Symphonies are playing Beethoven’s 6th while walking down city sidewalks, opera singers are collaborating with hip hop musicians and entire abandoned buildings are being turned into works of art, challenging the way we view the arts and the way that art fits into our everyday world.Meg Peterson on the changing approach to art. (via thisbigcity) May 16, 2013
May 14, 2013These two Baltimore districts would look very different today if plans in the 1960s to build a highway right through them had been realised. However, the city started building the highway and then stopped, with weird results. Our latest post looks at Baltimore’s road that leads to nowhere.
Just signed up for HarvardX's free online Climate Change and Health class. See you there?
(Source: climateadaptation)
May 6, 2013
May 5, 20131) Start with a clear, clean idea
2) Lose that idea by caking on notes and research
3) Hack away at the crud until the original idea emerges(via)
May 5, 2013Recycling Sites Undergoing Urban Transformation
At vacant sites, second hand spaces draw on the atmosphere, the traces, the remains, and the history of their previous uses. Their actors develop an individual aesthetic out of the site that stands out due to its simplicity and improvised quality. New ideas are tested, and elements of surprise are created in the city.
What is Resilience? is a nifty, free, 20page, visual ebook overview defining resilience. It’s free, and published by the researchers at the Stockholm Resilience Centre. (Free ebook is free.)
Resilience is the capacity of a system, be it an individual, a forest, a city or an economy, to deal with change and continue to develop. It is about the capacity to use shocks and disturbances like a financial crisis or climate change to spur renewal and innovative thinking.
This publication presents the major strands within resilience thinking and social-ecological research. It describes the profound imprint we humans have had on nature and ideas on how to deal with the resulting challenges.
The publication is based on three scientific articles that were prepared for the 3rd Nobel Laureate Symposium on global sustainability, which took place in Stockholm in May 2011. The articles were later published in the scientific journal Ambio. They represent a mix of necessary actions and exciting planetary opportunities. They also illustrate how we can use the growing insights into the many challenges we are facing by starting to work with the processes of the biosphere instead of against them.
Chapter One describes in detail the complex interdependencies between people and ecosystems. It highlights the fact that there are virtually no ecosystems that are not shaped by people and no people without the need for ecosystems and the services they provide. Too many of us seem to have disconnected ourselves from Nature. A shift in thinking will create exciting opportunities for us to continue to develop and thrive for generations to come.
Chapter Two takes us through the tremendous acceleration of human enterprise, especially since World War II. This acceleration is pushing the Earth dangerously close to its boundaries, to the extent that abrupt environmental change cannot be excluded. Furthermore, it has led scientists to argue that the current geological period should be labelled the ‘Antropocene’ – the Age of Man.
Chapter Three highlights the fascinating paradox that the innovative capacity that has put us in the current environmental predicament can also be used to push us out of it. It introduces the term social-ecological innovation, which essentially strives to find innovative ways to reconnect with the biosphere and stay within planetary boundaries.
Enjoy! :)
May 2, 2013