adriftindk

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The 5-minute walk, also known as the “pedestrian shed” is considered to be the distance people are willing to walk before opting to drive.

Five. Minutes. Represented by a radius measuring ¼ of a mile or about 400 meters.

That’s poor.

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How does our built environment affect us? This major exhibition about health and architecture examines the positive and negative influence buildings have on our physical and mental health.

Living with buildings, exhibition at the Wellcome Collection (Gdn | Spectator), with accompanying book (Gdn), podcast and vid by Iain Sinclair. 

The exhibition guide (can’t trace) includes a self-guided walk of Somers Town by Joe Kerr. 

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A New London Housing Vernacular, looking very like the Copenhagen variant but with more greenery, was put forward in a 2012 pamphlet by Urban Design London and Design for Homes. See also Leo Hollis in ICON, and via Google Images.

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I have realised that in a Danish context and in the Danish tradition there is a huge premium on consensus. On hygge, essentially. When we have a discussion in Denmark, we like to imagine that either we are almost in agreement when we start or at least we know we will be very close to agreeing when we finish. That of course is a really rather insane approach to having a discussion because, then, what are you essentially discussing?

'When we have a discussion in Denmark, we like to imagine we are in agreement when we start' - The Local

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Platforms Piece (via Wikipedia), highlighted in the launch of Historic England’s Immortalised season exploring secret, forgotten or unknown memorials

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Tolkein’s Birmiingham, via Diamond Geezer

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The high-rise and Soviet photography - and as Tetris Tower Block Game

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Folk optræder som var de bymennesker, men forbruger i langt højere grad, end de flanerer.

Jesper Pagh: København er ikke længere en storby men en fritidsby - byrum.dk

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Perth seems to be built around keeping rich, conservative families happy with their lot and little else. If you’re not a family person, there’s very little culture for you to connect with. The lack of culture has always been a real problem for me. When I get an interest in something, in general I find that in Perth no one cares, or a tiny niche group does, but it’s a bit too insular for new members.

'Sleepwalking into the future': readers' responses to Australian cities week | Cities | The Guardian

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Cult of the cosmic: how space travel became the unofficial religion of the USSR, part of Soviet space dreams, The Calvert Journal’s contribution to International Space Day (12 April). 

Gagarin stories noted from Belgrade and Kysgyzstan, trip made to Gagarin at DTU. 

Update: Soviet space graphics: cosmic visions from the USSR (Phaidon).

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Monet and architecture, really? (Standard | Gdn | CityMetric)

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Arne Jacobsen, via Danish Design Review. See also Hvorfor skal så meget nyt være så grimt?

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What we know – or think we know – about high-rise housing depends heavily on what we read and when we read it. Beyond that, confirmation bias – the tendency to interpret new evidence as corroboration of our existing beliefs – kicks in.

The Edward Woods Estate, Hammersmith, I: ‘the problem areas of today’ | Municipal Dreams

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In a pedestrian zone, the advantage should be for pedestrians, not cyclists. Every day there is conflict between cyclists and pedestrians. This is the core of the problem.

Wheeling the axe: Prague to ban bikes from historic squares and streets | Cities | The Guardian

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New pedways in the Barbican! Gladdens the heart. 

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Hurra for Latvian Literature and its #iamintrovert campaign:

The world is a perfect place for extroverted people. But we are different. Latvia is one of the most introverted countries in the world, and we take pride in that. Our writers fit in accordingly, so we will let their works speak for themselves.

Forthcoming: The book of Riga. 

See also Publishers Weekly. Meanwhile the Estonians claim they are too introverted to have a marketing campaign (but feature in WWB), and Lithuania went with book smugglers. 

Still confused? See Becoming the Baltics. 

All this effort sparked off by the Baltic Countries Market Focus at the London Book Fair. See the British Library on Baltic literature in translation.

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Population density in Europe; the Gdn has pics of the top 15 squ km, with Copenhagen in at nr 11 with 22,381 (looks like inner Østerbro).