From the category archives:
The Committee for Economic Development Australia (CEDA) has launched the ‘Inventing the Future: Shaping WA from 2010 to 2050′ initiative in an effort to provide an ongoing platform for public discourse and policy creation. The initiative kicked off earlier this month, and a series of forums are planned throughout the year. At the center of [...]
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Here’s an inspiring TED talk by Michael Pawlyn about the application of biomimicry for sustainable design. Pawlin has been involved in a great number of inspiring projects, and has had some wonderful success in approaching issues of sustainability with closed loop systems that treat waste products from different processes as inputs to others, ultimately looping [...]
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There’s a growing shift taking place across all sectors of the workforce, with 10,000 baby boomers reaching retirement age every day beginning this year. The implications of this transition is reaching near-crisis proportions, with infrastructure organizations and leading institutions faced with large gaps in their workforce. At the U.S. Department of Interior alone, a recent [...]
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The Tianjin Eco-City, a project between Singapore and China, aims to reduce the carbon emissions of China’s sixth largest city. To meet this goal, the city promises that 90 percent of the traffic within its limits will be public transportation. The city will be divided into seven distinct sectors – a Lifescape, an Eco-Valley, a [...]
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CTV has been broadcasting in Toronto for 50 years, so as a way of commemorating that landmark it has pulled together ideas of how the city will evolve in the next 50 years. As part of this coverage it looks at the future of commuting, the evolution of the city skyline, provides visualizations of the [...]
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I’ve been inspired by Storm Cunningham and his message that restoration and reclamation is a viable means to make a living. His books, The Restoration Economy and ReWealth outline the opportunities that are out there. According to Cunningham, there are $2Trillion dollars worth of projects ongoing right now in the fields of restoration and renovation [...]
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I asked Carl Bass, CEO of Autodesk, about the success of their Open Source experiment with MapGuide and its applicability to other markets that they serve. He commented that the effort has been a success based on the large number of users, but that Open Source was a bit of a ‘last gasp of the [...]
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The Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council unveiled a large 23 meter by 17 meter physical model at the Cityscape exhibition for real estate development, coupled with 16 overhead projectors that highlighted areas synced to videos on a large custom built screen. The 1:2000 model has been built and expanded upon over the past several years [...]
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A weekend trip to Taos, New Mexico provided an opportunity to stop by Earthship Biotecture and take a self-guided tour in this showcase for the Greater World Earthship Community. This highly sustainable systems-based structure is the brainchild of Michael Reynolds, and has been evolving since 1969. Taos is the highest concentration of these structures, but [...]
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The use of 3D printing for rapid prototyping in manufacturing has taken hold and led to many interesting business models according to story in today’s New York Times. One innovative company, Contour Crafting in Los Angeles, has even scaled to the point where they’re aiming to print full-size buildings with a machine the size of [...]
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