People who practice parkour, called traceurs or tracers, often get a bad rap by city officials, saying they are disturbing or damaging public property. But in fact, often traceurs are some of the most vocal activists for preserving and protecting their environments. Take this story from The Atlantic, for example: On warm days, when office-tower […]
More and more office spaces are trying to become more playful, offering employees a way to destress and/or get more creative. Usually that takes the form of having ping pong tables or video game consoles set up for breaks, but more and more offices are adding slides, swing sets, picnic tables, or other more active […]
Happy Earth Day! In honor of celebrating the best, prettiest, largest playful space out there – Earth – some beautiful photos showing off the planet in all its natural glory. Sebastião Salgado, one of the world’s most admired photojournalists, has spent a lifetime relentlessly training his eye on human degradation and suffering. His photographs, though […]
Just as the decision for Kenya’s election is being determined, a look at an artistic and playful way to promote democracy: Kenya‘s peace train is ready to roll. Kenyan graffiti artists received permission from the Rift Valley Railway to spray-paint a 10-car commuter train with peace messages and icons. It may be the first train […]
Reblogged from The Dirt: Showing an image of sprawled-out Mexico City, Ricky Burdett, Professor of Urban Studies, London School of Economics, told the crowd at the Innovative Metropolis conference hosted by the Brookings Institution and Washington University in St. Louis that we are now living in the era of the “endless city.” These cities are […]
Reblogged from The Dirt: In a session on a new planning and design theory called “biophilic urbanism” at the 2012 Greenbuild conference in San Francisco, Judith Heerwagen, a professor at the University of Washington; Timothy Beatley, Teresa Heinz Professor of Sustainable Communities at the University of Virginia; and Bert Gregory, head of Mithun Architects + Designers + […]
Wow, OpenIDEO is on a role lately with their challenges that get my creative juices rolling and my passions up, in a good way! This latest challenge is about wellness in the workplace: Together with Bupa and the International Diabetes Federation, we’re asking our global community to help us explore how people can best be […]
A recent study of health factors and their associated costs at seven companies, published in the journal Health Affairs, found that “depression is the most costly among 10 common risk factors linked to higher health spending on employees.” The analysis, found that these factors — which also included obesity, high blood sugar and high blood […]
When presidential hopeful Mitt Romney threatened a childhood icon with funding cuts during a debate last month, people took to the streets and protested…with puppets. In what was deemed the Million Muppet March, people used puppets, marionettes, and other toys to show their unhappiness with the idea of funding for public broadcasting being cut: Organizers […]
I love these OpenIDEO public challenges, so I was thrilled when I saw this challenge alert pop up in my inbox (and then unfortunately let it get buried for a week, oops!) about ideas on how to make communities more involved and engaged in their environments. Public agencies such as Singapore’s National Environment Agency would […]
