Exponential Innovations Everywhere
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Joost Bonsen's Opinions on How Money, Ideas, and Talent can
Enable Health, Wealth, and Happyness for Each plus Achieve Liberty, Prosperity, and Vitality for All and Ultimately Help Us Spread Beyond Our Cradle Planet Earth
"The Hawthorn Tower will, like its Milanese predecessor, be blanketed in greenery -- and it’s expected to absorb over 5.4 tons of carbon dioxide. The equivalent of one hectare of woods will be installed on the tower to create a real urban ecosystem with over 30 different vegetal species."
Der Spiegel's Rupert Neate writes about Campfire Kids: Going Back to Nature with Forest Kindergartens... "These children are sitting on logs in a forest around a campfire. This no ordinary day care center, this a Waldkindergarten. [...] the risks are outweighed by the "massive" mental and physical benefits of playing outside. "Children who have attended a Waldkindergarten have a much deeper understanding of the world around them, and evidence shows they are often much more confident and outgoing when they reach school." [...] the US and the UK's obsession with health and safety and regulations may have slowed adoption of the idea, but [...] forest kindergartens have proved very popular in Japan, which is also known for its red tape bureaucracy."And here's what it looks like in short docu by Hubert Ulrich...
"On the technological front, a brand new city offers the chance to build some futuristic hardware. Songdo has been designed with sensors to monitor temperature, energy use and traffic flow. These sensors can -- in theory -- alert you, personally, when your bus is due. Or let the local authority know about any problems. A lot of these innovations are designed with the environment in mind -- charging stations for electric cars, for example, or a water-recycling system that prevents clean drinking water being used to flush office toilets. The waste disposal system is also impressive -- or it would be if you could see it. Because there are no rubbish trucks trawling the streets or vast bins dotted around blocks of flats. Instead, all household waste is sucked directly from individual kitchens through a vast underground network of tunnels, to waste processing centres, where it's automatically sorted, deodorised and treated to be kinder to the environment."I've been paying attention to the Songdo development for years now since hearing about it from the Gale International developers here in Boston. And it's exciting to see how many things they've gotten right, including the district waste scheme, close links with airport and some transit, and interwoven greenspace. But I fear they're missing some key dimensions of what make for vibrant innovation hubs, the subject of our MIT CityScience workshop this coming Fall 2013.
I'm also impressed with the dual park+infrastructure waterway greening of Kallang River at Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park... 
This reminds me of efforts in Los Angeles to revitalize and restore the LA River, Madrid's opening of their Rio, the Room for the River efforts in Netherlands and Europe, and most especially the Daylighting of Seoul's Cheonggyecheon.
"The San Antonio River Walk (also known as Paseo del Río) is a network of walkways along the banks of the San Antonio River, one story beneath the streets of Downtown San Antonio, Texas, USA. Lined by bars, shops and restaurants, the River Walk is an important part of the city's urban fabric and a tourist attraction in its own right. Today, the River Walk is an enormously successful special-case pedestrian street, one level down from the automobile street."
"One of the most striking things about New York City is the fall colors and there's no better place to view this then Central Park. I chose 15 locations in the park and revisited them 2 days a week for six months, recording all camera positions and lens information to create consistency in the images. All shots were taken just after sunrise."
