This past week, wrangling over the Bush-era tax cuts has riveted Washington. The spectacle is only the latest round in an endless debate, one that has launched innumerable op-eds, cacophonous talk-show segments, and dinner-table quarrels.

Buildings, in many ways, represent the opposite of nature. From a modest suburban house to the most majestic skyscraper, a building signals the presence of people in a place, differentiating human spaces from their surroundings.

You’re not likely to hear about this from your doctor, but fake medical treatment can work amazingly well.

In June 2008, when Punsri Abeywickrema was working on his backyard in San Mateo, Calif., he found himself in need of a wheelbarrow. He didn’t own one, but his neighbor did, and he had borrowed it the previous weekend; due to space constraints, he preferred not to buy one himself.

In 2001, Muhammad Shafique arrived in the Haripur District in Pakistan, a region known for its traditionalism and wariness of outsiders. As part of a team from Save the Children, Shafique was seeking to improve outcomes for newborns.