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Covid-19

Trend Watch May 2020

Podcast by Two Urban Designers – From Shopping Malls to Coronavirus: Adelaide (un)Planned is a slick and engaging podcast exploring design and planning in Adelaide, South Australia – the good, bad and (sometimes) ugly. What is it that makes this city one of the most liveable in the world? Presented by Michael McKeown, Director and Urban Designer at Jensen PLUS, and Daniel Bennett, Urban Design Strategy Lead with Architectus, the podcast has recently celebrated its tenth episode. Each instalment features conversations with some of Adelaide’s leading thinkers, planners and design professionals, selected for their opinions, insights, stories and good humour. Expect discussion about well-known and changing places, streets and developments, and topical chats about landscape, transport, the environment and civic leadership. We recommend starting with episode seven, Coronavirus and the …

  • 25 may 2020
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Trend Watch November 2020

Seoul is Planning ‘Wind Path Forests’ to Direct Fresh Air to the CBD: Seoul has announced plans to bring a concept called ‘wind path forests’ to life, to direct clean air into the city, absorb particles and lessen the urban heat island effect. Trees will be placed close together along rivers and roads to create wind paths so clean and cool air generated at night from Gwanaksan Mountain and Bukhansan Mountain can flow into the centre of Seoul. Three kinds of forests will direct and purify air, according to Cities Today. Wind-generating forests, including species such as pine trees and maple trees, will be cultivated so that they direct the fresh air from the forest to flow towards the city. Connecting forests will feature air-purifying plants, such as wild cherry …

  • 19 nov 2020
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Trend Watch December 2020

Google allowing employees to hold some meetings outdoors: Google has begun holding in-person meetings outdoors on company campuses as it prepares for employees to return to offices next year, according to CNBC. The company said it is trialing socially-distanced meeting formats called “onsite off-sites” as it tries to find ways to hold more employee collaboration amid the pandemic, and to bring aboard new hires. Google was the first major tech company to ask employees to stay home when the pandemic started, and is now experimenting with ways to gather people on campuses slowly and safely. It gave workers the option to work from home until summer of 2021. In September, after finding that most employees wanted to return in a part-time capacity, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the company would …

  • 8 dec 2020
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Trend Watch May 2021

12 Principles for an Effective Urban Response to Covid-19: UN-Habitat, the United Nations agency for human settlements and sustainable urban development, has developed 12 key principles to help local and national governments to prevent the spread of the virus and build preparedness for the future. The principles relate to accessibility, flexibility, design, management and maintenance, connectivity, and equitable distribution, and cover short, medium and long-term interventions. Read about them on ArchDaily. One in four cities cannot afford climate crisis protection measures: One in four cities around the world lack the money to protect themselves against climate breakdown, even though more than 90% are facing serious risks, according to research by the Carbon Disclosure Project. A survey of 800 cities found that 43%, representing a combined population of 400 million people, …

  • 28 may 2021
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Trend Watch December 2021

Making a city sloth-friendly: By Sarah Holder “A conservation foundation in Costa Rica is trying to help the tree-dwelling mammals survive rapid urbanisation by building road crossings,” writes Sarah Holder for Bloomberg CityLab. As a result of rapid population and infrastructure growth in Costa Rica, many sloth populations have been all but eliminated. Costa Rica’s Sloth Conservation Foundation founder, Rebecca Cliffe, says it’s not too late to protect the slow creatures, “We’ve got such a good opportunity in this region to try and achieve this coexistence and balance … There’s still a chance to reverse the damage and do things the right way.” The ideal habitat for a sloth, she says, is “a dense forest canopy, which well-camouflaged animals can navigate without drawing attention to themselves or running into ground-dwelling …

  • 9 dec 2021
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Trend Watch January 2022

Design For Forest: by Zaš Brezar In Europe, landscape architects are using simple interventions to manipulate the use of forests while prioritising their essential environmental function, writes Zaš Brezar for Landezine. Landscape architects, Zaš writes, can “bring forests closer to people in a meaningful and careful way. Empowering bonds between landscapes and people is one of the most important tasks of our profession. We maintain what we appreciate.” Strengthening the existing, and designing by maintenance rather than from scratch, is central to designing forests with conservation and care in mind, they say. In Strandskogen Arninge Ullna, a park in Sweden, landscape architects maintained “existing ambiences” by choreographing visitors’ movement through the dense riparian forest on elevated walkways. “This way, they have minimised the impact of people staying in the woods …

  • 17 jan 2022
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