The best kindergarten you’ve ever seen: At Fuji Kindergarten outside Tokyo, kids are encouraged to follow their impulses to run, climb, slide and play. Their oval-shaped school, with a low round roof for infinite running games, is designed by Tokyo-based firm

How enviro sensors will change the world: As sensors become small and cheap, we’re creating a global network of environmental data collection to help us figure out the best ways to quickly cut emissions, writes Sean Captain via FastCoExist. It has

Print-it-yourself street furniture Inspired by WikiHouse, an open-source, easy-to-assemble home, Better Block has launched WikiBlock, an open-data hub with a library of print-on-demand placemaking tools. Users can download free plans and assembly manuals for a collection of 29 objects including stages, kiosks,

The science of happy cities: Happy City, a Canadian organisation, makes the case for retrofitting cities for happiness and argues that streets, parks, shopping centres, housing estates – most urban infrastructure – can be designed to make people feel happier,

smart pavement: Melbourne design agency Büro North is proposing in-ground traffic lights to safeguard pedestrians glued to their smartphones. Architecture & Design reports that the firm developed the idea following reports of accidents involving players of the augmented reality game Pokémon Go (see our

Floating Piers: More than one million people are reported to have walked on water at Lake Iseo in northern Italy, courtesy of two miles of fabric walkways called the Floating Piers. The project was conceived by Christo and his late wife Jeanne-Claude

Superblocks to the rescue: Barcelona’s radical new strategy will restrict traffic to a number of big roads, drastically reducing pollution and turning secondary streets into citizen spaces for culture, leisure and the community. “In a city as dense as ours,

The next Highline: underground? Smart optics bring natural light and flourishing plants to the Lowline experiment, a foray into subterranean parks. “It is lit by soft, bright rays that bounce off an aluminium canopy. When a cloud passes by, it gets

Retro phone booths are being up-cycled as Wi-Fi hotspots throughout Australia. Late last year, Telstra launched a trial of 1000 new Wi-Fi hotspots across Australia. The trial involved converting some existing Telstra payphones into Wi-Fi hotspots that allowed users to access the internet using

Public spaces are being transformed with illuminated bollards, seating and tables. These contemporary designs are increasingly seen in private and commercial spaces, including Western Australia’s Northbridge Piazza. Eye catching illuminated seats were used to create a sense of welcome and