‘Going out and talking to people is half the craft’
Tom Campbell on his post-lockdown photo essay for The Possible
The Possible issue 07: Where will we live next?
The Covid experience has foregrounded the myriad ways in which the physical environment influences health and wellbeing
‘I wanted to create a transition between the cities we live in today and the places where we want to live’
Artist Fabrizio Lenci on the cover for The Possible issue 07
Cities after Covid: Back to life
The lockdown experience has fundamentally changed the way that many of us relate to the built environment. Designers can make shared spaces safer — but can they make people feel safe again?
Blank canvas: Can we turn electricity substations into nature-positive assets?
Three teams come up with solutions for greening essential — but not necessarily attractive — infrastructure
Modular buildings: movable, interchangeable, but are they flexible?
Additive architecture has a mixed history, and pods are not exactly suited to creating open spaces, but plug-in buildings may offer other advantages
Adaptable secrets of (very) old buildings
Heritage buildings are often masters of reinvention — what can today’s designers learn from them?
Flexible buildings: the problem with mixing layers
Different parts of a building evolve at different speeds, so it makes sense to keep them separate
Smart tech: another layer of flexibility
An adaptable overlay of smart modes could help buildings to remain useful for longer
The ultimate flexible building
More than ever, we need buildings that can bend to whatever the future brings. But flexibility itself has always been a malleable concept. Can it be pinned down?
Can design make cities more equitable?
There are many ways in which the built environment not only reflects but reinforces social inequity. Does the way we plan and design cities need to change?
Are parks whiter by design?
A London-based researcher explores why people from BAME backgrounds are less likely to use urban green spaces
How smarter mobility can make cities more equitable
Three ways of using transport data to tackle social exclusion
Public spaces that girls want to use: a design problem
In Sweden, White Arkitekter is finding out how to make parks more gender-inclusive
The first domino: what business can learn from wellbeing
We can think about corporate resilience in the same terms as wellness and self-care, say Kealy Herman and Emily Wasley
The new radicals: why net zero means embracing risk
Construction’s cautious approach to new products is undermining its net-zero aspirations before we’ve really begun, writes David Glover
41 billion reasons to decarbonize
Costa Rica’s decarbonization plan could make it US$41 billion better off by 2050 — even if other countries do nothing, says Adrien Vogt-Schilb
Five thoughts on flexible buildings
We need new solutions for sustainable reuse, says Maria Brogren, but we should also look to the past
Five thoughts on future-ready streetscapes
City leaders need to think beyond the parking space and activate streets for new, sustainable ways of living and moving around.
Extinction contradiction: Why climate action isn’t always good for biodiversity
Net zero should bring wider ecological benefits, writes Tom Butterworth — but if we’re not careful, it could exacerbate another global crisis
Power play: the other talents of urban infrastructure
Copenhagen’s new power plant shows that urban infrastructure can make great public spaces, writes Mark Bessoudo
Digital resilience by design
Smart buildings present new, unprecedented risks to their developers, owners and tenants. Managing these must become part of the design process