Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Sidewalk Labs CEO Dan Doctoroff launch Sidewalk Toronto, a high-tech urban development project.
Mark Blinch/Reuters
Toronto has entered a joint venture with a Google sister company to create a high-tech urban development area. The goal is to ‘re-imagine cities from the internet up’ – Google’s internet, of course.
Cars are submerged on a flooded road in the Sydney suburb of Marrickville in 2012.
Alex Holver/NixPages
A massive residential development in a flood-prone inner-city suburb sounds like a recipe for disaster. But good urban design can deliver higher density and reduce the flood risk.
Lots of parking: the extraordinary amount of valuable land used to park cars in most cities could soon be freed up for other uses.
Antonio Gravante/Shutterstock
Cities around the world are starting to rethink the vast areas of land set aside for parking. The convergence of several trends likely will mean this space becomes available for other uses.
Christo Venter, University of Pretoria and Gary Hayes, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research
South Africa needs to review its approach to rolling out Bus Rapid Transit systems as the current model is proving to be too expensive and unsustainable.
Staying physically active can play a big part in ageing well – and a well-designed neighbourhood helps with that.
Maylat/shutterstock
The physical segregation of cities has a crucial role in poverty and access to public services.
An outstanding example of sustainable residential building, Breathe Architecture’s The Commons apartments in Melbourne won a 2014 National Architecture Award.
Image courtesy of Australian Institute of Architects
New South Wales is the only state that has made meaningful progress on legislation and enforcement of standards capable of creating a sustainable built environment.
Cities and their residents’ needs in public space have changed, but the type and function of the furniture are stuck in the past.
Carlos Neto/shutterstock.com
With cities becoming more dense and housing more crowded, people rely more than ever on well-designed public spaces, so why hasn’t the furniture changed with the times?
The Paul Klee Centre in Bern, Switzerland, looks great, but where are the people?
Richard Gomez Angel/Unsplash
By putting the users of buildings – people – at the centre of the process of designing buildings and infrastructure, we can create healthier, more human-centred spaces.
Generic plotting of ‘green space’ on an urban plan does not target mental wellbeing unless it is designed to engage us with the sights, sounds and smells of nature.
Zoe Myers
Successful parks and urban green spaces encourage us to linger, to rest, to walk for longer. That, in turn, provides the time to maximise the restorative mental benefits.
Green space, easily accessible to everyone no matter what their income, should be a priority in designing high-density residential areas.
Marcus Jaaske from www.shutterstock.com
Being crowded into poor-quality high-density units harms residents’ health, but design features that are known to promote wellbeing can make a big difference to the lives of low-income households.
Due to a fear of being harassed or assaulted, many women go out of their way to avoid travelling through parts of the city where sexual entertainment venues are concentrated.
Blemished Paradise/flickr
Despite the rise of feminism, strip clubs and other ‘sexual entertainment’ businesses have proliferated in our cities. And women are feeling the harmful impacts of the industry’s presence.
Melbourne’s ambitions to be a ‘20-minute city’ aren’t likely to be achieved by its recently updated planning strategy.
Nils Versemann / shutterstock.com
While many talk about 30-minute cities, some aim for residents to be able to get to most services within 20 minutes. But cities like Melbourne have an awful lot of work to do to achieve their goal.
Night-time lighting – seen here in Chongqing, China – is one of many aspects of city living that can make us more stressed.
Jason Byrne
Research shows planners and built environment professionals have surprisingly poor knowledge about how cities might harm mental health. The good news is that simple steps can make a big difference.
Residents of high-density housing might value features such as balconies, but when roads get busy this increases exposure to pollution.
Adam J.W.C./Wikipedia
Many new housing developments are being built along busy roads and rail lines, but lack design features that would reduce occupants’ exposure to harmful traffic pollution.
Men and women have starkly different experiences of public transport as they travel around the city.
Raul Lieberwirth/flickr
Most women feel unsafe when using public transport. Instead of gender segregation, researchers suggest gender-sensitive design could be a better way to ensure safety for all.
Building the hotbox dream: another housing development in Western Sydney.
Katherine Gibson
Extreme heat divides people from the environment and from each other. So with the rapid densification of our cities, what kind of legacies are we building for future generations?
The Airds Bradbury residential development has open spaces but these lack the amenities of public parks.
New research shows many good intentions for creating urban environments that promote good health were not carried through. The solutions start with engaging more closely with residents themselves.
The flat white experience is so ubiquitous that it could be anywhere.
mavo from www.shutterstock.com