C40 Mayors Summit: cities lead fight against climate change

The C40 Mayors Summit took place during the first days of December in Mexico City, gathering officials from 90 cities as well as industry leaders to discuss the issue of climate change and the radical measures cities have to take in order to combat its effects. The Summit comes after the historic Paris Climate Agreement came …

The Via Verde debate in Mexico

“Via Verde” (Green Way) tries to reduce high pollution levels and make Mexico City less grim. It plans to give clean oxygen to 2500 people and filter all type of contaminants. However, despite the motivations, the Via Verde has received criticism of all types.  The project first came to light when Change.org published the initiative and collected …

The Engineering Living Materials program – a house that can grow and repair itself

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has certainly had its hand in turning the gizmos and gadgets we used to dream of into a reality. The agency is still hard at work blazing the trail for future tech, issuing challenges for the creation of the most advanced things on this Earth. It has now taken on a new challenge, this …

Delicious but environmentally costly: Pizza wood-fired ovens in Sao Paulo

A new paper in Atmospheric Environment suggests that wood-fired ovens in Sao Paulo are highly contributing to air pollution. The city is already switching to biofuels, but this new finding could present a setback for Sao Paulo’s green initiatives.  Sao Paulo is the world’s fifth largest metro area with 21 million inhabitants and it is considered …

10 impressive landscape architecture projects from China

China has made remarkable advancements in many aspects of development (civil engineering, industry, urbanization, etc.), but landscape architecture can certainly be seen as the most outstanding of all. Here are ten examples of projects where sustainability, functionality, creativity and concern for the environment all come together. 1. Zhengzhou Vanke Central Plaza, by Locus Associates, Zhengzhou …

Making way for pedestrians – Paris and New York hold car-free days

Freeing busy city areas from cars for a few hours is a policy initiative that seeks to reduce high pollution levels as well as allow people to enjoy a few hours of cycling and walking through iconic streets. Civil society has played an important role bringing up this initiative to their local municipalities, to the …

Taking back the streets: Barcelona’s new “Superblocks”

The Eixample district of Barcelona is the centre of a new initiative: Superblocks. This project plans to tackle air pollution and high noise levels by creating car-free spaces. Ildefons Cerda is considered one Barcelona’s architecture and urban planning pioneers of the 19th century. He is famous for having designed the Eixample district, an extension of …