman Carlo Ratti reminds us that dynamic streets are a logical progression in urban technology. “As autonomous vehicles are likely to start running on streets soon, we can start to imagine a more adaptable road infrastructure.”

Do we need dynamic streets? It depends on the context and the climate. It may be more practical in a digital first community like the one Sidewalk Labs wants to build in Toronto, but it probably wouldn’t be very practical on an established city street unless every street in that city became dynamic. Also, it kind of seems like the type of technology that would work better in a place like Ontario, California than it would in Ontario, Canada. Yet if Sidewalk Labs and CRA can make it work in Toronto, then maybe they can make it work anywhere.

The post What Is a Dynamic Street? first appeared on Dornob.

The Massachusetts capital’s “Playful Boston” initiative is looking to work in engaging, innovative, and playful focal points throughout the city. It all began with a public competition called “Play Around the City,” which invited entrants to create playful interactions for kids at four local bus stops. The city created the competition to gain of a better understanding of the ways playfulness impacted the well-being of its citizens, fostered social interactions, and whether or not it increased civic engagement. The resulting program invites Bostonians to play in unexpected places by diversifying public spaces with pieces of art and architectural follies. These positive triggers are part of the city’s efforts to improve the quality of life of its residents by enhancing public spaces.

For Boston, play is for everyone, not just for kids. When people play, it fosters social, emotional, and cognitive development, which the city sees as a form of placemaking.

Adding elements of playfulness to an urban landscape makes it a less stressful environment for everyone. The city becomes a playground and classroom, allowing some people to have fun while waiting for public transit while others playfully learn about the city’s history. It makes residents want to get more involved in their city’s development and creates distinctive points of interest for tourists to post on social media: two things most cities find helpful anyways. Anything that makes people less angry, more open, less dour, and more welcoming is a plus for any city — especially during the polarizing times we currently find ourselves living in.

What Boston is doing is not unique. Rather, cities across the globe are integrating play into their urban designs for various reasons. Some are using the visuals of video games to help people understand their cities, while others are using art to make long commutes on public transit less stressful. A playful context can even be great for pets, as it provides moments of levity for their owners. But despite the success that cities have found with these initiatives, some critics continue to denounce this way of thinking as an attempt to turn cities into giant amusement parks.

Incorporating playful contexts into a cityscape is helpful, but having them scaled across a city like bike-sharing stations is not. They will lose their significance and eventually just become another form of the visual clutter that’s currently ruining cities. What makes these play areas special is not their ubiquity, but their scarcity. When used sparingly within a city, they demand attention and add to the character of their surroundings.

The post The Fun is Just Beginning with Playful Boston first appeared on Dornob.

In Tilburg, a city in the southwestern part of the Netherlands, Civic Architects pulled out all the stops to animate the underside of one overpass linking the city center with a once neglected, now redeveloped part of town known as De Spoorzone. Officially called the Willem II Passage (an extension of Willem II Street), it serves as a safe and convenient cultural space and point of connection.

Just behind the passage’s structural concrete walls rests an inner façade chalk full of familiar elements — all of them presented at familiar scales but comprised of unfamiliar materials. Civic Architects consulted Van Tetterode Glass Studio and Philips Lighting about the 30,000 LEDs they ended up morphing into an interactive wall, all of them enclosed behind a glassy bond of sculptural bricks for a crystalline appearance. Programmed with an algorithm that’s responsive to pedestrian movement, time of day, and weather, the wall transforms into a living surface of diffused light without warning, accompanying people as they go by.

The passage serves as an inviting link between two areas — one that people do not fear passing through. The architects opted for glass bricks instead of a more high-tech material because they wanted to bring a human scale to the underside of an otherwise oversized piece of infrastructure. The bricks have an almost natural look to them, despite their having been stacked in an overtly purposeful pattern. The result is a continuous visual connection between the passage and Tilburg’s other architectural wonders, particularly the ones on Willem II Street. People have become so comfortable with the passage that they’ve even started using it for cultural activities and events.

For years, much has been written about unwelcoming urban spaces and their lack of safety. How urban planning and design have failed vulnerable users of the city like minors, the elderly, and the disabled. How smaller conveniences that tend to make a place more user-friendly often get forgetten. Bus stops are too far from each other, parks and plazas don’t have enough seating, and the underbellies of bridges are far too dark. All of these things are all examples of how urban design can end up being a major obstacle to a city’s inhabitants.

Luckily enough, the Willem II Passage is far from being any kind of obstacle. Unless people are in a hurry, there is no reason to hurry when walking through it. They may even find enough time to have a little dance, with the train rattling above and the high-tech wall around them mimicking their every move.

The post The Bright Underside of the Willem II Passage first appeared on Dornob.

As part of the May 2018 Uber Elevate Skyport Challenge, Pickard Chilton and Arup submitted a proposal that was nothing less than a megastructure in the middle of an urban environment. The “Uber Sky Tower” would be built over a freeway, connecting a light rail with other forms of ground transportation. Every hour, at least 1,000 eVTOLs would arrive and depart, each carrying up to five commuters. This means that the structure would accommodate up to 10,000 passengers per hour on less than three acres of space. One eVTOL would take five to seven minutes to charge and load, with all of them landing on docks that would slide horizontally and vertically into place along the height of the structure. Passengers would disembark at docking bays linked to elevators, which in turn would take them to the ground floor, where hundreds of uberX vehicles would be waiting to whisk them away.

The charging of the eVTOLs would begin as soon as they landed on the docks, immediately after being locked into place. This allows the charge to occur before the last set of passengers have even gotten a chance to disembark, saving valuable minutes.

“LAX today is handling approximately 20,000 people per hour,” said Jon Pickard, one of the heads of Pickard Chilton, during his competition presentation in Los Angeles. “Our charge is to handle half that capacity.” Considering the fact that LAX spans 3,500 acres and an Uber Sky Tower would have a considerably smaller footprint than that, this task seems daunting to say the least. Still, this effective use of space is exactly what Uber hopes will allow them to fulfill the urban mobility demands of future cities.

Along with Pickard Chilton with Arup, Humphreys & Partners Architects, Gannett Fleming, The Beck Group, BOKA Powell, and Corgan also participated in the competition for uberAIR, the ridesharing company’s in-progress eVTOL service. Trial flights are expected to begin in 2020, with the service officially launching in 2023. The company asked each participant to imagine a structure that could accommodate about 4,000 passengers per hour.

Although all of these proposals have been well researched and may be practical from an architectural/engineering perspective, there are still the regulatory and financial hurdles to overcome. The cost of building these megastructures will surely cause some cities and jurisdictions to think twice about them. It’s also possible that large cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York would need more than one skyport spread throughout their metropolitan areas — something that would be financially onerous even for places of that caliber.

Then there’s the comfort level of the commuting public, which may surprise the many companies proposing similar urban air transit options. Phobias can be unpredictable, with people who are afraid of going up in skyscrapers having no problem looking out the window of an airplane. For that reason, it’s possible that some passengers who do not have a fear of flying in airplanes may feel uncomfortable flying in an electric vehicle, even at much lower altitudes. A tall structure like the Uber Sky Tower would mix many phobias together, which is why it will undoubtedly take time for the public to adjust to flying around major cities with the ease of taking the subway or bus. What makes all of these proposals thrilling is the fact that speculation will soon give way to reality and, like any other new technology or way of doing things, start becoming increasingly present in our daily routines.

The post Are You Ready for Uber Skyports? first appeared on Dornob.

British architect Norman Foster (of Foster + Partners fame) has just released his concept video for his firm’s latest master plan: an entirely purpose built, sustainable, urban utopia in India’s Andhra Pradesh. The new state capital, Amaravati, will be a fine example of architects focusing on urban planning and creating spaces where everything has a purpose.

Architecture and nature will be fused together to create a harmonious living and work environment that people from all walks of life will be able to enjoy and benefit from. Clay-colored buildings will cover the city to create a picturesque scene, adorned with trees and foliage to harness the natural magic of India’s landscapes. Running through the center of “the people’s capital” is a long park encompassing a needle-like building, which itself will host the central government of Andhra Pradesh — the firm’s version of a “city centerpiece.”

Situated by the river Krishna, Amaravati will span 217 square kilometers, with at least 60 percent of the city dedicated to creating green spaces, including a set of lakes and rivers that have been meticulously designed to interweave throughout the urban sprawl in order to provide its inhabitants with fresh water. Water taxis, electric car routes, bicycle paths, and covered walkways have all been incorporated to encourage future citizens to walk (or at least use public transport) rather than drive when navigating the city. For these reasons, Amaravati is one of the world’s first truly sustainable cities.

When, What, Who, Why?

Of course, the task of developing an entire city has placed a lot of responsibility on the firm, but the creative freedom that comes with such a paramount and influential project has also allowed Foster to break and rebuild boundaries that only a select few have ever been allowed to experiment with. The ambitious project was first reported to have been awarded to Foster’s firm back in January 2017, after they won a contest for their initial design of the central building.

Last week saw the unveiling of the official proposals. Set to cost $15 billion USD (or £11.2 billion GBP) to erect, the project will undoubtedly be one of steady growth, with news reports already commenting on the slow process of actually enacting the blueprints. But since the current village of Amaravati houses dusty farmlands, primitive dirt roads, and half-finished civic projects, it shouldn’t be any surprise that this new city’s development will take some time!

Locals fear that the developers’ initial promise to have the city housing “3.5 million dwellers” within the next five years isn’t so realistic — especially given the project’s lengthy timeline. Three years after President Narendra Modi laid the cornerstone for the government building, work still hasn’t seemed to exceed the planning stage. One political analyst even commented: “Nothing much has happened on the ground in Amaravati. It is still more dream than reality.”

Foster + Partners

Naturally, questions have arisen as to whether Foster’s sustainable fantasy will ever come to fruition for the people of India. Delving into the firm’s back catalog of civic projects, you’ll find that their execution and longevity in innovative builds remains unquestionable in terms of success. Foster + Partners’ work has been heralded all over the world, from their renovation of the Reichstag in Berlin to those of the Nazarbayev Center in Kazakhstan and the Treasury Building in the UK.

From libraries and public forums to labyrinthine office spaces and government buildings, the firm’s ability to devise and remodel diverse and dynamic structures that hold such ornamental power over the places they’re in lies in their unrivaled talent for fusing luxury and cutting-edge design. So keep your eyes on this space!

The post The Future of Cities: A Sustainable Man-Made Utopia first appeared on Dornob.

Conversely, some areas of technology seem frozen in time. Take, for example, the elevator. There’s really no fair way to minimize the effect that this magnificent invention had on daily life — but that was 150 years ago! That no one has been able to improve on the concept is unfathomable. Now, someone has: PLP Labs, the internal think tank of PLP Architecture in London.

The Birth of SkyPod

Think tanks have developed many wondrous strategies and inventions over the years, and SkyPod is one of the latest from PLP Labs. Around four years ago, they began researching how to transform simple elevators into looped transportation systems that could move in any direction, change their direction in milliseconds, maintain horizontal floors, and operate efficiently enough to be used in a number of different contexts.

Inspirational Models

The dawn of autonomous vehicles has aroused innovative attitudes towards transportation all around the world. If anything, it has proven that there is just as much necessity as there is interest in moving people from point A to point B more efficiently and cost effectively. If a simple elevator could move people and objects up and down skyscrapers, then surely there must be a way to move them across cities using a three-point urban system that’s user-friendly and capable of navigating twists and turns without tossing passengers or cargo to and fro. After all, roller coasters (particularly the more advanced models) successfully achieved this kind of smooth movement years ago.

How SkyPod Works

Although such futuristic technology seems like it would require laser beams or even magic to come to fruition, SkyPod is based on a simple infrastructural component that’s been around even longer than elevators: a track. Unlike a simple railroad track, the SkyPod track easily twists, tips, and turns to scale the exteriors of buildings. Similar to a gyroscope, the SkyPod car rotates in a manner that always keeps the floor horizontal. The car is stabilized by a digital configuration of magnets that simultaneously pull and resist, while the system itself is powered by a linear induction motor system comparable to those used to power Maglev trains and roller coasters. The direction SkyPod heads in is controlled by the people inside.

Hopes for the Future

SkyPod is hoping to change the way we think of vertical transport systems. Instead of merely taking passengers up and down the confines of a traditional building, SkyPod can scale virtually any structure (despite its unorthodox design). Buildings specifically built for the SkyPod system could be integrated all throughout major cities, which means you could board one near your home, stop for coffee on your way to work, and then step off into your office building without ever having to change pods. Since the pods are depressurized, the atmosphere inside is relaxing enough to read a book or just marvel at the skyline, all without jolting movements or popping ears. Another giant leap for mankind.

The post SkyPods: Taking You To New Heights (and Across Town) first appeared on Dornob.

The London-based architecture firm recently joined forces with Richard Branson’s Virgin Hyperloop One, one of the two two main projects that are currently focused on bringing the technology to life. They also plan to work with DP World, a leading world trade enabler with 78 operating marine and inland terminals supported by over 50 related businesses in over 40 countries. Together, these groups will build and operate the first intercontinental hyperloop cargo route through Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. Hyperloop stations would be integrated into the world’s major ports, with autonomous loading vehicles being used to transfer the cargo onto the driverless trains.

What is Hyperloop?

Renowned billionaire and inventor Elon Musk unveiled the Hyperloop design back in 2013 as a passenger train concept. He explained that each train would be able to travel 380 miles (roughly the distance between Los Angeles and San Francisco) in 30 minutes — half the time it takes an airplane to traverse the same distance.

Hyperloop has most commonly been described as a long tube that air is sucked out of to create a vacuum and reduce friction. Each tube will be suspended above the ground to protect the pods from the ill effects of earthquakes and inclement weather. For safety reasons, each tube will also be equipped with a few emergency escape hatches. The pods themselves will be pushed forward by dynamic electromagnets.

Cargo First

Although the ultimate goal is to transport people on Hyperloop networks, they will initially be used to move cargo only. Despite its advanced technology and miraculously high speeds, Hyperloop allegedly costs the same as current modes of public transportation. It also pollutes less, utilizing emission-free renewable energy generated by solar panels. Drones are expected to help the trains complete their cargo deliveries.

Stefan Behling, Senior Executive Partner and Head of Studio at Foster + Partners, says: “If you look at the history, whenever there’s a new transportation technology, it’s usually the cargo that comes first. People want to see the technology proven, and now it can be proven through cargo.”

The Vision for the Future

Norman Foster, the founder of Foster + Partners, adds: “The movement of people and goods is part of the vital infrastructure that binds all our cities together — and cities are the future of our society. As Hyperloop looks to reinvent urban transport and logistics, the city of the future is closer than we think.”

Foster’s predictions are right on target. Although this is Foster + Partners’ premier Hyperloop project, the firm has been on the rise for years, with other notable projects like an innovative transport system for the city of Jeddah and New Mexico’s impressive Spaceport America terminal already under their belt.

Other Hyperloop systems currently in the works include the Boring Company’s recently sanctioned project between New York and Washington D.C. and a proposed line by Fernando Romero connecting Mexico City and Guadalajara. Plans are also underway for a central European hyperloop network linking Bratislava, Vienna, and Budapest. Elsewhere, a hyperloop tunnel being designed by BIG is expected to streamline transportation in Dubai.

The post Foster + Partners Advance Hyperloop Cargo Network Project first appeared on Dornob.