The Honey Trap

IMAGE: Bees on the roof of the Waldorf Astoria in New York. Photo courtesy the Waldorf Astoria, via American Public Media’s Marketplace. A beehive is the urban roof accessory du jour, even more popular than its eco-friendly cousins, solar panels or greenery. New...

Beer Caves Redux

Underneath the pubs, shops, houses, and office buildings of Nottingham lie more than five hundred man-made caves, carved into the city’s soft sandstone bedrock over a thousand years, and now largely abandoned and forgotten. IMAGE: Geoff Manaugh, Ellis and Mark...

Soil Archive

IMAGE: Soil samples (the darker ones are carbon-stained), via. In the United States, soil protection is typically discussed in terms of erosion. Through a model law disseminated during the 1930s Dust Bowl, states were encouraged to create soil conservation districts...

Foodscape Mapping

At the invitation of architect Carlo Ratti, director of MIT’s Senseable City Lab, I was just in Berlin to lead a workshop on “Foodscape Mapping” at the BMW Guggenheim Lab. IMAGE: Talking about chewing gum mapping. Photo by Geoff Manaugh. I pulled...

The Universal Tea Machine

What do you get if you cross Alan Turing with the London Olympics? IMAGE: The Universal Tea Machine, Smout Allen and You+Pea with Iain Borden. According to British architects Smout Allen, the answer is a very variable cup of tea. Their Universal Tea Machine, designed...

Wet Cherries

At this time of year, Washington state’s cherry growers have their local helicopter pilot on speed dial. IMAGE: A helicopter acts as a giant blow dryer above a Montana cherry orchard. They are not taking triumphant joy rides over their ripening red crop, or...