Yule Heibel's Library tagged psfk →  View Popular, Search in Google

Weird, or just common sense (to create pocket parks, etc.)?
QUOTE
“Urban acupuncture is a surgical and selective intervention into the urban environment,” said Los Angeles architect and professor John Southern in an interview, “instead of large scale projects that involve not only thousands of acres, but investment and infrastructure that municipalities can no longer provide.”
UNQUOTE
Compare this to other reports on Tokyo's stalled development climate, where sites are turned into surface parking lots (awful, malignant) instead of parks.

psfk acupuncture cities urban_energy urban_amenities urban_design

Can't sell copies of anything anymore if it's easy to make copies. So what's left? "[Kevn Kelly] sees the solution to this conundrum hinging on being able to identify qualities that themselves can’t be copied and believes we must do this from the perspective of a user. Kelly refers to these as “generatives” - things that are better than free."

psfk kevin_kelly capitalism economics web_2.0

In a way, the ideas in here echo Fred Wilson and Howard Lindzon, who have said that we'd be better served by a bust-up not a bail-out of the automobile industry. Not a bust-up in the sense of 'destroy them,' but rather break them up into smaller pieces, make them perform better and meet customer needs. Find niches, instead of hogging the field. "You can have any color you want as long as it's black." That model doesn't hold anymore.

psfk automobile bailout design niche

I wonder whether something like this could be used to power city streetlights? Just stick the poles in the ground, and ...?
QUOTE
Sounding like something out of a science fair project, the Soil Lamp runs on mud. Designer Marieke Staps says that the metabolism of biological life within the soil produces enough electricity to power the lamp’s LED bulb. The mud is housed within copper and zinc cells that conduct the electricity produced within the wet soil. Maintenance is simple - pour a little water in the dirt, and the lamp will keep going.
UNQUOTE

psfk lighting environment innovation

Nice article on the "new" social networking, with a special look at likemind meet-ups, the un-network.
QUOTE:
"Likemind gatherings have no formal structure, no fees and typically no agenda. But participants exchange ideas, job tips and useful contacts, while also batting around ideas about technology, art, business and culture."

nyt likemind socialnetworks socialtheory piers_fawkes psfk

PSFK's Piers Fawkes writes an entry that provides the links (now available on Google Video) to the BBC series, "How Buildings Learn," by Stewart Brand. In addition to the six parts (each ~30 min. long), Fawkes includes some choice quotes.

For those who know and appreciated Stewart Brand's book, this series is a great addition.

psfk piers_fawkes architecture stewart_brand buildings television bbc

PSFK's round-up of trends (recent, 2008). Top of the heap in the list: lists, aka data (how to sort, how to represent, how to use); next, urbanism (varieties).

psfk trends 2008

I watched this video a couple of days ago (via PSFK's Twitter feed), and loved the emphases brought to light by the interviews.

- Entrepreneurs liked the density of the city -- the ability to encounter colleagues by chance, run into folks, rub shoulders;
- Some talked about liking the "small" aspects of San Francisco: that there isn't *so* much going on to distract one's attention from the tasks (work) at hand

I thought that latter point was kind of intriguing, something to remember when someone once again goes off on how it's such a bad thing that *this* isn't as happening a place as NYC or <snort> Toronto.

entrepeneurialism psfk cities san_francisco socialnetworks