Solutions Story Tracker®
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Title
& Description
News Outlet
& Journalist
Date
& Location
MEDIA TYPE
& LENGTH
5 January 2021
Stockholm, Sweden
Text
1500-3000 Words
The Street Moves initiative in Sweden is pushing local communities to become the designers of their own streets’ layouts and look at urban planning through the lens of the “one-minute city.” Through a public-private p...
BBC
Vittoria Traverso
16 September 2020
Paris, France
Text
1500-3000 Words
Across the world, local governments and communities are looking for ways to draw boundaries that guide people's behavior towards social distancing. Although the perfect sign has yet to be determined, urban psychologis...
25 August 2020
Harlem, New York, United States
Text
800-1500 Words
PLAY NYC, a nonprofit in New York, is reviving a historic pop-up playground concept, which started over two decades ago, in order to increase children's access to playgrounds and physical activity. The concept is simp...
13 May 2020
South Bend, Indiana, United States
Text
800-1500 Words
An Indiana-based architect started a virtual camp for elementary school-aged girls focused on the lesser-known field of landscape architecture. The weekly virtual lessons work by explaining the career and concepts of ...
The Salt Lake Tribune
Heather May
9 March 2020
Kearns, Utah, United States
Text
1500-3000 Words
To reduce greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change and air pollution, Habitat for Humanity Salt Lake Valley is building airtight homes that will also reduce energy costs and be affordable for people ...
6 March 2020
Oakland, California, United States
Text
1500-3000 Words
Deanna Van Buren and her nonprofit firm Designing Justice/Designing Spaces use architecture to advance social justice and criminal-justice-reform ideas, designing workplaces, meeting places, and homes nationwide found...
22 January 2020
Denver, Colorado, United States
Text
1500-3000 Words
In Denver, Colorado, one homeless shelter is using trauma-informed design to make residents feel more at home and less likely to sleep outside. Architects building Sanderson Apartments considered past traumas when cho...
15 December 2019
Kathmandu, Nepal
Text
Under 800 Words
A Nepalese company called Traditional Homes was formed in order to restore traditional Newari homes to prevent them from being demolished. The houses are by the indigenous Newar people of the Kathmandu Valley and boas...
14 November 2019
Antakya, Turkey
Text
800-1500 Words
After discovering historic artifacts on land preparing to become a hotel in Antakya, Turkey, owners chose to develop a combined hotel and history museum, a rare act of collaboration between preservationists and develo...
23 October 2019
Norfolk, Virginia, United States
Text
800-1500 Words
Coming to terms with the past requires reexamining the way we represent both history and art. The Chrysler Museum in Norfolk, VA, is on the forefront of correcting the absence of enslaved craftsmen in representations ...
26 September 2019
Santee, California, United States
Broadcast TV News
5-15 Minutes
San Diego County’s Las Colinas Detention and Reentry Facility was redesigned to look less like a jail and more like a community. The newly designed facility prioritizes rehabilitation over punishment by providing educ...
20 May 2019
Harare, Zimbabwe
Podcast
Over 15 Minutes
Buildings with permeable surfaces increase energy efficiency, mimicking natural structures. In Harare, Zimbabwe, the Eastgate Centre employs methods borrowed from termite mound construction to efficiently regulate the...
13 May 2019
New York, New York, United States
Text
800-1500 Words
As the monarch butterfly nears endangerment, cities across the US are integrating butterfly-friendly spaces into their urban environments. Such spaces reside in schools, firehouses, parks, and more, and they enable th...
8 May 2019
Chicago, Illinois, United States
Broadcast TV News
Under 3 Minutes
The focus on sound comes at a time when open kitchens and industrial hard-surface designs entice diners’ eyes, but might strain their ears.
13 April 2019
Mumbai, India
Text
Under 800 Words
A new cafe in Mumbai is made entirely of cardboard to showcase the material's structural stability and dynamism, as well as its environmental sustainability. Everything from walls to chairs, and tables to lampshades, ...
12 April 2019
Halden, Norway
Video
3-5 Minutes
Halden Prison in Norway has re-designed itself so that the look and feel of prison life isn’t an added punishment to restricted freedom. Designers took into consideration the role campus design plays in promoting or d...
4 March 2019
District of Columbia, Washington, United States
Text
1500-3000 Words
Gallaudet University has interior design and architecture built with the needs and preferences of people who are deaf or hard-of-hearing in mind. By analyzing the effects of lighting, color, space, and other design pr...
18 December 2018
Detroit, Michigan, United States
Text
800-1500 Words
Artists around Detroit take steps to preserve historic landmarks and incorporate community input into the urban planning process. While the city is drastically changing, activists are slowly preserving places like mus...
13 December 2018
Trondheim, Norway
Text
800-1500 Words
Powerhouse, a collective of architects, engineers, environmentalists, and designers based in Oslo, reimagines building design to address climate change. Not only are many of their structures energy-neutral, but they a...
27 November 2018
Detroit, Michigan, United States
Text
Under 800 Words
The Ghana ThinkTank connects planners in the so-called “first world” to planners in the so-called “third world” to challenge notions of development and spread ideas from overlooked sources. For a recent project, plann...
7 November 2018
Calgary, Canada
Text
800-1500 Words
In Calgary, the new Central Library does more than just provide a beautiful space in which to read books. It also provides a place to access technology and acts as a connection space between the more and less affluent...
17 October 2018
Blountstown, Florida, United States
Text
1500-3000 Words
Small, cost-effective improvements to home construction were often the difference between houses that suffered small amounts of damage from Florida hurricanes and those that were destroyed. Knowing to ask for extra na...
NationSwell
Joseph Darius Jaafari
13 October 2018
Buffalo, New York, United States
Text
1500-3000 Words
Buffalo uses its historic architecture to attract international visitors. The city offers tax credits to developers who remodel and renovate old buildings. The effort also helps attract young people back to the city.
2 October 2018
Copenhagen, Denmark
Text
1500-3000 Words
A school near Copenhagen, Denmark utilizes a unique open floor plan - no walls and no separate classrooms - to help advance their mission of "personalized learning," a holistic approach to education that emphasizes st...
28 September 2018
Mumbai, India
Text
Under 800 Words
At a factory in Mumbai, clever design and “resilient architecture” join together to form the “Concrete Void,” a space designed to hold water during India’s monsoon season. Rather than trying to keep the water out, the...
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