Get up on phygital design and #techresilience with this smart cities video discussion series. Check out the latest release, episode 2 ‘The Bench,’ featuring a review of Street Furniture Australia’s prototype Aria Smart Bench with PowerMe Table.
Smart Cities Council Executive Director Adam Beck, and Place Design Group Director Chris Isles have teamed up to film their travels and chats about future change for cities, towns and regions, and how our lives will be affected now, and beyond.
We liked this update of the hierarchy of needs pyramid:
5 biases behind share bike dumping:
We use decision-making shortcuts to abdicate our responsibility for the bikes we leave in dodgy places, writes behavioural researcher Conor Wynn, phD candidate with BehaviourWorks and the Monash Sustainable Development Institute, on the Conversation.
“We see an action that leads to harm as worse than lack of action that leads to harm. We don’t see inaction, such as failing to park a bike in a safe and appropriate spot, as particularly wrong, even though it still leads to damage,” he says.
“So, a user is likely to justify leaving the share bike somewhere dodgy on the basis that they didn’t do anything wrong. What they won’t admit to unfortunately is they exposed the bike to the risk of vandalism. If more share bikes were left in safer places, the incidence of share-bike littering would be likely to fall.”
This, called omission bias, is just one mental tactic that comes into play when choosing where to leave a share bike – Wynn describes five in his article, and he has tips on how to prevent the assets from ending up in rivers and trees, taking these biases into account.
Making it more clear where it’s safe or unsafe to park a bike, making penalties immediate rather than something to worry about later, and sending timely reminders to riders through their app that a penalty is highly likely if they behave in certain ways, could all help to alleviate the problem of share bike litter, he says.
Successful products are often followed by copycats. Over the past year we have become aware of an increase in reproductions of the Linea range attempting to create a similar aesthetic at a lower price. This can compromise the overall durability and environmental credentials of projects being delivered, affect ongoing maintenance requirements, and in some instances pose a risk of injury to the public. The design of Linea is deceptively simple while delivering exceptional attention to detail. Details matter not only for beauty, but also for providing durability, and safety, that will last decades. Linea strictly uses the highest quality and sustainable materials, has passed rigorous strength tests, and is designed for longevity, with easily replaceable parts. The product range is the result of hundreds of hours of research and development …
Street Furniture Australia’s entire product range and manufacturing operation has received carbon neutral certification through Climate Active™. Achieving carbon neutral certification marks a significant milestone in our operation and the culmination of a four year long process of detailed measurement and analysis. Climate Active™ is the only Australian government-backed carbon neutral certification programme for businesses to measure, reduce, and offsets their carbon emissions. It is one of the most rigorous carbon-neutral programs in the world. An approved Emissions Reduction Strategy (ERS) is central to achieving certification through Climate Active. Street Furniture Australia has elected to use SBTi validated science-based targets to ensure their ERS is meaningful and aligns with the 2015 Paris Agreement – to limit global temperature rises to 1.5℃ above pre-industrial levels. For those emissions that can’t be …
Our Presentation Specialists bring a fun, interactive and informative workshop about our carbon neutral journey and latest products to your office. In 30 minutes (plus Q&A) you will explore materials and finishes, touch and feel samples, and bond with your colleagues over delicious treats in the comfort of your office. There will also be a mystery prize for a lucky winner (optional). ‘The presentation content was informative, engaging, interactive and relevant. Genuinely one of the better supplier workshops! It was efficient yet insightful. The interactive nature of it enhanced engagement with the team,’ Sam Westlake, Senior Associate, Hassell, Sydney. ‘Possibly our favourite product presentation to date! Engaging, great content and appreciated the physical samples and prototypes,’ Alexa Ongoco, Senior Landscape Architect, TCL, Brisbane. ‘Thorough presentation with actual product to see and …
The stories you missed while enjoying the beach this summer. Musk says public transport “sucks”: Elon Musk came under fire in December after commenting that public transport is “painful” and “sucks.” He then called a public transport expert, via Twitter, “an idiot.” Asked by an audience member about his take on transport and urban sprawl at a Tesla event during the Neural Information Processing Systems Conference in California, Wired reports the Tesla, Boring Company and SpaceX CEO replied: “There is this premise that good things must be somehow painful. “I think public transport is painful. It sucks. Why do you want to get on something with a lot of other people, that doesn’t leave where you want it to leave, doesn’t start where you want it to start, doesn’t end where you want it to …
Uber to work with NASA for Flying Taxis: Ride sharing giant Uber has announced it will work with NASA to bring flying taxis to Los Angeles by 2020. Project Elevate will develop four-person, electric, vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft, regulated by an air traffic control system to be developed by NASA with a number of industry partners as part of its Space Act Agreement. The agreement aims to ensure safe and efficient operations of small aerial systems like drones and eventually small aircraft flying at low altitudes, to keep sky traffic orderly. Uber envisions commuters catching air taxis from the top of skyscrapers, and delivering them to their homes in the suburbs. It hopes to build a fleet of electric jet-powered vehicles – part helicopter, part drone, part fixed-wing aircraft – running multiple rotors to take off and land vertically, and fly horizontally …
Rich millennials drop golf for ‘agrihoods’: Twenty-five years ago moving near a golf course was a status symbol, largely for the green space and views, but millennials aren’t interested in that type of manicured neighbourhood, writes the Business Insider. Forget empty swathes of green, millennials are more interested in farm-to-table living, with around 150 master-planned housing communities built around working farms, known as agricultural neighbourhoods or ‘agrihoods’ appearing around the US. The homes feature solar panels and composting, and are often minutes from city centres so as to not sacrifice work opportunities for lifestyle. The trend means that in some places, communities are doing away with golf courses to make room for sustainable living. Read more. Photo by Rancho Mission Viejo, Facebook. The war on sitting: US and UK city councils can’t …
