Creating a sustainable city

Freiburg, Germany has become a stunning model of sustainability, thanks in part to Wulf Daseking, the city’s Head of Urban Planning since 1984.

For Professor Wulf Daseking, the City of Freiburg’s Head of Urban Planning, longevity and continuity aren’t just buzzwords on a whiteboard but themes to live and plan by. After 26 years at the helm of Germany’s Environmental Capital, Daseking embodies the notion of sustainability in a city that has seen only four planning directors since World War II.

However, the secret ingredient that earned Freiburg the Academy of Urbanism’s European City of the Year Award in 2010 is Daseking’s flair for bold and unconventional thinking. From Seepark, a former gravel pit turned recreational eco-park, to Wiehrebahnhof, an old train station cooperatively rebuilt into a thriving cultural arts center, the Professor’s fingerprints are all over the projects in the “you can’t do that” category.

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Dieter Rams: Less and More

New London bus

The New Bus for London is inspired by the much-loved Routemaster and will use the latest green technology when it launches in 2012.

The Mayor unveiled the design for the New Bus for London in May 2010.

The New Bus for London will meet London Buses’ requirements for vehicles in public service in London, including high standards of accessibility, safety and emissions abatement. In addition, it will be more durable, more fuel efficient and better ventilated. The bus will incorporate a double-deck and a platform at the rear near-side corner, so passengers will be able to get on and off easily.

Fascination car

The Highway Aircraft Corporation’s “Tomorrow’s Car Today” definitely catches the eye.  Rolled out in the late ’60s, the Fascination’s streamlined shape rang out echoes all the way back to the Dymaxion car (Small wonder. It started life in the 1930s as the “Airomobile”), but what really makes it really interesting isn’t the all-aluminium engine it originally had, but what was claimed would be in the newer models: the Nobel Gas Plasma Engine.

What’s that?  Apparently, this:

This engine is a closed two-cycle reciprocating engine that has no intake, uses no air, emitting no exhaust at all! The fuel is self-contained and hermetically sealed in the cylinders which are initially charged at the time of manufacturing, carrying their own power supply that will last approximately 60 to 75 thousand miles with no fall of efficiency.

Needless to say, only five were built very little was heard of the Fascination or the Nobel Gas Plasma Engine again.

Info via Future Car

Jonathan Ive reveals Apple design secrets

I can’t draw, hate focus groups, love prototypes

Apple’s senior vice president of industrial design Jonathan Ive partially lifted the veil on the secretive machinations of the Apple design process at a special “Innovation Night” event held at London’s Royal College of Arts (RCA).

Ive is due to receive an honorary doctorate from the RCA tomorrow. Ive was interviewed on stage by outgoing RCA rector Professor Sir Christopher Frayling.

“I can’t imagine designing without making [physical products],” Ive told the assembled horde of 700 UK design gurus.

“I love making prototypes. We go right from idea to prototypes. I just love making objects.

“Prototypes create this dramatic shift in the conversation – suddenly it becomes tangible and the silence goes away.”

Ive explained why Apple limits its product range: “When you do everything to make the very best product, it also means your very focused on just a few products.”

Ive admitted that his drawing skills are “terrible”: “And I’m a lousy presenter. So I focus on designing instead,” he joked.

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