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Across the United States, there is a long history of communities of color being underservedif not outright oppressedby the dominant modes of urban planning and development. But for the past 10 years, a collective of architects, designers, artists, and urban planners called BlackSpace has been rethinking how communities of color get designed and built. Now, the group is trying to build up the ranks of practitioners working alongside communities of color in the built environment to make sure their needs are no longer overlooked or ignored. To spread this work through young and emerging firms, BlackSpace has launched Studio KIN (Kinfolx Imagining Neighborhoods), a business accelerator focused on bringing resources, funding, and community to Black-founded ventures that produce services and products focused on the built environment. The incubator’s first cohort has just been announced. “When we think about spatial justice, we think a lot about how it’s realized through having the folks that are planning, designing, and building neighborhoods that reflect the places that they’re serving,” says Kenyatta McLean, co-managing director of BlackSpace. “We developed Studio KIN to be a home for those urbanists that are working to meet communities where they’re at.” Members of BlackSpace’s Studio KIN cohort include an urban planning studio in Indianapolis, a community design firm in Oklahoma City, and a bookstore and community space in Brooklyn. The focus of the accelerator is “interdisciplinary urbanist solutions that strengthen majority Black and majority multiracial neighborhoods,” says Emma Osore, co-managing director of BlackSpace. The hole to fill is wide. There are roughly 1,000 zip codes across the U.S. that have majority Black populations, but fewer than 2% of them are considered prosperous. Osore says the goal of the accelerator is to help support the growth of locally based organizations that use place-based practices to increase prosperity for Black communities, particularly within Oklahoma City, Chicago, Indianapolis, and New York City. “There’s rapid change in Black places in all of these cities, and there are very few people locally who understand urbanism from this people-centered, culturally rooted, and ethical point of view,” Osore says. Having locally based design firms, for example, can help ensure projects are developed in ways that serve their communities over the long term. McLean notes that it’s not uncommon for a big national firm to come in to work on a well-meaning project in a Black neighborhood, only to leave once the contract is over. “What does that mean for the sustainability of that project? What does it mean for the communities that surround that neighborhood?” she says. “That’s another reason why we’re so interested and continue to be interested in folks that are locally rooted, because they will stay through the storms and also be there for the moments of sunshine that are happening.” BlackSpace’s Studio KIN will operate like a typical business incubator, offering support and resources to organizations as they grow and mature. The first cohort is made up of small firms that are between three and five years old, and the accelerator will help them do things like build capacity for new work or help raise capital, as well as more mundane things like assisting with bookkeeping. Members of Studio KIN’s cohort reflect the need for this kind of hyper-specific business incubator. For example, Open Design Collective is the first and only Black woman-led nonprofit design firm in Oklahoma, with a focus on architecture, planning, and cultural preservation. In Indianapolis, Rokh Research & Design Studio focuses on cultural equity by partnering with researchers, practitioners, and community members to understand lived experiences and introduce new policies and strategies for urban design. The accelerator will run for 12 months, and BlackSpace’s program director Gabriella Malavé says the collective plans to have at least three cohorts over the next few years. The shape of the accelerator may shift as the organization gets to understand what members of its first cohort really need to grow and thrive. But the overall goal of the program is to help Black communities by establishing a wider network of urbanist practitioners focused specifically on their unique needs. “Our mission has always been to have opportunities for urbanists to co-create spatial change in partnership with Black communities and to strengthen Black communities,” Osore says. “So this is really a sort of a renaissance for BlackSpace.”
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Getting older can be a time when declining vision, hearing, and cognitive abilities may mean it’s no longer safe to drive. It may even lead to giving up your driver’s license. In theory, those who age out of driving should be perfect new customers for ride-sharing apps. And yet, Lyft says only 5.6% of its U.S. riders are older than 65. The company sensed a disconnect. The app wasn’t meeting older riders needs, and it needed a redesign. Lyft Silver, now available nationwide, is designed specifically for older users, with a font that’s 1.4 times bigger than the standard app, and a simple interface. [Image: Lyft] “Developing Lyft Silver was truly a labor of care and intention,” Audrey Liu, Lyft’s EVP of rider experience, tells Fast Company via email. “We started by listeningreally listeningto the experiences and needs of older adults. We spoke with riders, caregivers, and organizations that serve this community to understand the specific challenges they face with transportation. Things like navigating complex apps, feeling unsure about who their driver will be, or needing a little extra time and assistance.” The new design represents a collaboration among experts on aging, as well as partners like AltaMed, Urban League, Self Help for the Elderly, and others. The specialized app leans on Lyft’s findings about how its older customers actually use the service, like matching riders with more accessible vehicles that are easier to get in and out of since Lyft data showed older adults were twice as likely to cancel rides when they got matched with a pickup truck. And because Lyft found older adults are 57% more likely to not show up for their rides, the app has a “Get Help” button that connects riders to a live agent during work hours. Lyft Silver profiles also have trusted contacts, so ride details can be shared with family and caregivers. [Image: Lyft] “Personally, thinking about my own mom and aunt, and the desire I have for them to move through their day with ease and independence, was a huge motivator,” Liu says. “We focused on building features that directly address those paint points: things like a simpler app interface with larger buttons and clearer instructions, the option for drivers who have indicated a preference for assisting older riders, and a longer wait time to enter and exit the vehicle without feeling rushed. It was about creating a service that feels less transactional and more supportive, fostering a sense of comfort and trust.” It’s simple by design, and by basing the app on the needs and experiences of its actual users, Lyft Silver shows how tech companies can better adapt their services to an aging population.
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Chances are, if youre not an Italian grandma or a skilled home chef from Rome, youve probably messed up while trying to make cacio e pepe. At least, thats the thesis underpinning the scientific study Phase behavior of Cacio e Pepe sauce, published on April 29 in the journal Physics of Fluids. The studyconducted by a group of scientists from the University of Barcelona, the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems in Germany, the University of Padova in Italy, and the Institute of Science and Technology Austriais pretty much what its title suggests: a full-on scientific investigation into the most optimized recipe for the creamy, peppery pasta dish. Were Italians living abroad, and we often get together for dinner to enjoy traditional recipes from home, says Ivan Di Terlizzi, the studys lead author and a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute. Among the dishes weve cooked, cacio e pepe came up several times, and every time, we were struck by how hard it is to get the sauce right. Thats when we realized it might actually be an interesting physical system to study. And of course, there was also the very practical motivation of avoiding the heartbreak of wasting good pecorino! A very brief history of pasta-based physics experiments This isnt the first time that pasta has been used as inspiration for physicists. Probably the most famous example of “pasta as experiment,” Di Terlizzi says, is the observation that spaghetti almost never breaks cleanly in half, tending to snap into three or more fragments instead. This fact originally puzzled renowned physicist Richard Feynman (who died in 1988) and wasnt fully explained until 2005, when a team of French physicists showed that its caused by cascading cracks traveling along the pasta. Another example, Di Terlizzi adds, is the physics of ring-shaped polymers, which are notoriously hard to understand. A study in 2014 used a type of circular pasta, which the researchers called anelloni, to explain why these looped polymers behave so strangely in experiments. With cacio e pepe, the physics question of interest has to do with the sauces unusual behavior under heat. The main goal of our work wasnt just culinary; it was to explore the physics of this system, Di Terlizzi says. The sauces behavior under heat shares features with many physical and biological phenomena, like phase transitions or the formation of membrane-less organelles inside cells. The recipe is, in a sense, the practical byproduct of everything we learned. The most optimal cacio e pepe recipe, according to scientists Cacio e pepe traditionally only includes three ingredients: pasta, pecorino Romano cheese, and black pepper. While it seems like a simple enough concoction, the sauces creamy smoothness (the backbone of the dish) can be quite finicky to achieve. When the temperature gets too high or the mixing of cheese and pasta water isnt done carefully, the cheese proteins will denatureessentially unfolding and losing their normal 3D structure. In the unfolded state, the proteins then stick together and the emulsion breaks. Instead of a creamy consistency, you get a gooey mess, which we call salsa impazzita . . . that is, crazy sauce, Di Terlizzi says. The physics-based solution to crazy sauce? Its all about starch. It turns out that, by perfecting the ratio of starch in the pasta water to cheese mass, the cacio e pepe sauce becomes far more resistant to heat, which stabilizes the emulsion and prevents clumping. [Chart: AIP Publishing] Without starch, the so-called mozzarella phase kicks in at around 65°C, where the proteins start forming large aggregates, Di Terlizzi says. But if the starch concentration is above 1% relative to the cheese mass, the clumps stay small, and temperature becomes much less critical, making it much easier to get a good result. This is similar to using polymers to stabilize emulsions in soft matter physics, he adds. Phase behavior of cacio e pepe sauce contains ultra-detailed steps to a foolproof cacio e pepe, but here are the instructions in condensed terms: Step 1: For a pasta dish for two hungry people, start with 300 grams of the preferred tonnarelli pastaor opt for spaghetti or rigatoni, if you must. From there, youll need 200 grams of cheese. Traditionalists would insist on using only pecorino Romano DOP [protected designation of origin], but some argue that up to 30% parmigiano Reggiano DOP is acceptable; though this remains a point of debate, the recipe notes. Proceed based on your own personally held cheese preferences. Step 2: To prepare the sauce, dissolve 5 grams of starchlike potato or corn starchin 50 grams of water. Heat this mixture gently until it thickens and turns from cloudy to nearly clear. This is your starch gel. Step 3: Add 100 grams of water to the starch gel. Instead of manually grating the cheese into the resulting liquid, blend the two together to achieve a homogeneous sauce. Finish the sauce by adding black pepper to taste (for best results, toast the pepper in a pan before adding). Step 4: To prepare the pasta, cook in slightly salted water until it is al dente. Save some of the pasta cooking water before draining. Once the pasta has been drained, let it cool down for up to a minute to prevent the excessive heat from destabilizing the sauce. Finally, mix the pasta with the sauce, ensuring even coating, and adjust the consistency by gradually adding reserved pasta water as needed. Step 5: Garnish with grated cheese and pepper, and serve.
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