A 200-year-old bicycle inspires design for climate change

The Canadian Broadcasting Company radio show Spark interviewed Nicholas Rajkovich about how his students built “laufmaschines,” which were an early version of the bicycle. The laufmachines were created in 1815 as a response to climate change and the need for less reliance on horses. “Understanding a little bit of the history of the bicycle, as it relates to climate resilience, is pretty important for a generation of practitioners that are going to be facing climate changes as part of their design work,” said Rajkovich. “These kinds of lessons in terms of being frugal with materials, and thinking about things like embodied energy are great things for building design.”