October 4, 2024

Habitat

'Think like a gardener, not an architect: design beginnings, not ends.'

Sweden has an official "innovation agency". Really. Called Vinnova, the group's purpose is to "open the way for innovation that provides sustainable solutions and strengthens Swedish competitiveness." 

They hired "designer, urbanist, etc." Dan Hill, to create a book to catalog working methods that facilitate "mission-oriented innovation (that) aims to create change at the system level where everyone involved is involved and drives development." You can download that book - Mission Oriented Innovation - here.  

Hill puts careful emphasis on small scale, and a slower dynamic. He sees the street as one of most potent of spaces that surround us. He sees it as the basic unit of city, a place where all systems converge, and all culture plays out. In order to bring a cultural voice into the urban planning conversation for the book, he invited Brian Eno to develop his own "Design Principals for the Street". 

Leave it to a thinker and artist known for generative creation, oblique strategies, seeing the world as interconnected networks of feedback and flow, and "scenius" over "genius" to develop some inspiring prompts.

ARTICLE: Working with Brian Eno on Design Principles for Streets

Habitat

Bamboo is reshaping commercial architecture.

ARTICLE: Schools, Airports, High-Rise Towers: Architects Urged To Get ‘Bamboo-Ready’

Habitat

As office attendance has yet to rebound, central libraries are bringing people and energy back to city centers.

REPORT: Downtown Libraries Are the Anchors Cities Need

Habitat

An ancient plant transformed into low-carbon building materials and recyclable products.

ARTICLE: Designing a Regenerative World with Flax

Habitat

Architects are no longer treating health as an external requirement but as an integral condition of everyday life.

‍ARTICLE: Architecture that Shapes Health: Lessons of Design and Well-Being in 2025