MEDIA & WEBINARS
The Olmsted Conference
Landscape architect Laurie Olin talks about Frederick Law Olmsted, the founder of American landscape architecture, and his impact on the design of college campuses.
Benoit Mandelbrot: Fractals and the art of roughness
Fractals, like the Powers of Ten, is a concept seemingly unrelated to urban design and city planning. However, understanding natural patterns and pattern recognition is a critical city planning skill. Knowing about fractals helps. The more you know, the more you know.
The Innovative Cities Lecture Series, Tom Mortensen
Review various site planning and design techniques, approaches, principles, successes, pitfalls, and roadblocks to designing Green Infrastructure. How do historical natural patterns of hydrology and landscape impact manmade, designed and manipulated patterns?
Powers of Ten
Powers of Ten illustrates the universe as an arena of both continuity and change, of everyday picnics and cosmic mystery.
What makes a city attractive?
Is there an “art of making attractive cities”? London-based alternative education group The School of Life (founded by Alain de Botton) seem to think so, and have made a video that, they claim, explains just how to do it.
My Community
My Community is a website for people and organisations who are passionate about their communities. Whether setting up a foodbank or planning finances, we all need a little help at times. My Community is the go-to place for this support.
Elevation documentary: how drones will change cities
Elevation is a short documentary by online magazine Dezeen about how drones will transform cities – revolutionizing how people travel, how goods are delivered and how buildings look and are constructed.
An interview with Thomas Friedman, “Why cities matter in an age of acceleration”.
“If you want to be an optimist, stand on your head. The world looks a lot better from the bottom up than it does from the top down.” In that phrase, said at a recent Brookings event, Tom Friedman succinctly captures the nature of American democracy and governance in the 21st century.
Building Equitable Cities
https://www.c-span.org/video/?443190-6/building-equitable-cities
Henry Cisneros, former HUD Secretary & San Antonio Mayor, provided his thoughts on how to build and expand economic growth, mobility, and opportunity in cities.
Companies using 3D printing to build houses at ‘half the time for half the price
https://www.today.com/home/companies-using-3d-printing-build-houses-half-cost-t217164
A 3D printer can build the walls of a house in as little as two days versus weeks or months with traditional construction materials.
3D printing technology has led to the creation of an amazing array of three-dimensional objects and now it’s being used to create something on a much larger scale — the house of your dreams.
The future of home building may be headed toward a 3D printing revolution with the technology being used to build homes at half the time and at half the price of traditional construction. It just might be an emerging market that builders and buyers simply cannot ignore.
Research on Climate Change Above and Beyond
This short video has several NASA scientists discussing their observations on the changing climate from the perspective of data collected on earth and from space.
Four ways to make a city more walkable.
Jeff Speck is a city planner and urban designer who advocates internationally for more walkable cities.
What is a ‘15-minute city’?
We can make city life more accessible, sustainable & enjoyable by creating “15-minute cities.” Ensuring that residents can meet all their needs within a short walk or bike ride will accelerate a green & just recovery.
Capturing the next economy Pittsburgh’s rise as a global innovation city.
Pittsburgh’s innovation economy is strong and growing, but city leaders can do more with its existing assets to compete globally and capitalize on the region’s growing innovation clusters, according to a new report from the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Initiative on Innovation and Placemaking at the Brookings Institution.
How bumble bees inspired a network of tiny museums.
Ms. Schochet offers a strategy that relies on positive actions directed at the multitude of small systems in our environment to effect positive change of the larger systems. TED with the National Academy of Sciences has provided another stimulating discussion.
Amazon’s City of The Future
What if Amazon moved its shipping centers downtown? Where drones fly into the buildings to pick up deliveries. This drone beehive is one of the ideas and patents that could be part of Amazon’s city of the future.