Interview with Anthony Flint, Author of “Wrestling with Moses: How Jane Jacobs Took on America’s Master Builder and Transformed the American City” Anthony Flint, author of “Wrestling with Moses: How Jane Jacobs Took On New York’s Master Builder and Transformed the American City” (Random House, 2009), is director of public affairs at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, a think tank in Cambridge, Mass. A journalist for 20 years, primarily at The Boston Globe, he is also author of “This Land: The Battle over Sprawl and the Future of America” (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006). In your new book, “Wrestling with Moses: How Jane Jacobs Took on New York’s Master Builder and Transformed the American City,” you write about Jane Jacob’s efforts to stop Robert Moses’s major highway plans, which would have decimated Greenwich Village’s Washington Square Park, major parts of the West Village and SoHo, Little Italy, Chinatown, and the Lower East Side. They certainly are a stark contrast and both remarkable people in their own ways, and that’s why it was so much fun to write this book and why I think it’s a marvelous and theatrical story.
Paolo Bacigalupi Imagines A Future Starved For Energy : 13.7: Cosmos And Culture Fiction can be many things: a means to escape the world; a platform for weaving a finely crafted story; a way to explore lives and circumstance that define our humanity. Science fiction has the extra burden of creating entire worlds of technology and future history and hoping the reader finds them believable. At its best science fiction can do what other genre's can not — help us imagine futures that may lie just before us. Though I am a bit late in finding Paolo Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl (it was published in 2009) it belongs in that "at its best" category. While other authors have explored this territory before The Windup Girl presents us with a fully fleshed-out vision of the world after oil. It's no secret that we are hurtling towards the cliff our dependence on fossil fuels. The Windup Girl takes on the world 150 years or so after "The Expansion" has ended. The Windup Girl also brings two other facets of our near future to the fore.
Mark Granovetter Un article de Wikipédia, l'encyclopédie libre. Mark Granovetter est un sociologue américain, né en 1943 à Jersey City, de l’université Stanford[1], considéré comme l'un des principaux représentants de la sociologie des réseaux sociaux. Idées majeures[modifier | modifier le code] Liens forts et Liens faibles[modifier | modifier le code] Son apport à la recherche le plus connu concerne la diffusion de l'information dans une communauté : Sa théorie est connue sous le nom de la « force des liens faibles » (Strength of weak ties, 1973)[2]. Cet article de 1973 sur la "force des liens faibles" est l'un des plus cités de la littérature sociologique. Les liens forts sont ceux que l'on a avec des amis proches (il s'agit de relations soutenues et fréquentes). Les liens faibles sont faits de simples connaissances. Les liens absents sont eux caractérisés par une absence d'interaction. Triade impossible[modifier | modifier le code] Concept d'encastrement[modifier | modifier le code]
Book - Contemporary Green Buildings in China China is going through massive changes at the moment ranging from economy and society to culture. The bilt environment is definitely also part of this. Was it just four years back only about bringing prestigious names and projects into the country has this evolved into a wide ranging ecology and sustainability trend. Probably fueled by the western input, Cina has leapfrogged directly into the sustainability discussion and this directly influences the project planing and delivery. A lot of projects are now not only seeked for their architect's prestigious name or the avantgarde design, but marketed for its sustainable value. Politically China has already implemented long term strategies on how to develop expected growth sustainable with the twelfth Five-Year Plan and in 2010 also proclaimed ambitious climate targets. The publication is largely informed by the project 'Germany - China moving ahead together' centers on modern and future oriented development plans.
Fifty books every child should read Fifty books every child should read APR 07 2011 From the UK newspaper, The Independent, a list of fifty books every eleven year old should read. Tweet Read more posts on kottke.org about: best of books lists kottke.org Front pageAbout + contactSite archives Tara Hunt : L’effet Whuffie -Tirer parti de la puissance des rés A l’occasion du passage à Paris de Tara Hunt, nous avons le plaisir de vous annoncer la parution de l’édition française de son livre, The Whuffie factor, au cours du premier trimestre 2010. Voici l’avant-propos d’un livret reprenant un court extrait de ce livre, rédigé par Luc Bretones, spécialiste des communautés online, membre de l’Institut G9+. Ce livret a été distribué le 8 décembre aux 350 participants de la rencontre annuelle du G9+ - « L’entreprise face aux réseaux sociaux » – dont Tara Hunt était l’invitée d’honneur. « Les communautés en ligne changent les cultures, le business et l’environnement du Web 2.0. Rejoignez Tara Hunt, véritable pionnière du marketing en ligne, blogueuse sur et célèbre auteur de « The Whuffie Factor ». Tara nous invite à utiliser le pouvoir des réseaux sociaux pour développer nos activités, notre « capital social ». S’immerger dans le monde des médias sociaux implique authenticité, écoute et confiance.
Hidden gems on Toronto architecture and design I try to keep pretty good tabs on Toronto-based book publications, especially those that relate to architecture and photography. But, inevitably, one manages to overlook certain titles that would make worthy additions to any collection of books about this city. Such is the case with the publications of Dominion Modern, the gallery space and Canadian architecture and design archive, which I'm somewhat ashamed to admit I only recently discovered. We'll have more on the gallery and its exhibitions in an upcoming profile, but the books are so good it'd be a shame not to feature them in their own right. In the case of the former two publications, one encounters a wonderful and visually compelling record of modern structures in Toronto, many of which have been lost over the years. Dominion Modern's publications were a lot less hidden a few years ago when one could find them at the now defunct Ballenford Books and Pages, but that's not to day that they're actually tough to get one's hands on.
Book Review: The Internet and Everyone I’ve been re-reading "The Internet and Everyone" by John Chris Jones. I’ve been astonished once again by the sensibility of an artist-writer-designer whose philosophy – indeed his whole life - first inspired me when I was a young magazine editor more than 30 years ago. Like another muse of mine, Ivan Illich, John Chris Jones was decades ahead of his time. The time is ripe now for a wider readership. He wrote about cities without traffic signals in the 1950s – sixty years before today’s avant garde urban design experiments. In the 1960s, Jones was an advocate of what today is called call ‘design thinking’; (then, it was called design methods). He advocated user-centered design well before the term was widely used. As a kind of industrial gamekeeper turned poacher, Jones went on to warn about the potential dangers of the digital revolution unleashed by Claude Shannon. This post originally appeared on John's blog Doors of Perception.
Vous pouvez Ask the Planet: Introducing Children to Biomimicry through Music Nominated by Hesseltje S. van Goor My grant goes to the Biomimicry Institute and their new children’s CD, Ask the Planet and its sister-website, AskNature.org. As Bioneers Radio Show host/producer Neil Harvey describes it: a musical celebration of nature’s genius … designed to connect children to nature, create a sense of awe for the environment, and teach them about the concepts of biomimicry. Coming at a time where climate crisis has gained international recognition, the field of Biomimetics has done more than simply provide us with new consumer products such as Velcro and eco-friendly, self-cleaning paint. Initiatives such as the Ask the Planet CD do more than just connect children to nature through music. You can listen to excerpts of the CD here and view the official newspage here. This piece is part of Worldchanging's Attention Philanthropy campaign. Thank you so much for nominating these two projects from The Biomimiicry Institute.
Urban Omnibus " The Omnibus Roundup – Plug-in Cruise Ships ... Queen Mary 2 | photo by Flickr user Joe Holmes CRUISE SHIPS TO PLUG-IN AT RED HOOKThe New York Times City Room reports that the Queen Mary 2 and other large ships will be required to plug in to giant electrical sockets in the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal starting in 2012. This marks a major win for the residents of Red Hook, who have been fighting to stop air and water pollution caused by standing vessels. Before and After look at Times Square Pedestrian Plaza | Image nymag.com TIMES SQUARE AIR QUALITY IMPROVED FROM PEDESTRIAN PLAZA A new Health Department report was released this week documenting information from the New York City Community Air Survey (NYCCAS), a comprehensive survey of street-level air quality in the five boroughs created as part of PlaNYC. SPRING IN THE CITYIn the spirit of spring, check out New Yorkers for Parks’ 2011 Blooming Map, a charming resource to find where daffodils are blooming in over 55 parks across the New York. Burple Bup rendering by Bittertang
Books Received: Climate Futures List A rash of recent books about the geographic implications of climate change have crossed my desk. In this themed supplement to BLDGBLOG's ongoing Books Received series, I thought I'd group them together into one related list. [Image: Courtesy of the Wall Street Journal]. What many of the books described in this post have in common—aside from their shared interest in what a climatically different earth will mean for the future of human civilization—is their use of short, fictionalized narratives set in specific future years or geographic regions as a way of illustrating larger points. These narrative scenarios—diagnostic estimates of where we will be at some projected later date—come with chapter titles such as "Russia, 2019," "China, 2042," "Miami Beached," and "Holland 2.0 Depolderized." "Will Manhattan Flood?" [Image: Modeling sea-level rise in Florida, courtesy of Penn State]. However, climate change is only one of the world-altering forces under discussion in each of these six books.
Book Review: Urban Interventions - Personal Projects in Public Spaces Urban Interventions - Personal Projects in Public Spaces, edited by Robert Klanten and Matthias Huebner (available on Amazon UK and USA.) Publisher Gestalten says: This book is a striking collection of the personal, often playful and thought-provoking installations in urban environments that use and react to walls, traffic signs, trees, ads, and any and all elements of the modern city. It is the first book to document these very current art projects - as well as their interplay with fine art, architecture, performance, installation, activism and urbanism - in a comprehensive way. This perceptive work brings art to the masses and helps us to rediscover our every day surroundings. View inside the book Urban Interventions might be surprising, fun and delightful but it does not stop at the anecdotal and amusing. Curator, writer and artist Lukas Feiress wrote one of the introductory texts for the book. The book presents 200 works. Felice Varini, Cercle et suite d'éclats Photo: Betty Pabst