"Auto"-Mobile Beijing

Beijing’s bicycle culture needs a comeback. Cars, roads, and smog now consume the city, as “modern” residents leave their bicycles behind. This project proposes a bicycle transit centre prototype for Beijing, woven as a network into the elevated highways that dominate the once human-scale city. The bicycle centres create an attractive alternative lifestyle to catalyse a bicycle revival in Beijing.

Read more over at Velo-City - Link or Bustler - Link

Bikehangar: 1 car = 12 bike spaces

Smarthangars are a compact communal bike storage solution that can be installed in any existing car parking space, providing those living or working locally places to securely store their bicycles. Operated by secure smart card system, the design allows spaces to be rented out for long term or short term use, creating a sustainable economic model for bike storage in the city. 

Bicycle theft and the lack of secure cycle parking is a huge problem facing many cities. This is one of the major inhibitors to the growth of cycling and research has shown that a third of those who have experienced theft stop cycling.

Bicycle shelters and lockers offer the best security by fully enclosing the whole bike away from potential thieves. However it is often expensive and difficult to find space to install these large and bulky structures in our crowded cities.

Where can we find space for bicycle parking? If we look at our streets, cars often line up both sides of the road. These large machines take up large amounts of space and make our streets less permeable.

The solution is to convert these readily available car parking spaces into bicycle parking.

1 car = 12 bicycle spaces
Read more at Velo-City - Link

The Secret Second Lives of Pizza Huts

The first Pizza Hut opened in 1958 in Wichita, Kansas, the brainchild of hometown boys Dan and Frank Carney. It got its name, according to lore, from Dan Carney's wife, who thought the small building that housed it looked like a hut.

But the Carneys' project could not long be contained. As they expanded, they commissioned an architect named Richard D. Burke to design a building that they could call their own -- a hut in name only, recognizable to all comers. These "Red Roof" locations multiplied rapidly, eventually numbering in the thousands. The company has discontinued the design and changed its business model to emphasize delivery and other types of outlets. But the distinctive silhouettes of those buildings remain one of the most reliable and recognizable features of the suburban landscape, even if a lot of them are no longer Pizza Huts.

Read more on The Atlantic Cities - Link

Squeeze is on as Australia's populations boom

Almost 10 million migrants over the next 50 years will swell Australia's population to more than 40 million by 2060 and more than 50 million by 2100, under dramatically higher new projections by the Bureau of Statistics.

Read more here

The 10 Smartest Asia/Pacific Cities

All smart cities, including those on this list, are on the journey towards being smarter, but none of them have arrived. Asia Pacific is a region with unique challenges and opportunities in the smart cities arena. China’s cities are growing at an unprecedented pace stressing their infrastructure and creating significant congestion and air contamination challenges. This has lead the national government to support the creation of dozens of new purpose-built smart cities, 100 of which will have over 1 million people in a decade or so.

Japan is home to many innovative technology and automotive companies looking to implement their solutions in Japan and abroad. Yet they have the opposite problem from China in that they have a declining population. What can Japanese cities do to attract creative, entrepreneurial citizens from around the world to infuse innovation and growth into their economies?

Farther south, Australia and New Zealand offer a very high quality of life as measured by most criteria. Yet these cities in general provide poor access to quality, efficient, and green public transit and are often more sprawled than many North American cities. Australian and New Zealand cities will need to grow up more than out, and invest more in multi-modal transit options for their citizens as they continue on the smart cities journey.

Turn Your Car Into a Ferrari

Want to roll like a baller but with the means of a scrub? Benedetto Bufalino has got you covered, then, with this not-at-all-absurd shell that transforms your Volvo into an asphalt-scorching Ferrari.

Star Wars, Star Trek, Starpath!

The spectral blue glow emitted from this British bike path looks like it should be pulsing off of magic crystals inside some miles-deep cavern. But if it saves a rider from road rash or fractured bones, then more power to the folks who made it: Let's get even more parts of the cycle infrastructure lit up like Marie Curie's lab table.

The so-called "Starpath" is a type of solar-enhanced liquid and aggregate made by Pro-Teq Surfacing, a company headquartered southwest of London near the awesomely titled town of Staines-upon-Thames. It's in the prototype phase, with a test path running 460 feet in a Cambridge park called Christ's Pieces. (The British and their delightful names!) The material works by absorbing UV rays during the day and later releasing them as topaz light. In a weird feature, it can somehow adjust its brightness levels similar to the screen of an iPhone; the path gets dimmer on pitch-black nights "almost like it has a mind of its own," says Pro-Teq's owner, Hamish Scott.

For those art urbanophiles out there

Possessing some semblance of city pride is important, just ask anyone from Sydney or Melbourne who's the better city. Melbournians will say "look at our laneways, graffiti and small bars", Sydneysiders will say "well we copied you with our laneways and trendy bars but try beat us with great weather and beaches, plus we had the Olympics and Kathy Freeman!

Once a city has embraced you, spit you out and taken you back in, a special, unbreakable bond is formed, much like zombies and brains, except better. Respect that bond and your walls by hanging up a graphically designed map or skyline. Unfortunately only the some of the world cities have these visually satisfying prints but I'm working on some local adaptations. Hit me up if you're interested.

How Online Mapmakers Are Helping the Red Cross Save Lives in the Philippines

Volunteers across the world are building the digital infrastructure for the organisation's Typhoon Haiyan relief efforts.

Why We Need to Design Streets for Pedestrians, Not Cars

After World War II, a mass-exodus from the city to the suburbs occurred in America. There was an opportunity to spread out. Own a home with a green lawn. And drive your own car. These pursuits became associated with the American Dream. The sprawl that resulted left many Americans siloed. Distanced from each other. No longer connected to the wider community.  

 

If we follow the logic that we are products of our environment, it stands to reason that social isolation fosters a need to further isolate. Our comfort zone leans towards staying at home watching TV rather than sitting on a cafe patio. We crave social interaction so we play World of Warcraft or other multi-player games. Deep at our core we know that we're social creatures who need to be socialized with a broad range of people to be happy. But our environment has made it difficult to run into new people. 

Read more on Good.is