the-art-and-science-of-building
Never Forget the Detroit Olympics
The 1968 Summer Games were held in Mexico City, but they still changed Detroit. In search of Olympic ephemera, I recently came across a video in the "Prelinger Archives":http://motherboard.vice.com/2012/7/31/the-fine-art-of-keeping-the-world-s...
The Golden Gate Bridge Is at the Edge of Anti-Suicide Infrastructure
On its opening day in 1937, the Golden Gate Bridge bore no protective barrier beyond railings. "This bridge needs neither praise, eulogy nor encomium," boomed engineer J. Strauss, who designed the bridge. "It speaks for itself. We who have labored long...
Here's a Peek inside Apple's "Maniacal" Design Process, Thanks to the Perpetual Patent War
The best reason to pay attention to the Apple-Samsung patent battle has nothing to do with patents or battle, really. To prove how they worked for years to develop products that Samsung simply copied, Apple is sending in its most senior designers to...
The 2012 New York City Olympics That Wasn't (But Also Was)
New York’s 2012 Olympic Games kicked off with a series of runners hoisting the flaming torch high above their heads, pursued by excited New Yorkers, surrounded by spectators and a police escort with horses, limned by hot-dog vendors and honking cabs...
Flight 4590 Didn't Kill the Concorde, Costs Did
I have a friend who remembers flying the British Airways route to from New York to London. He recalled that it was a really noisy plane and the crew would hand out headphones circa WWII (But has this really improved?). There were four channels of music...
How to Market a Weapon: Make a Music Video
Within the world of promotional military videos, strategies don't differ much from selling women's cosmetics. Promoting youthful fun through products that are "designed to solve disappointments":http://science.jrank.org/pages/11645/Women-Femininity-in...
The 186 MPH Superbus Just Keeps Chasing Pavements
Have you heard of the "Superbus":http://www.superbusproject.com/? You could have already, as it has been in prototype production for years, and has recently been gaining more attention at auto shows and through "public demonstrations":http://www...
Enrique Pena Nieto Is the New Face of Mexico's Drug Saga: or, Just Another Monday for the Cartels
Today may or may not be the start of a new era in Mexico. It all depends on who you ask. For those who cast votes in yesterday's presidential elections for either the Democratic Revolution or National Action Parties, Mexico is in regress. Their...
How an Unfinished Park Built Atop a Giant Pile of Trash is Making New York City Millions
Public parks don't tend to be cash cows, not unless they get "advertising":http://reason.com/blog/2012/05/11/has-gov-rick-scott-ruined-floridas-parks or become, well, private. But the park that sits on top of the old Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten...
Say Happy Birthday to Antoni Gaudí With These Eye-Twisting Designs
Today, Antoni Gaudi, father of modern Catalan architecture would be 160. Creator of Spain's most legit, most Toon Town in-real-life designs, was the same man who appeared as not-worth-taking-to-the-hospital when he walked across a busy street in 192...
"Bridge" Peers Into the Soul of New York's Finest Crossings with Contact Microphones and Super 8
I don't live in New York City, but I love its bridges. I love the combination of babies in strollers on the pedestrian walkway of the Manhattan Bridge with brutal engineering and subway trains. I like that on the bridges you're touching a big empty...
Should New York City Expand Its Network of Trash-Sucking Vacuum Tubes?
When urban planners were trying to turn New York's Roosevelt Island from a haven for the disabled and the mentally ill into a liveable city, they got "utopian":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roosevelt_Island#Architecture. Lying beneath their plans was an...