Intriguing project led by the Adel Design Research (ADR) Laboratory at the University of Michigan’s Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. Called a “Robotically Fabricated Structure,” it might actually be more interesting for the algorithm component than the robots.
Although the title of this absolutely fantastic talk by Marco te Brömmelstroet is “Rethinking the mobility paradigm,” it can actually be watched as a short but fun class on the power of language, on simplification, forest engineering, road engineering, Homo economicus, efficiency, optimizing for the wrong thing, and the incorrect balance between machines and humans, which we are currently living under. I also encourage you to listen and possibly research further some of the writers and books he mentions, as the lessons about thinking in systems and “seeing like a state,” among others, can be applied to a variety of fields and cases, not just cycling infrastructure.
There’s a repeating theme I’ve noticed over the last few years’ worth of changes in various cities, something that might be called the “oh, wait” moment. An old, old one we’ve mentioned before is the sidewalk curb-side “notch” which was originally popularized after the second world war when there was a surge of people in crutches and wheel chairs who needed sidewalks to be more accessible but oh, wait… it’s also proven super useful for the elderly and for parents pushing strollers. Recently it’s increased bike paths and pedestrian streets to give people some room during the pandemic but oh, wait… it’s actually appreciated year-long and not only good for active mobility but also for the business of surrounding cafes, restaurants and shops.
Sometimes articles don’t necessarily bring new facts, but they attach some exiting ideas together in a useful synthesis. This is what this article on people not returning to the office is doing. We already know that on typical days offices are still sitting half-empty, “the Kastle Back to Work Barometer currently hovers around just 41%.”
Rewilding, which consists of “conservation efforts aimed at restoring and protecting natural processes and wilderness areas,” is usually done away from cities, in more rural areas and involves, to simplify greatly, letting land go back to its natural state. The word still seems fitting though, for the two short articles below, where man-made structures are replaced with hybrid ones, bringing more nature back into, and around cities.
