Simulations Help Predict How People Panic
Sadly there are still incidents of death that are a result of people panicking while evacuating spaces. For decades engineers have looked into ways to make buildings easy to evacuate…
Adam Clare
Cities Improve Parking by Removing Parking Spaces
Car culture greatly damaged urban centres the world over and now cities are trying to undo the damage. Smart cities are banning cars from certain areas, installing bike lanes, more…
Toronto’s Green Roofs Keep Growing
Back in 2006 we first looked at how green roofs were becoming a development issue in Toronto, in 2009 Toronto implemented that green roof bylaw. Then in 2014 we took…
Why Watching Game of Thrones is Good for Your Relationship
Binge watching TV shows is common for a lot of couples, and that’s good. There are debates around the merit of binge watching and whether or not consuming media that…
UK Bans Fising in a Million Square Kilometres
The UK will be banning commercial fishing in approximately one million kilometres of their ocean waters. The country is expanding their marine protection areas in the Atlantic and Pacific around…
Atmospheric Acidity Levels Return to Preindustrial Levels
Repairing the damage humans have done to the environment is a slow process but it can be done! Thanks to policies put in place by leading economies (the article sites…
3 Day Weekends Can Future Proof Work
A more efficient work week comes from rest, relaxation, and working less. We’ve looked at the idea that a more relaxed approach to work makes things better for everybody before…
An Ad Campaign That Sells More Than a Product
It can be hard navigating the world as a person with a disability, be it mental or physical, and it can be even harder to make friends. Unfortunately there is…
A Playground Where Kids Play With Tools
Kids need places to play, and those playgrounds need to encourage community, exploration, and more. Designing a good playground can be harder than it sounds, it’s not as easy as…
Trams Win For Moving People
Traffic is a problem in every city, and more and more people are concerned with the most efficient way of getting people from A to B. It turns out we…
Teenage Pregnancy Rates Plummet Thanks to Birth Control
Just over a decade ago the documentary The Education of Shelby Knox looked at how pathetically backwards sex education is in the USA. Thanks to documentaries and compounding evidence that…
Bicycling is the Safest Form of Transportation
In Toronto, the car rules the road so much so that the city is fine with non-driver (that’s everyone) deaths, and the city won’t do much to stop drivers from…
Men Shouldn’t Worry About Being Breadwinners
Gender stereotypes and expectations aren’t good for anybody, and there’s more and more evidence that men who worry about having to be the primary income earners hurts their health. The…
What Will We Think of the Banks in Years to Come?
IN this TED talk, Michael Metcalfe wonders how will we look back on banks in the future. Will we think of the banks as an unethical industry that contributed greatly…
Walkable Streets Solve Nearly Every Problem
Anybody who lives in a city knows that walkability of neighbourhoods is a key reason they live where they do. The attraction to mobility options, safe places, cultural and economic…
Incremental Design to Address Housing Inequality
Basically every nation has basic housing problems that need to be addressed. Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena won this year’s Pritzker Architecture Prize because of his work on community housing. It…
Activists in SF Try to Get Drivers to Obey the Law
This year in Toronto drivers have been murdering non-drivers at a record rate. Of course, collisions causing casualties are all avoidable – drivers should watch where they are going and…
Don’t be Trendy, Buy Clothes for Time and Style
Fast fashion has grown in popularity this century thanks to fast computer aided design and a global trade system that favours sweatshops over adequately paid labour. This consumer driven world…
Scotland Generated Enough Renewable Energy to Power Itself
This past weekend Scotland generated enough electricity from wind turbines to meet all its power demands. A day of strong winds and low demand combined to make this the first…
The Oppression of Lawns
The concept of a lawn at a residence has a short, but rich, history. Basically, the rich had large estates and to demonstrate their wealth they had large swaths of…