The Melting Ice Age
Scientists have warned that melting permafrost in the world's coldest regions will cause accelerating problems of subsidence.

'In parts of Fairbanks, Alaska, houses and buildings lean at odd angles. Some slump as if sliding downhill. Windows and doors inch closer and closer to the ground. It is an architectural landscape that is becoming more familiar as the world's ice-rich permafrost gives way to thaw...'

Boreholes in Norway show that ground temperatures rose 0.4C over the past decade, 'four times faster than they did in the previous century...' In Tibet, nearly half the new Qinghai-Xizang railroad will run across land vulnerable to permafrost melt. Engineers are using crushed rock to minimise heat intake in summer and promote heat loss in winter.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4120755.stm

The 80-Mile Long 'Super City'
Will Alsop's vision of a 15-mile wide supercity stretching from coast to coast across northern England has gone on public display, its boldness provoking praise, scepticism and derision.

The motorway metropolis - running 80 miles along the M62 - would allow people to 'live in Hull, commute to Liverpool, shop in Leeds and go out in Manchester in one day'. Included in the scheme are plans to extend Liverpool up to a mile into the Irish Sea with buildings on stilts, Barnsley remodelled as a walled Tuscan hill village, and 'Stack', a vertical community 'where 5,000 people can live, work, worship and play...'

'The whole point of this is to celebrate individuality and uniqueness. More than anything else, people want a return to civic pride', said Alsop. A BBC poll encouraged some traditional public responses: 'My 4 year old child could construct better designs out of sticky backed plastic, egg cartons and washing up liquid bottles...' http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/4187409.stm

Super City the exhibition: http://www.urbis.org.uk/levelone.asp?page=162

Alsop in interview. 'What I'm trying to do is think of it as another model of urbanism, what you might call post-suburbia... In physical terms, there'd be new settlements of between 2,000 and 5,000 people, and each of those places would have local shopping, a church, a pub, and it would be ecologically sound, trying to get everyone to live in almost one building...' http://tinyurl.com/3ulcn

Alsop's week:  'I woke, to brilliant sunshine, in my house in Norfolk, went for a swim at the local pool, did the crossword, then disappeared down to the shed at the bottom of the garden...'
Registration: http://tinyurl.com/3sjkj