Word: architect
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...space-age Jetsons cartoon. Remember when the future was fun? Perhaps it still is. But scary fun all the same. After 9/11, skyscrapers first have to be places where people can feel comfortable on those high, exposed floors. Military-style security has re-entered the thinking of civilian architects in a way not seen since the Middle Ages, when every castle was a castle keep - both a courtly residence and a defensible perimeter. Maybe no one has worried about security issues with more intensity than David Childs of the firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the architect chiefly responsible for the final...
Several factors have contributed to the worsening trends. "We have become complacent," says Mechai Viravaidya, (a.k.a. Mr. Condom), a senator and the principal architect of Thailand's successful anti-AIDS program of the 1990s. "People think because they can't see HIV anymore that we have it kicked, and they are taking risks again." Following the Asia-wide economic crash of 1997, successive Thai governments have slashed budgets for prevention programs to less than half their 1997 levels. Condom funding is down, education programs in schools have ended, and the media campaign has all but disappeared. At the same time...
...Several factors have contributed to the worsening trends. "We have become complacent," says Mechai Viravaidya, (a.k.a. Mr. Condom), a senator and the principle architect of Thailand's successful anti-AIDS program of the 1990s. "People think because they can't see HIV anymore that we have it kicked, and they are taking risks again." Following the Asia-wide economic crash of 1997, successive Thai governments have slashed budgets for prevention programs to less than half their 1997 levels. Condom funding is down, education programs in schools have ended, and the media campaign has all but disappeared. Meanwhile, other avenues...
...blackouts plaguing China are a rude awakening for those who consider the brightly lit skylines of the country's eastern seaboard a symbol of national progress and prosperity. "China has fallen in love with electricity," says Christopher Choa, an architect who heads the Shanghai branch of American firm HLW. "Blazing lighting and abundantly available power are considered almost sensual experiences, more than just metaphors for modernity." But the affection for dazzling lights has not translated into a commensurate investment in energy infrastructure, notwithstanding China's showpiece $25 billion Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest hydropower project. In 1993, amid...
...China's enthusiasm for rapid development has delayed the search for long-term solutions, such as requiring new buildings to be more energy efficient. "China could realize potentially extraordinary benefits by linking power-conservation strategies to its development strategies," says architect Choa. "But it will take deep collaboration between government officials and planners to bring this about." So far, it isn't happening. Shanghai, for example, has trumpeted its "Green Culture" campaign, which has filled the city with grassy parks and perched flower boxes upon highway dividers. But energy-efficient measures have not been a priority of "Green Culture," even...