Urban redevelopment

Scandinavian design is a design movement characterized by simplicity, minimalism, democracy, and functionality that emerged from the five Scandinavian nations in the early 20th century and has flourished across the world since the 1950s. Scandinavian designers are known especially for household goods including furniture, textiles, ceramics, lamps, and glass, but the Scandinavian design phenomenon has […]

“This is a tale of two cities — Toronto and Barcelona — that may hold important lessons for others around the world. Both have big ambitions to change the way they operate but reflect very different visions of how smart cities should be run,” writes John Thornhill, Innovation Editor at the Financial Times, in an […]

When Google’s sister company, Sidewalk Labs, “released” its leaked master plan for the Toronto quayside development it was met with mixed reviews. For those staunchly against increased corporate involvement in public spaces and urban planning, and for those who adore anything Google does, minds were already made up before the plans emerged. However, most people […]

“The 19th century was a century of empires, the 20th century was a century of nation states and the 21st century will be a century of cities” – Wellington Webb, Former Mayor of Denver, CO. Population increase and rural to urban migration trends continue, unrelenting. Our already overcrowded megacities – urban areas with more than […]

For many, creating an inclusive smart city means planning for the masses. In doing so you can elevate the urban population in similar ways to what we have seen in previous technological shifts. Others, however, point out that cities have not evolved to be inclusive, and they propose that focusing smart development on urban elements […]

“Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometric ratio, subsistence increases only in an arithmetic ratio,” wrote the famous 18th century British cleric and scholar Thomas Malthus in his Essay On the Principle of Population in 1798. In a more modern English he might have said – population grows exponentially but food production grows in a […]

“The primary challenge to building a smart city has nothing to do with pouring concrete and erecting steel beams. It’s knowing better the city’s flows to optimize the city for its inhabitants. It’s turning all of the data that comes streaming in from myriad sources into actionable information,” says Laetitia Gazel Anthoine, founder and CEO […]