next generation urban infrastructure

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Cities are already a major source of raw materials, recycling more than 400 million tonnes a year of paper and metal from their urban ore. In some particularly good countries more than 90 percent of their discarded aluminum cans are ‘mined’ and recycled into new aluminum. In a few cities, old landfills have even been mined to recover...[read more]

When we think of getting from point A to point B, we normally think along the lines of efficiency. Google Maps gives us options, categorizing our choices by route length and estimated time of travel, but nowhere does it say which the most interesting route to take is. Is public transport stuck in a 'boring' mindset?[read more]

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Solving problems at the local level, the kind encountered by inhabitants of big cities and regional centers, is becoming more and more feasible thanks to projects based on crowdsourcing technology. Crowdsourcing is getting groups of people involved in the discussion and resolution of all sorts of different problems, ranging from...[read more]

This is part two in a series of posts on the WPA 2.0: Working Public Architecture competition. Part one highlights the keynote speech by Ron Sims, Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which framed the overall competition, and explains the six finalists’ ideas. WPA 2.o was...[read more]