Our buildings and cities were not designed to handle a pandemic. But countries around the world are coming up with design ideas, some high-tech and some more basic, to reduce the infection risks.
The U.S. Capitol is modeled on the baroque Cathedrals of Europe, which were built to honor monarchs and popes.
Pixnio
The domed neoclassical Capitol building was inspired by European cathedrals and the Roman Pantheon – shrines to imperial power, not rule by and for the people.
People love to connect with nature and that's possible with vertical gardens on high-rise developments. But gardens need a gardener to keep things under control.
Universities and the professions are changing in response to climate change. When will the advances in knowledge and practice we are already seeing prompt governments to act with the required urgency?
A variety of clues can tip off archaeologists about a promising spot for excavation.
Gabriel Wrobel
Archaeologists used to dig primarily at sites that were easy to find thanks to obvious visual clues. But technology – and listening to local people – plays a much bigger role now.
With our travel wings clipped and cities under lockdown, heritage buildings have found new ways for us to fly over rooftops and zoom in on wallpaper.
Mona Market in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa operates on the third week of every month when traders set up temporary dwellings for the four days.
Gary Stafford
Most healers still practice in their houses where there is little privacy. Others use more private backrooms. But these spaces were not designed for the practice of traditional medicine.
The East India House, 1928. From ‘A History of Lloyd’s,’ by Charles Wright and C. Ernest Fayle.
Macmillan and Company Limited, London, 1928. Photo by The Print Collector/Getty Images
The coronavirus epidemic has made us all rethink our workspaces. But the needs of the times have always influenced the office space – whether for the colonial empire or a growing commerce.
Eko Atlantic city in Lagos is described as the largest real estate project in Africa and dubbed the “Dubai of Africa”.
Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP via Getty Images
Can you find a FedEx store that mimics the design creativity and quality of early US post offices? What are we left with when the best parts of public life are treated like for-profit entities?
Emerald ash borer larvae is removed from an ash tree in Saugerties, N.Y.
AP Photo/Mike Groll
With trees infested by the emerald ash borer deemed essentially worthless, a team of designers wanted to see if the decaying wood could be repurposed as a building material.
The Mary Cairncross Rainforest Discovery Centre respects and incorporates the local landscape.
Guymer Bailey/Scott Burrows/Norman Richards building design + interiors
The council, developers, architects and the local community got together to set the principles of what they consider good design in this fast-growing region.
Mismanaged and in disrepair, many low-income housing complexes are nonetheless seen as important avatars of modern architecture. But are calls for their preservation forgetting those who matter most?
Professor of Architecture and SARChI: DST/NRF/SACN Research Chair in Spatial Transformation (Positive Change in the Built Environment), Tshwane University of Technology