Yesterday I promised that today’s post would be less sad. I am sticking to that promise, but I am also sticking with a somewhat similar theme: getting older.
Fast Company recently published an interview with New York-based architect Matthias Hollwich. The topic is aging and the kinds of spaces that we have created for people as they age: retirement communities, nursing homes, and so on.
The reason this is getting airtime right now is because Matthias has just published a book on the topic called, New Aging: Live smarter now to live better forever.
But this isn’t a new focus. Matthias actually taught at the University of Pennsylvania while I was there and I remember his design studio being focused on this topic. (I wasn’t in his studio, unfortunately.)
The sound bite that I really like from the interview is this one:
“I think the biggest flaw is that it’s age segregation. You take all of the people who are above 75, 85, or 95, depending on what type of environment it is, and put them into one place. And then you’re just surrounded by old people, people who have social and physical challenges, and you’re not around the vibrancy of a multi-age environment, which is something that we experience all life long. I think that is something that society really has to rethink.”
Not only do I agree with him, but I think it exemplifies one of the things that I love about architecture. The idea that the way things are done today is usually not some sort of universal truth. Instead, everything can be questioned, rethought, and reinvented for the better. It’s a very entrepreneurial way of operating and I don’t think that parallel, between entrepreneurs and architects, is drawn or leveraged nearly enough.
I also don’t think we’ve given enough design consideration to this topic of aging. I mean, why can’t the spaces that people end their lives in be as (or more) sexy and enjoyable as (or than) the spaces they live the rest of their lives in? That’s what I want when I’m 95.
So kudos to Mattias and the rest of the team at Hollwich Kushner (his firm) for caring about and working on this.
Book image from Matthias Hollwich’s Facebook.
This morning, instead of my usual routine of writing alongside a cup of coffee, I decided to finally edit all of the skiing and snowboarding footage that I took last month in Park City, Utah. Click here for the final cut.
McKinsey recently published a report called Digital globalization: The new era of global flows.
The overarching thesis is that we are transitioning to a data-driven global economy:
“Flows of physical goods and finance were the hallmarks of the 20th-century global economy, but today those flows have flattened or declined. Twenty-first-century globalization is increasingly defined by flows of data and information. This phenomenon now underpins virtually all cross-border transactions within traditional flows while simultaneously transmitting a valuable stream of ideas and innovation around the world.”
One of the benefits of this shift is that it has become easier for emerging economies and individuals from all around the world to participate.
Of course, not all countries and cities are participating equally. In their report, McKinsey ranks the top cities according to five global flows. In each case a proxy was used:
“Unfortunately, data on global flows are not available at the city level. However, we have obtained data that serve as proxies for each of our five global flows. Container port volumes approximate goods flows; airport passenger volumes serve as a proxy for goods, service, and people flows; the ranking of cities in the Global Financial Centers Index by the Z/Yen Group provides an indication of financial flows; the number of foreign-born residents in a city measures people flows; and Internet bandwidth approximates data flows.”
Yesterday I promised that today’s post would be less sad. I am sticking to that promise, but I am also sticking with a somewhat similar theme: getting older.
Fast Company recently published an interview with New York-based architect Matthias Hollwich. The topic is aging and the kinds of spaces that we have created for people as they age: retirement communities, nursing homes, and so on.
The reason this is getting airtime right now is because Matthias has just published a book on the topic called, New Aging: Live smarter now to live better forever.
But this isn’t a new focus. Matthias actually taught at the University of Pennsylvania while I was there and I remember his design studio being focused on this topic. (I wasn’t in his studio, unfortunately.)
The sound bite that I really like from the interview is this one:
“I think the biggest flaw is that it’s age segregation. You take all of the people who are above 75, 85, or 95, depending on what type of environment it is, and put them into one place. And then you’re just surrounded by old people, people who have social and physical challenges, and you’re not around the vibrancy of a multi-age environment, which is something that we experience all life long. I think that is something that society really has to rethink.”
Not only do I agree with him, but I think it exemplifies one of the things that I love about architecture. The idea that the way things are done today is usually not some sort of universal truth. Instead, everything can be questioned, rethought, and reinvented for the better. It’s a very entrepreneurial way of operating and I don’t think that parallel, between entrepreneurs and architects, is drawn or leveraged nearly enough.
I also don’t think we’ve given enough design consideration to this topic of aging. I mean, why can’t the spaces that people end their lives in be as (or more) sexy and enjoyable as (or than) the spaces they live the rest of their lives in? That’s what I want when I’m 95.
So kudos to Mattias and the rest of the team at Hollwich Kushner (his firm) for caring about and working on this.
Book image from Matthias Hollwich’s Facebook.
This morning, instead of my usual routine of writing alongside a cup of coffee, I decided to finally edit all of the skiing and snowboarding footage that I took last month in Park City, Utah. Click here for the final cut.
McKinsey recently published a report called Digital globalization: The new era of global flows.
The overarching thesis is that we are transitioning to a data-driven global economy:
“Flows of physical goods and finance were the hallmarks of the 20th-century global economy, but today those flows have flattened or declined. Twenty-first-century globalization is increasingly defined by flows of data and information. This phenomenon now underpins virtually all cross-border transactions within traditional flows while simultaneously transmitting a valuable stream of ideas and innovation around the world.”
One of the benefits of this shift is that it has become easier for emerging economies and individuals from all around the world to participate.
Of course, not all countries and cities are participating equally. In their report, McKinsey ranks the top cities according to five global flows. In each case a proxy was used:
“Unfortunately, data on global flows are not available at the city level. However, we have obtained data that serve as proxies for each of our five global flows. Container port volumes approximate goods flows; airport passenger volumes serve as a proxy for goods, service, and people flows; the ranking of cities in the Global Financial Centers Index by the Z/Yen Group provides an indication of financial flows; the number of foreign-born residents in a city measures people flows; and Internet bandwidth approximates data flows.”
Compared to the video we did for Jackson Hole, I don’t like the selfie perspective as much. It doesn’t show enough of the person. This time we used the Go Pro 3-way arm, but in Jackson we used a plastic tube that I think was used for a beer funnel before that. Next year we’ll go back to that.
Video is a lot of fun and I would love to figure out a way to incorporate more of it into this blog. But that’s a far bigger time commitment and I am not prepared to allocate resources to that. I write every day. That’s my thing.
I am, however, not ignorant to what’s happening in the world of video blogging. And I think there are lots of opportunities for businesses who have the resources to allocate towards projects like this.
Take for instance this vlog by New York video guy Casey Neistat. It’s probably the best piece of marketing that the Phantom 4 drone could have asked for. It’s authentic. I watched it and now I want one. Take my money.
(Note to city geeks: It’s worth watching just for the drone aerials of Cape Town, South Africa.)
To my knowledge, I don’t think people are doing anything like this in the real estate business. But eventually it will happen. Because people are becoming increasingly immune to your typical marketing pieces.
Using this methodology, they believe that the world only has 8 truly global cities right now: New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, London, Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Dubai. They are the colored cities listed below:
I always take these city rankings with a grain of salt. This stuff is not easy to quantify and a lot depends on the methodology that you use.
For instance, Atlanta sits on the top of “goods, services, and people” because it has the busiest airport in the world according to passenger volume. (It’s the primary hub of Delta Air Lines.) But is that enough to assert that Atlanta is #1? Maybe. Maybe not.
In any case, the report is packed full of information. If you’d like to take a look, click here.
Compared to the video we did for Jackson Hole, I don’t like the selfie perspective as much. It doesn’t show enough of the person. This time we used the Go Pro 3-way arm, but in Jackson we used a plastic tube that I think was used for a beer funnel before that. Next year we’ll go back to that.
Video is a lot of fun and I would love to figure out a way to incorporate more of it into this blog. But that’s a far bigger time commitment and I am not prepared to allocate resources to that. I write every day. That’s my thing.
I am, however, not ignorant to what’s happening in the world of video blogging. And I think there are lots of opportunities for businesses who have the resources to allocate towards projects like this.
Take for instance this vlog by New York video guy Casey Neistat. It’s probably the best piece of marketing that the Phantom 4 drone could have asked for. It’s authentic. I watched it and now I want one. Take my money.
(Note to city geeks: It’s worth watching just for the drone aerials of Cape Town, South Africa.)
To my knowledge, I don’t think people are doing anything like this in the real estate business. But eventually it will happen. Because people are becoming increasingly immune to your typical marketing pieces.
Using this methodology, they believe that the world only has 8 truly global cities right now: New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, London, Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Dubai. They are the colored cities listed below:
I always take these city rankings with a grain of salt. This stuff is not easy to quantify and a lot depends on the methodology that you use.
For instance, Atlanta sits on the top of “goods, services, and people” because it has the busiest airport in the world according to passenger volume. (It’s the primary hub of Delta Air Lines.) But is that enough to assert that Atlanta is #1? Maybe. Maybe not.
In any case, the report is packed full of information. If you’d like to take a look, click here.
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