Coronavirus has had a global impact, with over 2 million cases and approximately 150,000 deaths across 213 countries (WHO, 2020). Counter-measures led to travel restrictions, social-distancing rules and the demise of the World’s economy, which stopped “24 million people from escaping poverty” (Gopinath, 2020) (Vaswani, 2020). Amidst one of the world’s greatest crises, are there…
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Acqua Alta (High-tide flood) A wind, the sacred sound of the siren at about 9pm, the sound would escalate to warn both residents and tourists. The “aqua alta” is arriving. One tone is 1.1 metres, two tones is 1.2 metres, three tones is 1.3 metres and so on. I relearnt how to walk as walking…
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In a lecture presented by IDPartnership, the first slide outlined their company aim, which read: ‘creating sustainable places that enrich the lives of inhabitants and inspire people to live in an environmentally responsible manner.’ [1] I then wondered what extremity we can reach to design sustainable places. In my research I found a type of…
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1. Venice. A utopia; surrounded and divided by water; which attracts tourists all year round. When I first arrived it struck me that this constantly booming city means every corner is in constant use, yet as Venice is a city constantly invaded by water we need to ask; does a sinking city use a different…
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A substantial 15% of the pollutants contributing to climate change come from the exhaust fumes from automotive vehicles. Whilst the advancement of electric car technology will reduce these emissions, this will only help in the global sense if the electricity is itself produced by sustainable methods. It is therefore vital that we encourage the sustainable…
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“No theatre ever created a more sublime tableau than the spectacle to be enjoyed in Venice.” Camillo Sitte, The Art of Building Cities Following the excellent lectures from Tim Townshend on “What is Urban Design?” and later William Ault on  “Delivering Urban Design”, I came to question what the realm of the Urban Designer actually…
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Arriving in Amsterdam, summer of 2016, enthusiastic to fully integrate myself into Dutch culture on my much-anticipated study abroad exchange, I faced my first hurdle. My first step to becoming a local meant that I had to master the art of cycling in Amsterdam.After some very bad bartering at Waterlooplein Market, I completed my initiation…
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Last time I posted about two case studies of sustainable flood management in Copenhagen and Shanghai (read the blog at: here). In this blog, I will describe more about the green infrastructure elements that can be involved in the flood prevention design. 1. Green roofs / Vertical garden The first one is green roofs or…
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Nowadays, climate change is a very serious issue. It causes the change in average temperature and flood to be more severe. Flooding plays an essential increasingly role in many countries, and it has a tendency to get more intense and cause damage to urban space around the world. Many cities that face flood issues have…
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The Smart City is on the rise. Investigating some key investors, what is the potential for our cities? Facebook, Apple, Amazon and Google, known as the tech ‘Big Four’ make billions specialising in specific user-based interfaces. These companies aim to be the profiter of today’s top commodity: your data. What does this mean for our…
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