Better Air for Berlin | Berlin’s Environmental Zone

Awesome. The city of Berlin made a smart move on January 1st by introducing a new law and traffic sign to its downtown area. Berlin’s Senate Department for Health, Environment and Consumer Protection aims to reduce the number of people affected by excessive concentrations of noxious substances by one quarter. I have learned trough TreeHugger that 2 years ago the Senate also decided that bikes should represent 15% of the city traffic by the year of 2010. They are said to be doing great at achieving that goal and may be able to pull the plan off earlier than that. Good luck.

/click here to read/download the Berlin Umweltzone brochure (pdf, 265kb)

The Fountainhead

Yesterday PartIV remembered me to post this video. /Wikipedia: The Fountainhead examines the life of an individualistic young architect, Howard Roark, who chooses to struggle in obscurity rather than compromise his artistic and personal vision by pandering to the prevailing taste in building design. Anyway… The movie is said to be rubbish by some and brilliant by others, I say read the novel and judge for yourself.

Single Hauz | Front Architects

This is not completely new but I found it today and decided to upload it. The Polish architecture studio Front Architects came up with it. Their explanation of the whole concept is that in the society today there are more models of life than there have been before. They’re called ‘the singles’ and they don’t/shouldn’t take as much space as other family units do. I get what they’re trying to do here and I like the fact that the square footage of the ground ‘floor’ is about 1m2. I also like that it’s (quote) especially predisposed for sites of an interesting landscaping. Personally I think the human race should wait until all the empty flats and houses are filled with people before we start putting single lives on a stick. Not a bad concept though, my friend George Jetson says the view is fab.

/for more check out Front Architects Official Website