TOPIC

Design

Digital Frictions

Tools of Collective Intelligence

As building technologies from doorbells to thermostats claim to become ever “smarter,” how do they mesh with the social life of shared spaces?

Citymakers

Signs of the Times

From small and ubiquitous markers to massive bespoke steel numerals, this longstanding Greenpoint signage company helps New Yorkers navigate the city.

In the Hudson's Image

For activists, scientists, and designers, images from the river's past hold the key to imagining its future.

Shelf Life

We The News

As local newspapers dwindle, an artist revives New York’s classic newsstand to collect and circulate more diverse stories about immigration.

The Private Lives of Public Schools

When it comes to building schools, a little-known entity with radical roots has had an outsize effect on the city’s skyline. How can the Educational Construction Fund adapt an experimental ethos to changing times?

Circulation Desk

Waterfront Views

With so much of value under threat from rising seas and flooding rains, recent books reconsider our relation to the water’s edge.

Lavender Lane

Getting to the bottom of a mysterious streak of purple cropping up along Manhattan’s eastern edge.

The New Public Water

Drinking water is all around us, but just out of reach. Can simple tweaks to the city’s emergency infrastructure radically expand access to this precious resource?

An Urban System of Death

Density and displacement aren’t just problems for the living.

It Takes a Village to Weather a Storm

In Sheepshead Bay, designing for resilience at a scale somewhere between the city and the single-family house.