I take photos for fun in my spare time and recently started shooting on film again. This time around I've been interested in how film actually functions. SmarterEveryDay has a fantastic 3-part YouTube series of the Kodak manufacturing process as he tours through the facility. I'm now amazed that film is still even being manufactured today, and can't even imagine what the production line was like during the heyday of film.
I've developed my own film in the past but knowing so little about chemistry myself, it's still pretty much magic to me even after digesting all of the info from the series.
I wish I could do this, but the financial aspect just isn't working where I am.
I've been looking at digital backs for old cameras such as the blad I have taking dust. Sadly, either they're completely impractical or they're way above my budget. Hopeful that some day, something better than a polaroid back can be used to resurrect my old hassleblads.
If it hasn't made it onto your list yet, Ursula K. Le Guin's book titled "The Dispossessed" is a great exploration of anarchism in practice through a sci-fi lens
I also haven't recognized any changes as a regular user and listener. I'm not an artist so I haven't uploaded any music and I do wonder if the artist experience has changed at all. I'm definitely bracing myself for change if / when it comes, however. I plan to keep using Bandcamp until then.
When Epic bought the platform I do remember a similar reaction from folks, along with confusion because why would a gaming company buy a music platform, and what kind of dumb sweeping changes were they going to make? The Songtradr acquisition at least makes more sense from an industry standpoint. Personally, I feel better with the platform in their hands rather than Epic's
This article makes a lot of great points. Thankfully, proof of "green-ness" of a building such as LEED Certification is becoming marketable, and developers or building owners can advertise their building's LEED status to potential tenants. What likely needs to happen to really achieve healthier indoor spaces is to create a standardized process similar to LEED certification for all new construction. Just as the article states, the change needs to happen at the policy level.
Aside from policy changes, customers also have a tremendous amount of leverage in the design process. If customers begin to push for healthier materials and designs, we'll likely see change faster than waiting for policy or building code changes.
Many architects push for healthier materials and designs but cost is such an enormous obstacle. Healthier materials are usually the more expensive option, and are the first to go in any value-engineering endeavor.
There are ways to design for maximum natural ventilation as well, but there are several generations of architects educated to design for HVAC systems, likely due to the energy crisis that the author mentioned. They just don't know how to design a building for passive ventilation. Heck, I finished school in 2020 and just barely touched on this kind of thing. Contractors and engineers also stand in the way - it's tough to re-educate such a huge industry with so many actors, trades, and fields involved in every project. This is also somewhat of an American problem. The western/American AEC industry could and should look to elsewhere in the world for examples of healthier design. Above comment about lack of education applies here as well - very few educators in America can teach this, as most never learned it themselves.
Some of these "green" certifications tend to become a negative marketing factor. "Green" buildings with such certifications are considered bad for comfort/health by many. In some cases it may be prejudice, often based on early buildings where initial issues with the new technologies weren't ironed out yet, leading to e.g. mold issues. In others, "green" certifications encourage approaches that are bad for health and/or comfort (e.g. ultra-low-flow faucets).
The environmental certifications I've seen often claim to also push for increased health and/or comfort, but due to the conflicting goals, I don't trust this at all and I suspect neither do others. I agree that we need a certification for health & comfort, and that should explicitly NOT take into account how "green" the building is, both to avoid conflicting interests and to make it more trustworthy.
With split standards, when someone wants to advertise a green building that's still comfortable, they can prove that they have the highest category of both ratings, and people will be able to trust it. Right now, they'll just show their great "environmental" rating and you don't know if you're getting a nice, comfortable and also environmentally friendly/low cost of energy building, or a mold-infested hellhole where you can't get fresh air nor take a proper shower just to save the last bit of energy.
I've seen both cases (buildings according to an unpopular primarily-environmental standard that were really nice to live in, and certified buildings that sucked due to measures obviously taken to get the certification), and it'd be nice to be able to distinguish them.
In my industry, several "open letters" have been sent to Autodesk for their lack of response to customer requests and seemingly basic or common-sense features that have been requested for decades:
I'm an architect (of buildings) and mostly lurk here but this is very interesting and had to comment - many designers don't like the idea of quantifying design value through measurable data, but it's most definitely the future. The design time and cost savings that can be had from using datasets or software like Archilyse's will continue to grow, while also (hopefully) ensuring a higher baseline design value of buildings. I'm personally just beginning my journey of coding/programming because of exactly this sort of thing (among other reasons).
Since you're an architect, I have a question. Considering the housing shortage everywhere and the land scarcity, wouldn't it be more logical to build higher apartments? My neighbourhood doesn't allow any apartment building taller than 5 floors for example. Why not grant 30 floors? I live in an earthquake zone sure. But there are residences that high allowed in the area, but for middle-class apartments maximum height is limited with 5 floors. I don't get this. Let's build higher, denser apartments and solve the housing shortage. Am I too optimistic?
Your logic is correct, or at least most would say so!
Denser housing could solve a lot of housing issues. The problem is getting denser housing built, especially in not-so-dense neighborhoods. This could be for any number of reasons - the accusatory voice in my head likes to think it's mostly due to NIMBYs ("not in my backyard!" or folks that don't want to live in higher density neighborhoods) because of their warped perception of these spaces: higher crime, higher traffic, unsafe for children, etc. Some of these views may be true, but it's not a given in every high density neighborhood. Safe, walkable, dense neighborhoods exist in many places already.
Another issue can be policy, and specifically zoning, which a lot of NIMBYs fight very hard to control. I'm no expert on zoning, but the general consensus among architects and pro-housing people is that it's holding back a lot of potential homes from being constructed. Check this out for some opinions on zoning:
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/can-the-us-ho...]
In my previous city there's a popular type of "middle housing" (not high end single-family, and not small apartments) called a dingbat. They at one point in time were crucial for filling the gap in housing but have now been regulated away. Check this out for info on dingbats: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlWvcsGlHA4]
For your neighborhood in particular, zoning regulations have likely limited height to 5 floors. Maybe folks in the community lobbied for this regulation to keep density down, or maybe your towns infrastructure can't support a higher density of cars (and this brings up building code and parking requirements that we have in America) - there could be many combinations of reasons for this density limit, but you should look into it! A city's history of zoning policy can be very interesting, as they oftentimes stem from decades old regulations or segregation.
Your optimism is valid - optimism is incredibly important for solving problems like these, especially when so many solutions exist! Implementing those solutions is usually the toughest part.
Fortunately, in California the local politicians have had the power to deny homes taken away from them. The process began yesterday in Santa Monica, where developers automatically obtained permission to build over 4,000 units because Santa Monica's housing element is noncompliant.
San Francisco's housing element should fall out of compliance in early 2023, making it possible to build things without dealing with the local housing cartel.
This is a good question - I haven't studied much aside from densifying existing neighborhoods but when thinking about other options, I suppose suburbs come to mind. Before going any further, I should clarify that I live in the US and look at this through an American lens. Anyways, a primary issue with suburban affordability is that demand is high and space is limited[1]: many folks want to live in the suburbs but maintain their jobs in urban centers, and you can only have so much low density housing within commuting distance to a city. Since urban centers are where the majority of jobs are, it's tough to suggest that people "just move to the country", for example. Remote work could help with reducing density while allowing people to relocate to more remote and/or affordable places. More public transportation may also allow suburbanites to move further away (think high-speed trains and commuter rails).
I've also heard arguments for an urban model that focuses on smaller, more community-centric cities instead of huge urban centers like New York or LA. I don't have any primary sources for this, but I think the idea is to keep density low-ish, and increase the distribution of these urban nodes evenly across a region [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_village]. To me this sounds similar to the mundane suburban towns I grew up around.
Urbanity/density is likely the easiest[2] solution, but I'm sure it's not the only one. There are likely many thoughtful solutions that don't rely on density - I may look around to see if I can find any.
[1] I guess this issue applies across the entire spectrum of housing, which is why there's a housing crisis
[2] Easy is relative - obviously, this is has proven to be a very difficult problem to solve.
LA is close to the logical end of the model you describe; downtown LA is a fairly weak center and there are other nodes as well.
In practice this just means that instead of commuting in long distances in one direction, you do it in every direction. People just tend not to live that close to work due to different desirability characteristics for jobs vs homes. And for multiple income households this is even more difficult, because how often do all the people in a single house work or go to school in the same neighborhood?
i get the impression dense urban environments are ripe for various types of capture not to mention the variety of competing interests that end up diluting the effectiveness of policy to address these issues.
also, i get the impression incentives for housing developers aren't aligned to addressing this problem because in the end it would mean lower margins and a smaller pipeline of future housing development projects effectively putting them out of business.
Keep in mind that, if the barriers of entry are low enough, property development is nothing like a cartel.
Developers will happily undercut each other to steal their competitors’ lunch.
The current model actually promotes cartel behavior; there is so little developable land that it is possible for a few people to hoard the small supply of land.
Oftentimes the 5 floor limit is for timber framed walls. In the United States this is due to fire codes and the ability to evacuate buildings. You'll often see two stories of cement construction for stores and parking with 4 or 5 stories of apartments above, or just 5 stories of apartments alone. Larger buildings are possible, they just don't have the return on investment.
There are some interesting articles on the design choice, but it's a bit sad that we've gelled on this design.
Every era has its “standard” models of construction that people complained about then, and now today people eye watering sums for “historical character.”
The thing that sucks about the current model is that everybody seems to be making retail spaces designed for chain tenants which small businesses don’t need and can’t afford.
This is exactly what city planners call the missing middle in the US. There's skyscrapers, and two blocks over you have single family suburbs.
If it wouldn't be for political opposition most cities, undoubtedly, would upzone (permit higher density) areas near downtown and other hubs, but even in "progressive" cities progress is slow because of opposition of the people who currently live there (commonly called NIMBY's)
I've developed my own film in the past but knowing so little about chemistry myself, it's still pretty much magic to me even after digesting all of the info from the series.