The Economist (September 10)
“New techniques mean that wood can now be used for much taller buildings,” potentially reducing the carbon footprint by nearly 75% compared with conventional steel and concrete structures. A 14-story wooden structure in Bergen, Norway will soon be unseated as the world’s tallest when an 18-story wooden dormitory goes up at the University of British Columbia in Canada in 2017. But UBC’s Brock Commons will soon be surpassed by a 21-story building in Amsterdam. “Some architects have even started designing wooden skyscrapers, like the proposed Tratoppen…a 40-floor residential tower on the drawing-board in Stockholm.”
Tags: Amsterdam, Architects, Buildings, Canada, Carbon footprint, Concrete, Norway, Skyscrapers, Steel, Stockholm, Structures, Tratoppen, UBC, Wood
The Economist (May 30)
Amid the global fanfare over urbanization, “another pressing urban dilemma” is being overlooked: “what to do with cities that are losing people.” Germany, the U.S., Japan, and South Korea all have shrinking cities. Before long, China will too. To avoid blight, one of the best policies is to “return the land to nature” by knocking down old structures. Urban “planners are expert at making cities work better as they grow. Keeping them healthy as they shrink is just as noble.”
Tags: Blight, China, Germany, Japan, Planners, Shrinking cities, South Korea, Structures, U.S., Urbanization
