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With the completion of the Urban Mixing Installation the Fenton Five will now be moving on to individual projects. This blog will remain as an archive of their time working together and the project work completed.

Urban Mixing Installation

The Fenton Five built an installation to demonstrate the Urban Mixing Toolkit. A map showing the Performance Score for each data collection point was projected onto a hung piece of perspex, on to which where attached a series of sections, depicting the route.

The six weightings for each thematic indicator could be changed as part of ongoing a debate, encouraging discussion about how importantly each theme is valued.

The Toolkit was also marketed as a product, with a CD, booklet and quick start guide.

A control pad was custom built to control the scores.

The installation marked the end of the project and the collaboration between the different members of the Fenton Five who now undertaking their own, individual projects.

Urban Mixing

This project began with questions about how cities perform and how this performance can be mapped to reveal underlying patterns of urban behaviour. The Fenton Five used a research-based, design driven process to create an innovative tool for stakeholder participation and engagement about these issues - The Urban Mixing Toolkit.

Any change within the built environment requires policy makers, planners, developers and citizens to make informed decisions to shape their community. However each of these stakeholders will have different views about the course of that development and as such a common understanding of the underlying systems that shape these processes is required.

The Urban Mixing Toolkit is a flexible decision-making tool designed to help stakeholders engage with one another in the processes that shape the built environment in which they live, facilitate discussions, and develop a shared set of understanding about the value judgements of each stakeholder.

An extensive range of indicators are utilised to determine the performance of any one location in an urban area. Each indicator can be described as fitting into a wider theme, with a total of six themes used to describe the contemporary built environment: health, safety, learning, wealth, green and community. A Performance Score provides a weighted summation of each of these themes. These scores can then be used by stakeholders to make comparisons between different locations, their performance and the level of targeted investment needed in a particular area.

Overview

Any change within the built environment requires policy makers, planners, developers and citizens to make informed decisions to shape their community. However each of these stakeholders will have different views about the course of that development and as such a common understanding of the underlying systems that shape these processes is required.

The Urban Mixing Toolkit is a flexible decision-making tool designed to help stakeholders engage with one another in the processes that shape the built environment in which they live, facilitate discussions, and develop a shared set of understanding about what each stakeholder values most.

Working on the basis that a vibrant built environment is one in which people will want to live, work and play in, it must possess a diverse range of facilities, programmes and infrastructures. As such the performance of the Urban Mix is called into question using the Urban Mixing Toolkit. Identifying this mix and presenting possibilities for tuning the importance of its constituent parts.

A Performance Score provides a weighted summation that measures the performance of any location in an urban area, incorporating contextual issues in the form of thematic indicators. These indicators assess the built environment in terms of an agreed set of criteria within the themes of health, safety, learning, wealth, green, and community. The Performance Scores can then be used by stakeholders to make comparisons between different locations, their performance, proximity to particular resources and the level of targeted investment needed in a particular area. This is done through the medium of Performance Maps, a graphic visualisation of the Performance Score that relates the data to stakeholder’s daily experience of the city.

Each score can be modified so that each weighting reflects the personal preferences of that stakeholder, based on their own value judgements. Mapping these scores makes legible the underlying patterns of urban behaviour and serves as a tool for building a common understanding of the built environment. Revealing the interconnectedness of these environments has the potential to highlight and determine the level of strategic development or infrastructural improvement required in an area to improve its performance. As such the Performance Maps generated are dynamic representations, providing an integrated framework that is possible to operate at multiple scales.

Undertaking such an analysis comprehensively for an entire urban region can help determine the level of investment required to improve that areas performance and, most importantly, inform that decision-making process and engagement with all stakeholders.

Thematic Indicators

The Urban Mixing Toolkit relies on an extensive range of indicators to determine the performance of any one location in an urban area. Each indicator can be described as fitting into a wider theme, with a total of six themes used to describe the contemporary built environment:

• HEALTH: A place where people live longer and have a better quality of life.
• SAFETY: A place where individuals and communities feel safe and that is increasingly free from crime.
• LEARNING: A place where people are continually learning and developing their skills.
• WEALTH: A place that provides good quality housing with good job prospects and good wage levels.
• GREEN: A place that provides a quality environment for future generations.
• COMMUNITY: A place with a strong sense of community that celebrates diversity and equal opportunities.

Generating Performance Scores

A Performance Score provides a weighted summation that measures the performance of a given data point in an urban area. The score is calculated in two stages; the first giving an individual weighted score for each of the six themes at a given data point. Each indicator is assigned a weighting between 0 and 10. A weighted summation of these indicators is divided by the total of all the weightings, and then multiplied by a factor of 10 to give an individual theme score out of 10. The second stage gives a weighted summation of these themes to provide a measure of the Urban Mix and its overall performance at a given data point. Each theme score is assigned a weighting between 0 and 10 (Wt). A weighted summation of these indicators is divided by the total of all the weightings, to give a combined score for performance of the Urban Mix out of 10.

There are two degrees of interactivity that allows stakeholders to control the weightings used in the two stages of the calculation. In the first stage users can control the weights assigned to individual indicators and in the second the weights assigned to the themes. This has the affect of generating a weighted Performance Score that is unique to each stakeholder based on their own preferences. In the most basic scenario the indicator weightings can be kept constant for all stakeholders, reducing the number of variables by only changing the theme weightings and making comparisons easier. When indicator weightings are also changed the differences between stakeholders may become larger, making comparisons more difficult.

These scores can then be used by stakeholders to make comparisons between different locations, their performance and the level of targeted investment needed in a particular area. The lower the Performance Score the worse performing that data point is, in the opinion of that particular stakeholder, and as such it will require targeted investment to raise the performance of that area. It is through discussion that stakeholders can discuss the weightings and importance of each theme to them and begin to understand the reasons behind the value judgements that define those weightings.

The same process is used to calculate scores for each data point, from which Performance Maps can be drawn, to enable decisions to be made about wider built environment.

Utilising Performance Scores

Performance Scores can be used to draw comparisons between different locations using the six thematic indicators. However the scores alone are limiting when simply compared in a tabular format. A visualisation of the scores is required in the form of Performance Maps. These maps provide an accessible format which can be understood by all stakeholders and it is these maps which serve as a tool for building a common understanding of the built environment. Different stakeholders can be empowered and align their actions towards a common, sustainable future that maximises the potential and the performance of the built environment.

Limitations & Potentialities

It is important to understand the limitations of any system, tool or framework when using it to make decisions about the built environment. First and foremost the Urban Mixing Toolkit is designed to aid the decision-making process and facilitate discussion amongst stakeholders; it does not provide a series of solutions.

Secondly, whilst the nature of the Urban Mix Score is closely linked to programmatic diversity there are no indicators assigned to a number of other variables such as house tenure or land prices which may have an impact on the built environment. There are also a range of other dynamic fields relating to social, cultural, political and economic landscapes that the Performance Scores do not take account of. However, there is the potential to read the Performance Maps in conjunction with other maps or data sets—natural systems, zoning, planning policy, historical analysis, infrastructure, population diversity—to improve the clarity of information on display. As such the toolkit could be expanded so that:

Decision-Making Tool = Healthier City + Safer City + Learning City + Wealthier City + Greener City + Community + … +…

This expanded decision making tool could also be linked to other applications, such as web based tools, including Google Maps or Street View, or other data feeds to augment the Performance Maps with real time information.

Whilst the data is presented in a two dimensional field there is the potential to move the visualisation into a three-dimensional landscape so that the data begins to resemble topographical maps. Whereas the current system displays data points as a series of circles, with the radius corresponding to the Performance Score, when represented as a three dimensional landscape height from a base point would be the determining factor. When analysing a larger area of the built environment, particularly when using grid-based analysis to determine data points, this may provide a more accurate interpretation of the performance of that area.

The way in which data is collected can also be expanded to improve its accuracy. Instead of a simple yes/no survey recording whether or not a particular indicator is present, the frequency of that indicator can be recorded instead: for example, low, medium or high. These can in turn be tied to a weighting to generate a more accurate Performance Score.

The Urban Mixing Toolkit is designed to be Open Source in so much as that it can be modified relatively easily by Policy Makers, Planners, Developers or Citizens depending upon the scenario they are being applied it to. It is hoped that the flexibility it affords will enable stakeholders to adapt the tool to these new scenarios in so doing develop new unforeseen applications that further aid the engagement and decision-making process.

Model Making

This week, the Fenton Five is working hard on the model which is one of the crucial parts of the Fenton's installation.

Interactive Maps

The image above displays an interactive map which displays data in relation to life expectancy in each country whilst also providing information on population growth rate. The graph can also change in terms of which information is displayed and the user is able to navigate the different countries in order of life expectancy. This is an interesting way of presenting data both visually and digitally. To find out more visit the website.

Back to studio...

After visiting Fenton the five went on to collate all the data which had been collected that week and begin formatting the results in order to reach the next stage of our investigation, which will later on be presented in a form of installation…

Bad Ass!

After a long day of collecting data the Fenton Five grew increasingly hungry and were lucky enough to stumble across….‘Harvey’s Bad Ass Café’ where the five of us were able to experience some of Fenton’s finest - Oat Cakes!

We were also lucky enough to meet a man called Mike who owned the café, he explained to us a bit about the history of Fenton as well as the café, Mike led us down to the cellar where he told us that the café had been around for over 100 years and that since they moved in [4 months ago] there were various pots, mugs and plates which had been left there for years…..badass!

Fenton Fun!

Along the way we stumbled across various interesting symbols, statues, monuments, emblems and signs part of Fenton. Fenton’s own mottto: ‘Onwards and Upwards!’which perfectly encapsulates the spirit of the town represented in Fenton’s very own monument. The image on the left ‘The Fenton Crest’ is a shield which is divided up into four quarters, separated by a fretty cross.

 The pottery industry is represented by the vase in the top left and the bottle kilns in the top right. The coal industry is represented by the pit head wheel in the bottom left. In the bottom right quarter a sheaf of corn in front of a plough.

Data Collection

Last week the Fenton Five were out and about collecting data - filling out our individual surveys, conducting site analysis, understanding what Fenton is all about and a bit of chatting to the locals!

Ceramics: A Fragile History (TV Series)

A new series on BBC4 called "Ceramics: A Fragile History" has been documenting the ceramics industry in Britain. The second episode, aired on Monday 17th October 2011. The 60 minute documentary is described as follows:

"This second film charts the rags to riches-to-rags epic of Stoke-on-Trent, a city built on clay and the heart of Britain's once world-beating ceramics empire. On the back of the 17th century phenomenon of tea, pottery in Britain exploded into a cutting-edge industry and a source of enormous national pride. We meet the key characters responsible for putting British ceramic art on the map: from Josiah Wedgwood, innovator, artist and marketing genius, and Josiah Spode (who made it his life's work to invent a British version of Chinese porcelain and came up, aged 60, with bone china, which revolutionised the industry) to the great 20th century ceramicists Clarice Cliff and Susie Cooper. We see how demands for cheap labour since the 1980s have forced the closure of all but a handful of these great factories, leaving Stoke's crumbling overgrown ruins as our Pompeii. Contributors include AN Wilson, Neil Brownsword, Lucy Worsley, Miranda Goodby, Emmanuel Cooper and Matthew Rice."

The show is available to watch on the BBC iPlayer until Monday 31st Ocotber 2011 here.