r/InfrastructurePorn

To make room for more housing without losing green space, planners in a new Toronto neighborhood flipped the usual approach: Instead of carving out room for parks and plazas, they made the streets do that work instead.

“The street is almost like a public courtyard,” says Rasmus Astrup, design principal and senior partner at SLA, the Denmark-based firm that was part of the design team for the new neighborhood, called Ookwemin Minising.

The main street will be car-free, “like a linear park,” he says, and filled with 400 trees. Other streets will allow cars, but prioritize large swaths of green space. The design gives residents public space, and doubles as climate infrastructure that can reduce urban heat, support biodiversity, and capture water in storms.

Loathed by many. Arguably the most important bit of central London road infrastructure. The Westway near Paddington Station. This section is a three layer stack of 60’s pre-stressed reinforced concrete. An absolute behemoth.

I have no one to talk about this without sounding crazy, but I have to express my feelings about it, so I'm going to go on a rant here.

I am an American, and I'm in college. Because of that, I have been commuting from my small town to the city to study, so I have been gaining driving experience.

One of the things I have encountered on my daily commute was a roundabout. Initially, it was scary because in America, it is something I don't really see often. After a while, I learned how to drive on it, and let me tell you how much I love them. Every time i get to a stop sign or traffic light i am filed with the most irritating rage ; I don't feel this kind of rage outside of the car, but when I drive, this road rage gets me over stimulated and stressed. I don't know if I'm just impatient or if I just don't like being told what to do, but these types of things make me hate driving. However, this is one of the few roundabouts in this city that is almost never backed up with cars despite being in busy areas, and it always feels freeing because the only thing stopping me from moving is common sense and only having to yield to cars and people (something I would already do).

I also heard that roundabouts are more efficient. Sometimes I just like to drive around a roundabout for fun until I get bored or remember how expensive gas his recently.

I don't understand why other Americans struggle with roundabouts. I am basically, and I can use one just fine.

The only flaw I can think of is that if you're new to a city, it is easy to miss your turn or get off the wrong exit ,but even then, I feel like that's a me kind of problem.

I know they are not always necessary, but i wish American cities added more of them.

Title: The Department of Narrow Escapes

Date: May 2026, Early Afternoon, Concrete Era

Medium / material: Sunlight, reinforced concrete, gravel, unauthorized handwriting

Collection line: From the Municipal Labyrinths & Mild Threats Collection

Plaque note: The architect provided a maze, the sun filed a complaint, and someone helpfully signed the evidence.

The impossibly lightweight tensile engineering of the bell tower at Nørrelandskirken in Holstebro, Denmark by Inger and Johannes Exner