A few supplementary points added to survey of tick sheets

Physical, practical and psychological aspects must be thoroughly treated and then enhanced with valuable layers through work on city qualities (both visual and pragmatic), which can root people in the space-----means city space perform well.

Physical:
(1)Safe
Street light;
CCTV;
Separated road of different functions or shared road;
Pedestrian’s priority (continuity of the pavement);
Consideration for bicyclist;
Warning boards and signs;
Window light at night;
Gate and fence;
Transition from public to private (semiprivate space for interaction);Car-free areas (St linked to the main road of Victoria Rd);

(2)Green
Gasoline used (number of cars);
Climate: humidity/wind chill (low buildings and trees alongside can reduce the strength
of wind)/solar heat/average temperature;
Lighting;
Litter bins distribution;
Bus station (How large is area that a bus station need cover?);
Plantations;

Practical:
(3)Healthy
Sedentary and moving activities;
Exercise space;
Noise;
Sunlight;
Proportion of walking/bicycling/public transportation/private car;
Pollution;
Proportion of the road-----traffic lane, bicyclist, pedestrianism (room for walking);

(4)Wealthy
Infrastructure, for examples: bench, plants, bollard;
Varied materials for city’s visualization;
Proportion of necessary activities and optional (recreational) activities;

Psychological:
(5)Sense of Communities
Average size of household, number of residents per hectare;
Community bulletins and boards and signs;
Advertisements for the public community area or infrastructures;
Communication among people on the public space;
The frequency of varied facades in the length of the road;
Human scale or traffic scale;
Street furniture that provides ”talkscapes”;
Unhindered sightlines;

(6)Learning
Artistic display (installations and temporary works for children learning);
Schools;
Educational institutions, for examples: exhibition, art gallery, theatre;

The Robot Launch

The Fenton Five this week has made a great effort to fabricate the intellectual robot (from LEGO Mindstorms) and try to figure out how it works. We have already inserted some basic programs in the robot to make trials and experiments, which turned out to be interesting. These could help us with the data collection and methodology verification later in our research and study.

Handheld Devices

Amongst the group this week there has been a lot of discussion about handheld devices and how these are used to communicate and perceive space. I thought it would be interesting to share a few lines from the [Re_Map]ICU Reader that I felt were particularly pertinent to this and what was being discussed amongst the group.

"With the increasing prevalence of handheld devices, such as highly advanced or 'smart' mobile phones and PDAs, the nature in which we engage with urban space is perhaps witnessing the most significant transformation since the development of the automobile. This is the experiential shift in the shape of the city and like the motorcar before it will only incrementally and subtly migrate us from familiar physical conditions."

The extract is taken from the Outro (page 232) of Richard Brook and Nick Dunn's new book "Urban Maps: Instruments of Narrative and Interpretation in the City" (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011). These new pieces of technology are already challenging the way in which people interact with the city, you only need to think about how many people walk down the street, typing away or browsing the web (the author of this post included).

The 'Tricorder' in Star Trek was a multifunctional handheld device
primarily used for sensor scanning, data collection and data analysis.

In the near-future smart phones will be even more complex, being able to undertake a variety of functions that will further challenge the way in which people interact with their physical environment. Like the fictional 'Tricorders' in Star Trek individuals will be able to collect, interpret, interact with and feedback into masses of 'data' not only about their physical environment but digital environments, that traverse traditional notions of scale and proximity between objects.

FlowingData

FlowingData is a great website that provides an inspirational source of different data visualisation techniques and methods. It also provides guides on different ways of visualising data, tips on what works best and where and when to use them.

"FlowingData explores how designers, statisticians, and computer scientists are using data to understand ourselves better - mainly through data visualization" in an attempt to understand a diverse range of data flows.

This map showing proximity to McDonald's
restaurants in the UK is just one example of the
data visualised on the site. (Image: Flowing Data)

IBM THINK Exhibit

The IBM Think Exhibit is currently taking place at the Lincon Center in New York (September 23rd 2011 to October 23rd 2011) and combines "three unique experiences to engage visitors in a conversation about how we can improve the way we live and work."

A 123-foot digital wall is being used to visualize, in real time, live data being streamed from systems surrounding the exhibit. The data ranges from traffic on Broadway to solar energy to air quality. Inside the exhibit visitors are immersed in a digital environment, with 40 7-foot tall data screens that show them a 12-minute film: "A kaleidoscope of images and sound ... They are enveloped in a rich narrative about the pattern of progress, told through awe-inspiring stories of the past and present." Finally, at the conclusion of the film the 40 screens (or 'media panels') become interactive touchscreens.

IBM Think Exhibit Data Wall (Image: IBM Think Exhibit)

On the various mapping techniques being used the organisers have this to say:

"All the information we’re collecting becomes much more effective when it’s organized. We’ve used maps to organize data for millennia. Throughout history, maps have revealed patterns in what appeared to be chaos, inspired explorers, and guided development and innovation. Now, our maps are more powerful and insightful than ever. They’re dynamic, multi-dimensional, and collaborative. Today’s mapping platforms give us the ability to organize and express information about any facet from every perspective—in real time."

All of the information (the data) being collected is being used to inform models to predict future behaviour, from physical prototypes to mathematical calculations. New tools are reducing the risk associated with these predictions: "Supercomputers, analytics software, and networking technologies allow us to simulate the behaviour and interactions of vast systems."

The FIGUREGROUND Project

PRAUD (Progressive Research on Architecture, Urbanism and Design) is a Boston based firm which was founded in 2010 by Rafael Luna and Dongwoo Yim. The research and design firm "focuses on a contemporary approach to understanding the effects of urbanity and developing architectural process ... [taking] into account various scales in architecture and urbanism with key topics such as hybridity, urbanity, density and transformation." One of their current research projects is called FIGUREGROUND.

Mapping World Cities
(Image Copyright: FiguregroundBos)

FIGUREGROUND is an interactive research project that was started "in order to better understand built environments through analytical comparison of the world's most influential cities." They are currently mapping world capitals using figure grounds (the most famous of which has to be the Nolli Map of Rome) as a comparative drawing technique. The research is being conducted across multiple media platforms, including social networks such as Facebook, FlickR, Twitter and Youtube. It also includes online surveys and analysis of existing databases that rank cities globally.

Amsterdam and Los Angeles
(Image Copyright: FiguregroundBos)

One such product is a range of T-Shirts that depict a number of world cities (London, Paris, Amsterdam, LA, Berlin, Chicago) through figure grounds. The T-shirt Blog 'Cottonable' has described the T-shirts as something which can "inspire interaction between cities" and that they give people a chance to "learn about the anatomy of a few [of the] most influential cities in the world while looking good" (see here).

Chicago, Boston and World Map
(Image Copyright: FiguregroundBos)

These products present an interesting junction between both analogue and digital data collection and visualisation, through the production of various products. Whenever a product is purchased PRAUD three pieces of data are collected: the place it was purchased; the city design that was purchased; and the place it was shipped. The intention is to compare "the marketability of a city to the world rankings of world's most influential cities." Other products currently available include a series of frames/prints of various cities.

Berlin
(Image Copyright: FiguregroundBos)

As part of a project they are also working on a book about the World's Most Influenctial Cities (the progress of which can be checked on for free here). Their mission is to "create a publication that provokes a dialogue between cities, and analyse what makes some cities great in order to transport these strategies to developing cities."

You can find out more about FIGUREGROUND from the project blog here.

Invisible Cities - Revealing Social Networks

Invisible Cities from Christian Marc Schmidt on Vimeo.

Above is a project by Christian Marc Schmidt & Liangjie Xia. Here is what they have to say about it:

"By revealing the social networks present within the urban environment, Invisible Cities describes a new kind of city—a city of the mind. It displays geocoded activity from online services such as Twitter and Flickr, both in real-time and in aggregate. Real-time activity is represented as individual nodes that appear whenever a message or image is posted. Aggregate activity is reflected in the underlying terrain: over time, the landscape warps as data is accrued, creating hills and valleys representing areas with high and low densities of data.

Invisible Cities maps information from one realm—online social networks—to another: an immersive, three-dimensional space. In doing so, the piece creates a parallel experience to the physical urban environment. The interplay between the aggregate and the real-time recreates the kind of dynamics present within the physical world, where the city is both a vessel for and a product of human activity. It is ultimately a parallel city of intersections, discovery, and memory, and a medium for re-experiencing the physical environment."

There is a potentially useful list of software on Wikipedia (here) that could be applied to different social networks/situations.

The Future of Digital Cartography?

Here is an interesting article from Cloud Sourced about the future of cartography.

Digital Cartography of course. While paper maps aren’t going to die, its a limited medium and all the fun stuff is going on in the digital sphere. Remember this – all paper maps are produced from huge amounts of data, 1s and 0s describing our planet down to centimetre accuracy. The AtoZ in the bottom of your bag, the grimy tube map stuck to the station wall and the dog-eared road atlas in the glove box are all renderings of digital data. Lets make it really simple: A Map = Data x Visualisation

Emotional City Mapping - Artist Christian Nold

Below is an excerpt of an article by Lisa Leff of Fosters Online (Accessed via Softhook here).

"SAN FRANCISCO — As cartography projects go, Christian Nold's approach to charting the peaks and valleys of urban landscapes is decidedly unconventional.

First, he outfits volunteers with global positioning system devices and the sensors used in lie detector tests. Then, he sends his subjects out to wander their neighbourhoods. When they  return, Nold asks them to recount what they saw and felt when the polygraph recorded a quickened heartbeat or an elevated blood pressure."

 You can check out the project here.

And the final maps here.

Inventing Virtual Reality

How to create a virtual reality game...