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Builder José Mosquera's masterwork languishes in a wooded area outside Havana, Cuba, going slowly to ruin and being colonized by trees and vines. But when Princeton University senior Isabella Douglas and a team of students met him on the grounds of Cuba's National School of Ballet last November, Mosquera gave them a rare gift.

Rather than repeat the sprawling and uncoordinated development patterns of the past, researchers at Princeton's School of Engineering and Applied Science and School of Architecture are exploring new ways to build urban infrastructures to serve our growing population, changing civilization and warming planet.

Despite ample evidence that Atlantic hurricanes are getting stronger, Princeton University-led research found that people's view of future storm threat is based on their hurricane experience, gender and political affiliation. This could affect how policymakers and scientists communicate the increasing deadliness of hurricanes as a result of climate change.

For their senior thesis, two Princeton engineers worked across departments to solve fundamental problems and create a flexible sheet of sensors to detect strains over wide areas of structures such as buildings, bridges and dams.

The historic drought that parched Brazil over the last two years was not just a water-supply problem – it was also a power problem. The nation's heavy use of hydroelectricity, which had made it a model of renewable energy, contributed to an increased risk of rolling blackouts in some of Brazil's largest cities during severe droughts. Now, Princeton researchers are joining with colleagues at a Brazilian university to help the operator of Brazil's electric grid and the country's major utilities

As the world's climate heats up, buildings in tomorrow's cities will need innovative solutions to keep cool. Channeling streams of water on a building's skin or spraying a water mist around a structure could be unique ways to solve this issue with minimal use of energy. A team of Princeton researchers spanning two engineering departments and architecture is exploring the cooling effect of water on architecture – from small-scale prototypes to full-size structures.