Policy

June 17, 2015

Let’s Introduce Text Walking Lanes for Smartphone Addicts

You've seen them. You've tried to get around them. You're probably one of them. In a world where there are more mobile phones than people, it's become commonplace to find folks paying more attention to what's on their phones than what's in front of them on the street. These so-called "text-walkers" are often a nuisance to other pedestrians as well as a danger to themselves (and their precious phones). A smart solution to this problem has appeared on the sidewalks of Antwerp, Belgium in the form of "text walking lanes." These lanes, marked by simple white lines painted onto the sidewalk, designate a separate walking space for people who use their phones while walking.
More on text-walking lanes

June 15, 2015

Transfixing Spirulina Furniture Produces Free Heat, Light and Food

By Annie Doge

Jacob Douenias and Ethan Frier have been busy brewing up the next trend in green interior decor: spirulina-producing furniture. The cyanobacteria, commonly used for adding protein and nutrients to smoothies and other food, has made its way into the landscape of objects for the home, and here can be seen as the central feature in a spectacular series designed specifically for cultivating the living greens for practical purposes.
Learn more about this brilliant spirulina design

Photo via Garrett Ziegler/Flickr

June 15, 2015

5Pointz Artists Sue Developer for Whitewashing Iconic Graffiti Facade

By Dana Schulz

Photo via Garrett Ziegler/Flickr It's been 19 months since the 5Pointz graffiti mecca was secretly whitewashed overnight by the developers who have since razed the site to make way for the two residential towers that will replace it. Then, to pour salt in the wound, this past November G&M Realty announced that they planned to use the iconic 5Pointz name for their new project, infuriating the artists whose work adorned the building and leading them to launch a petition to stop the title. Now, the plot has thickened. Nine graffiti artists filed a lawsuit on Friday "seeking unspecified damages from the owner who whitewashed away their artwork," reports the Daily News. The plaintiffs claim they're owed financial compensation as they were not given the opportunity to retrieve their work, much of which could have ended up in museums or the artists' personal collections. The lost collection amounts to more than 350 graffiti pieces.
More details here

June 10, 2015

Camera-Equipped Intelligent Oven Knows Exactly How to Cook Your Meal

By Diane Pham

Although it may look like a run-of-the-mill toaster oven, don't let its modest appearance deceive you. This little appliance will quickly turn a poor soul who can't fry an egg into a master chef—or something close to one. Invented by Ammunition Group, a team credited with bringing the iPhone, the FitBit, the GoPro, and Lyft to market, the June Intelligent Oven is a revolutionary kitchen appliance that harnesses the power of everything we digital age junkies love: computers, a HD camera, and a Google-like image search system that can determine what we're cooking and how it should be cooked.
READ MORE

June 2, 2015

Wake Up to the Smell of a Hot Croissant or Cut Grass with This Olfactory Alarm Clock

By Dana Schulz

Caffeine fiends were pretty excited when we featured the Bariseur, a hybrid coffee brewer-alarm clock that wakes you up with a fresh cup of Joe. But what if you're not a coffee drinker or if some mornings you'd prefer to rise with the aroma of the seaside rather than espresso? Don't worry, we've got you covered. SensorWake is a scent-based alarm clock that wakes you up with the aroma of chocolate instead of the sound of a blaring horn. It uses interchangeable scent cartridges that include the aforementioned seaside and chocolate, coffee, of course, hot croissants, peaches, rose, peppermint, and, curiously, dollars, among others. Each cartridge is good for about 60 wake-up calls, and the company claims it will have your eyes open in two minutes. If you're still snoozing in three minutes, a traditional sound-based alarm will go off.
Watch the product video and learn more here

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May 27, 2015

Futuristic Pod Powered by the Wind and Sun–a Viable Housing Solution?

By Diane Pham

We've featured plenty of live/work and portable prefab spaces on 6sqft in the past, but this tiny house designed by Nice Architects might be one of the most efficient and adaptable housing solutions we've seen. Called the Ecocapsule, the sleek micro-house is a totally off-grid construction that's powered by solar and wind energy. Amazingly, at just 14.6 feet long and 7.4 feet wide, it has the potential to comfortably fit two adults. And on top of that, there's a kitchenette, a toilet, and a shower with hot water.
Find out more here

May 27, 2015

NYC Households Spend $130 a Month Funding the MTA

By Dana Schulz

Today's dose of disheartening news about the MTA comes via the Daily News, who reports that the debt-ridden city agency collects $4.8 billion a year from city taxpayers through taxes, fees, and the city budget. This comes out to $130 a month for the average New York household, even more than the cost of a monthly Metrocard, according to a new report by Comptroller Scott Stringer. Keep in mind this is in addition to the $5.3 billion they collect from fares and tolls.
Find out more here

May 26, 2015

Report Poorly Parked Cars and Bad Drivers with the ‘TowIt’ App

By Diane Pham

Few things are as enraging and unnerving as the way New Yorkers drive. And although no one wants to be a tattletale, there's finally a way to help better patrol bad drivers right from our smartphones. Called TowIt, this handy app allows concerned citizens to snap photos of motor violations, geo-tag them, and then send them in real-time for ticketing or towing by law enforcement and city officials.
Find out more and where to download the app

May 20, 2015

POLL: Do You Agree with the Central Park Skyscraper Moratorium?

By Dana Schulz

Yesterday we reported that Community Board Five’s Sunshine Task Force is calling for “an immediate, temporary moratorium on any new construction of 600 feet or taller that is not already undergoing public review, particularly with those threatening to cast shadows over Central Park in an area bounded by 53rd Street and Central Park South, and […]

NASA-Inspired Green Wheel Lets You Grow Your Own Food Indoors

By Ana Lisa Alperovich

Growing your own food is the first step on the self-sufficiency journey, and it can never hurt learn having fresh food close at hand. But as we New Yorkers know, it's not always easy to create a lush garden on the fire escape. To tackle this subject, Italian studio DesignLibero created The Green Wheel, a rotary, hydroponic garden that provides a constant supply of micro-herbs and salad. Its futuristic aesthetics are sleek and modern; in fact, it takes direct inspiration from a 1980s NASA idea.
Learn more about this wheeled vegetable patch

Photo via Le Travelist

May 20, 2015

Four Seasons Renovation Plans Shot Down by Landmarks Preservation Commission

By Diane Pham

Aby Rosen's plans to update the Four Seasons has been squashed by the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission. According to Crain's, the only upgrade that received a nod from the commission was a request to change the carpet. Bigger renovations, like replacing a non-original fissured glass partition with planters and to replace a fixed walnut panel between the public and private dining rooms with a movable one, were all rejected. "There is no good reason why they should make these changes," said Meenakshi Srinivasan, the commission's chairwoman, Crain's reports. "There's no rationale. The space could function perfectly well without these changes, so why do it?"
Find out more

May 19, 2015

Community Board Wants Moratorium Placed on Central Park Skyscrapers Taller than 600 Feet

By Diane Pham

Those looking to build a behemoth along Central Park may have to look elsewhere. The Manhattan Community Board Five's Sunshine Task Force has voted in favor of a resolution calling for an immediate, temporary moratorium on any new construction of 600 feet or taller that is not already undergoing public review, particularly with those threatening to cast shadows over Central Park in an area bounded by 53rd Street and Central Park South, and Fifth Avenue to Eighth Avenue. The board voiced their concerns and outlined the ban in a policy brief (via DNA Info) which made its way to the desks of the Department of City Planning and the mayor last week.
FInd out more here

May 19, 2015

Mayor’s Plan to Revamp the City’s Public Housing Addresses Disrepair and Need for Revenue

By Michelle Cohen

Mayor de Blasio is expected to announce today the rollout of a ten-year plan to improve the city's debt-and-disrepair-riddled public housing. According to the New York Times, plan items include–perhaps most notably–the leasing of land within a number of housing complexes to developers; other items include the transference of some New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) employees (and the $90 million a year it costs the agency to pay them) to other city agencies and increased rents as well as higher parking fees for residents.
Find out how the mayor plans to shore up the city's public housing

City Council Announces New Task Force on Tracking and Preserving Affordable Housing

Image by Jorbasa Fotografie / Flickr

May 14, 2015

City Council Announces New Task Force on Tracking and Preserving Affordable Housing

By Michelle Cohen

City councilman Mark Levine announced Wednesday the creation of the Affordable Housing Preservation Taskforce, which will track existing affordable units across the city on the brink of becoming market rate. The task force is the latest in an effort to address the monumental task of preserving the city's affordable housing. According to Crain's NY, the 14-member task force, which will be led by Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, will work with residents, landlords and nonprofits to identify buildings headed toward market rate rent status. Rent regulation, for example, stipulates that rent can only be raised by a certain percentage each year as set by the New York City Rent Guidelines Board.
More on the new task force

May 11, 2015

Charting the Property Taxes of the City’s 10 Most Expensive Apartments

By Dana Schulz

Back in March, we learned that the owner of the $100 million apartment at One57 (the most expensive sale ever in the city) pays only $17,268 in annual property taxes– "or 0.017 percent of its sale price, as if it were worth only $6.5 million," as we noted. "In contrast, the owner of a $1.02 million condo nearby at 224 East 52nd Street is paying $24,279, or 2.38 percent of its sale price." Why does this happen? It's in part due to the 421-a program, which offers tax breaks for the inclusion of affordable housing and "lowers the billable-assessed value of a property to incentivize real-estate development," according to CityLab. It's also thanks to the city's haphazard system for assessing market values of condos and co-ops. In response to this growing issue of inequality, Mayor de Blasio announced just last week that he hopes to end 421-a for condos, as well as implement an even stricter mansion tax. To make the issue a bit more black-and-white, CityLab has put together two charts that show just how disproportionate the actual value of the city's ten most-expensive apartments is compared with their property taxes. As they note, "In NYC, billionaires pay 1/100th the average property-tax rate."
Find out more here

To Increase Affordability, Mayor de Blasio Wants to End 421-a for Condos and Up the Mansion Tax

Mayor de Blasio via @KevinCase via photopin cc; One57 © Wade Zimmerman courtesy of Agence Christian de Portzamparc (ACDP)

May 7, 2015

To Increase Affordability, Mayor de Blasio Wants to End 421-a for Condos and Up the Mansion Tax

By Dana Schulz

From the onset, Mayor de Blasio has been extremely vocal about his plan to add 200,000 units of affordable housing over 10 years, 80,000 of which will be new construction. Though many feel this is an arbitrary number, backed up by no data as to where the units will be, the Mayor seems committed to reforming current policies to reach his goal. And after months of speculation, he has revealed his planned changes to the city's 421-a tax incentive program, which is set to expire in June. According to the Times, under his proposal, the controversial tax would no longer apply to condo projects (to understand the logic behind this decision just look at the $100 million sale at One57 that received the tax abatement). But it would apply to new rental projects, which would have to have apartments for poor and working-class residents make up 20 to 30 percent of the building in order to qualify for city tax breaks. It would also extend the abatement from 25 years to 35 years. Another part of the overhaul is to eliminate so-called poor doors. De Blasio also wants to up the city's mansion tax. Currently, home sales over $1 million are subject to a 1 percent tax, but de Blasio proposes adding an additional 1 percent tax for sales over $1.75 million, as well as a third 1.5 percent tax for sales over $5 million. He estimates this will bring in an extra $200 million a year in tax revenue, money that would be allocated to affordable housing programs.
More details ahead

May 7, 2015

Combine Life, Work and Sleep in a 7x7x7-Foot Catch-All Pod

By Diane Pham

As New Yorkers we're used to multi-tasking; we eat while we work, we text while we walk, check our e-mail while we brush out teeth. So why not bring all of our urban dweller idiosyncrasies under one very, very small roof? The creation of Yazdani Studio of CannonDesign, this tiny 7x7x7-foot pod is actually a space designed for young entrepreneurs who can't turn it off. But given the habits of most of New York's labor force (yes, you), and the fact most of us are used to squeezing into smaller than average quarters, this petite pod could prove a boon to the work-obsessed—or what finally pushes them over the edge.
Find out more here

May 7, 2015

Organize Your Music by City with Spotimap

By Dana Schulz

Next time you really feel like getting in that "New York State of Mind," just organize your playlist to include only NYC-centric songs. This would normally be an arduous task, but thanks to a new Spotify-based mapping program called Spotimap, you can sort and stream music relevant to a specific city simply by clicking on it, marked by a green musical note, on a map. As CityLab reports, once a user clicks a city, a list of songs about that place will pop up based on this highly detailed Wikipedia list. For New York, the map offers 2,707 songs about the city, sorted in alphabetical order.
Find out more here

Policy

May 6, 2015

Landmarks Greenlights 190 Bowery Restoration Plan with Iconic Graffiti Intact

By Dana Schulz

After several weeks of back and forth on whether or not the new owner of 190 Bowery, Aby Rosen’s RFR Realty, would keep its iconic graffiti, it's now official that the historic Germania Bank Building will remain in all its tagged glory. As Yimby reports, the Landmarks Preservation Commission approved the proposed restoration and conversion to an office building with ground-floor retail. The plan, conceptualized by preservation architecture firm Higgins Quasebarth & Partners with the help of MdeAS Architects, "calls for restoration of metal gates, wooden doors, stained glass, and other elements, but not removing the graffiti or cleaning the façade."
More on the approved plans here

May 5, 2015

3D-Printed Hawks and Owls Are Scaring Away NYC Pigeons

By Dana Schulz

Are you in the "rats with wings" camp of not being too fond of New York City pigeons? Well then you'll welcome this modern take on the "pigeon scarecrow." The Observer recently took a look at the 3D-printed hawks and owls from Robox, noting that "they’ve found that pigeons are so frightened by the watchful and intimidating gazes of the 3D printed birds that even the incentive of food isn’t enough to convince stray pigeons to stick around in their presence." But if you happen to be a pigeon lover, have no fear, these little objects are seen as a much better way to curb the spread of diseases from pigeons than traps and repellents.
Find out how you can get your own 3D-printed pigeon scarecrow

May 1, 2015

Public Shaming: New Campaign Uses DNA to Recreate the Faces of Litterbugs

By Diane Pham

We've all seen those folks who callously toss their garbage into the street when there's a trashcan just ten steps away. While most of us usually remain hush and pick up the slack, there's a group out there that's fed up with litter and they most certainly aren't afraid to point fingers. As part of a campaign developed by Ogilvy to help clean the streets of Hong Kong, activists including Hong Kong Cleanup, Ecozine, and The Nature Conservancy joined forces to give a face—or literally, faces—to the problem plaguing cities worldwide.
find out more about this genius campaign here

May 1, 2015

VIDEO: Watch a 57-Story Skyscraper Go Up in Just 19 Days

By Diane Pham

While New York City developers have been laser-focused on bringing us the world's tallest residential towers, the Chinese are in pursuit of another marker: building them the fastest. A 57-story skyscraper was recently completed in Changsha, Hunan Province in just 19 working days, erected at an incredible rate of three floors a day. Called "Mini Sky City," the construction is an assembly of 2,736 glass-and-steel modules fabricated off-site over the course of roughly five months. Though the tower may have come quickly, the offerings within don't fall short: the new high-rise boasts 19 atriums, office space for 4,000 people, 800 apartments, and is reportedly earthquake-resistant.
Watch the incredible video here

Policy

Central Park Sunshine Task Force Meets to Speak Out Against Supertall Shadows

Rendering showing the location, size and massing of projects currently being developed along Central Park South, via MAS “Accidental Skyline” report

April 29, 2015

Central Park Sunshine Task Force Meets to Speak Out Against Supertall Shadows

By Dana Schulz

There are a dozen supertalls (1,000 feet or higher) in the construction or planning stages in Manhattan, many of which are sprouting up along the billionaires' row hotbed south of Central Park. The trend has incensed many New Yorkers because of the shadows these giant towers will cast on the park. Last month, Councilman Mark Levine introduced legislation to create a task force that will examine, as he put it, “the looming threat of shadows falling on our parks from the rising number of skyscrapers.” A similar group of concerned parties, the Central Park Sunshine Task Force of Community Board 5, met last night to discuss the issue. As Curbed reports, in the standing-room-only town hall meeting at the New York Public Library the group covered issues including zoning laws, transparency in the building process, construction safety, matters of light and air, overdevelopment, and even the "'phallic' nature of the buildings themselves."
More on the meeting here

April 27, 2015

Ikea’s Concept Kitchen 2025 Predicts We’ll Soon Use Smart Tables and Drone-Delivered Groceries

By Dana Schulz

As part of Milan Design Week, Ikea has revealed their Concept Kitchen 2025, created in collaboration with London-based design firm IDEO and students from Sweden's Lund and Eindhoven universities. The futuristic kitchen prototype is based on predictions about what the world will be like ten years from now. It assumes we'll all be living a much greener, reduced lifestyle and technology such as smart tables and drone-delivered groceries will run kitchen operations.
Learn all about the modern kitchen prototype

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