Archive for the ‘Transport’ Category
Friday, April 24th, 2009
Foster + Partners has been appointed the designer for four stations on the Haramain high-speed railway
In a joint venture with Buro Happold, the new project will link the holy cities of Mecca and Medina via Jeddah, Rabigh and King Abdullah Economic City on the Red Sea coast. It will offer a faster service for the millions of pilgrims conducting the Haj and Umrah pilgrimages.
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Posted in Architecture, Transport | No Comments »
Monday, April 20th, 2009
Walking is arguably the most efficient mode of transportation, and you don’t need petroleum to power it; some French fries will do. But disturbingly few of us take advantage of our built-in bipedal locomotion function. Are we to blame, or is it our environment?
A website called Walk Score aims to answer that question. It ranks U.S. cities based on their “walkability,” a proprietary formula that measures population density,…
Posted in Landscape Architecture, Transport, Urban Design | No Comments »
Friday, April 17th, 2009
The new Gocycle represents a radical rethink of urban cycling. Designed by the former Formula 1 engineer Richard Thorpe, the Gocycle features a lightweight frame allied to a collapsible design. The bike can be taken apart in under a minute.
But the bike’s most radical feature lurks inside its front wheel hub. This houses a small electric motor. At the push of a button on the left handlebar, the bike gets a “turbo boost” from the motor, enabling riders to coast up hills where they may normally struggle. The motor can power the bike unaided for around 20 minutes. It recharges from the mains in just over three hours.
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Posted in Engineering, Transport, Urban Design | No Comments »
Wednesday, April 15th, 2009
Work on an experimental scheme to semi-pedestrianise Oxford Circus, one of central London’s busiest junctions, begins this week.
Engineering consultant Atkins has based its £5 million project on intersections in Tokyo, where traffic is halted in all directions at once, allowing pedestrians to cross roads diagonally as well as straight ahead.
Atkins project manager Chris Greenwood explained: “By using the latest 3D modelling techniques, we were able effectively to put 5,000 people into the redesigned crossing area to see what would happen.
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Posted in Engineering, Landscape Architecture, Transport, Urban Design | No Comments »
Thursday, April 9th, 2009
Look Out!
Car doors can be pretty dangerous to cyclists (and sometimes pedestrians) in urban areas. In theory, the simplest solution would be to just have motorists pay attention when they open their doors, but human nature being what it is, it’s doubtful that we’ll ever get to that point (education can make things better, but 100% safe for cyclists? Probably not). Technology comes to the rescue: BMW is working on ‘intelligent’ car doors that will simply become harder to push open when they detect danger. Read on for details.
The current prototype looks like a normal car door, but an extra metal bar runs through its centre and connects to the car’s frame between the hinges. In normal mode, the bar moves freely and doesn’t affect the door’s movement.
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Wednesday, April 8th, 2009
In one of the most incredible transportation announcements to date, General Motors and Segway have just released pics of a new battery powered two-wheeled vehicle! The vehicle, known as Project P.U.M.A, is designed to allow for easy movement through congested urban streets. A belayed April Fool’s joke? or a preview of General Motor’s future?
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Posted in Transport, Urban Design | No Comments »
Friday, April 3rd, 2009
First rule of ant traffic: no overtaking
Ants never overtake. Not ever. Instead they form into platoons in which all the ants move at the same speed. Increase the density of ant traffic and the platoons simply join together to form larger groups. This is how the velocity remains the same while the density increases.
Alexander John and colleagues at the University of Cologne in Germany have discovered lessons from ant traffic that can be incorporated in traffic planning. This is just one of the applications gleaned from biomimicry.
Ant Traffic
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Posted in Just Interesting, Transport | No Comments »
Tuesday, March 31st, 2009
Rudi have released their Technology, Space and Place 2008, IT tools for shaping the built environment
Download your free copy of the publication here
Posted in Architecture, Engineering, Green Designs, Landscape Architecture, Landscape Art, Transport, Urban Design | No Comments »
Friday, March 20th, 2009
Car brand Aston Martin and architects Foster + Partners have sent us more images of their joint first-place design for the New Bus for London competition.
The design includes a glazed roof with solar cells to generate energy and control the internal temperature by filtering daylight. The project was awarded joint first place with bus, coach and truck design company Capoco Design.
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Friday, March 20th, 2009
Combining bicycle safety and a sense of whimsy, Contrail is a tool that sends a colorful message to the mobile community. The small apparatus attaches to any bike’s seat tube and applies a thin layer of chalk powder in one of several colors to the rear tire.
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Posted in Transport | No Comments »
