An overview of the cultural evolution of material flows and stocks with an emphasis on the design of metabolic processes in urban systems. Over the last several thousand years of human life on Earth, agricultural settlements became urban cores, and these regional settlements became tightly connected through infrastructures transporting people, materials, and information. This global network of…
Mathematics Education; Learning; Teaching
An illustrated history of the American city's evolution from sparsely populated village to regional metropolis. American Urban Form—the spaces, places, and boundaries that define city life—has been evolving since the first settlements of colonial days. The changing patterns of houses, buildings, streets, parks, pipes and wires, wharves, railroads, highways, and airports reflect changing …
A major proposal for a minor architecture, and for the making of spaces out of the already built. Architecture can no longer limit itself to the art of making buildings; it must also invent the politics of taking them apart. This is Jill Stoner's premise for a minor architecture. Her architect's eye tracks differently from most, drawn not to the lauded and iconic but to what she calls “the l…
A guide to today's urban cycling renaissance, with information on cycling's health benefits, safety, bikes and bike equipment, bike lanes, bike sharing, and other topics. Bicycling in cities is booming, for many reasons: health and environmental benefits, time and cost savings, more and better bike lanes and paths, innovative bike sharing programs, and the sheer fun of riding. City Cycling o…
The story of the evolution of the urban freeway, the competing visions that informed it, and the emerging alternatives for more sustainable urban transportation. Urban freeways often cut through the heart of a city, destroying neighborhoods, displacing residents, and reconfiguring street maps. These massive infrastructure projects, costing billions of dollars in transportation funds, have be…
When we look at the quality management issues that have faced, both, in Japan and the rest of the world recently, it is clear that a next-generation quality management practice is required, featuring a rational approach that will motivate people and revitalize organizations. We need to reassess the way quality management is carried out in the manufacturing industry and establish ‘Science Tota…
Experts consider green construction and the social, institutional, and cultural changes associated with it, through a sociological and organizational lens. Buildings are the nation's greatest energy consumers. Forty percent of all our energy is used for heating, cooling, lighting, and powering machines and devices in buildings. And despite decades of investment in green construction technologi…
How the BBC shaped popular perceptions of architecture and placed them at the heart of debates over participatory democracy. In the years between the world wars, millions of people heard the world through a box on the dresser. In Britain, radio listeners relied on the British Broadcasting Corporation for information on everything from interior decoration to Hitler's rise to power. One subject …