Monday News Roundup

Top headlines from last week for architecture, planning and design:

The First Government-Sponsored Bike Sharing System (Planetizen)
The first North American community to offer a government-sponsored bike sharing system dubbed "Capital Bike Share" celebrates at one of D.C.'s newest parks, Yards Park.

Transitions Lenses for Buildings (Fast Company)

Windows that automatically change color to reduce heating and cooling bills are the next step of smart buildings. South Korean scientists just got a lot closer to automating them.

Bright Entryways (Apartment Therapy)
The foyer is your home's first impression. Why not make it a wow? Here are some inspiring bright entryways from across the spectrum.

"Re_Home" created for Natural Disaster Recovery (Inhabitat)

The central premise behind U of Illinois students' "Re_Home" is a fast response time in order to get families in more permanent housing. As such, Re Home is sustainable, flexible and easily set up!

 

Preservationists vs. Urbanists (Planetizen)

Preservationists are all about preserving our past while Urbanists harvest lessons from the past to create better places in the future. Seems like these two groups would get along quite well. But no.

Breathtaking Images of Spiral Staircases (1 Design Per Day)
Photos credited to Nils Eisfeld

Would you use plants to power your home electronics? (Design Milk)
Moss Table, from the 2011 London Design Festival, is an experimental table that uses plants to generate energy on a micro level.

How Temporary and Simple Places can Define City Life (Sustainable Cities)
In building urban community, it remains imperative to reassess—with simplicity in mind—and to always remember first principles, such as shelter and the wheel.

 

Monday News Roundup

The top news from last week's Twitter Feed:

Sustainable Communities Must Embrace the Familiar (Switchboard)
The path to a more environmentally benign future lies not in convincing consumers that they must change, but in giving them the things they seek in a more sustainable form.

Smaller Can Be Better When It Comes to Traffic Solutions (Planetizen)
Megaprojects like the Outer Beltway are promoted as the solution to D.C.'s traffic woes, but Schwartz says "...smaller, localized projects taken as a whole can be better than the larger, flashier projects."

Bike Shares Struggle to Work With Helmet Laws (Sustainable Cities)
Australian cities are still struggling to implement similar schemes due in part to the compulsory helmet laws.

The World's 12 Most Beautiful Train Rides (Infrastructurist)

Transportation Choices Can Keep Money Local (Sustainable Cities)
According to this infographic from Denver bikes, four of five dollars you spend on your car leave your local economy.

The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces (Kottke)
This witty and original film is about the open spaces of cities and why some of them work for people while others don't.

Urbanization Increases the Need for Sustainability (Sustainable Cities)
With the inexorable rise of urbanization come a variety of compelling reasons for making cities sustainable.

Is your city on the Top 10 List for Mass Transit Commuting? (Inhabitat)