Archive for Information Design
May 4, 2010 · Filed under Information Design, Planning, Social Networks, Urban Structure, Visualization
We hear the word innovation a lot these days. But the word’s ubiquity in contemporary discourse speaks to the undeniable surge in new ideas of how to make complex systems, like cities, work better. Many of these ideas rely on recent technological advances that enable the capture of huge amounts of data and the interconnection of large networks of individuals. Regional Plan Association (RPA) has been in the business of coming up with new ideas to make the New York metropolitan region work better since 1922. A few months before the Wall Street Crash of 1929, RPA released a plan for the region that helped to pave the way for the systems that supported New York’s recovery from the Great Depression and subsequent growth. Two other long-range plans, in 1968 and 1996 have argued persuasively for coordinated planning across municipal and state boundaries that integrates community design, open space, transportation, housing, and economic and workforce development.
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Popularity: 42% [?]
March 16, 2010 · Filed under Exhibitions, Information Design, Planning, Social Justice
The exhibition ‘Otto Neurath. Gypsy Urbanism’ is dedicated to the work of the Viennese philosopher and economist Otto Neurath (1882–1945). this scientist, housing activist and museum director, who constantly worked for the advancement of participative forms of democratic exchange, collaborated with architects, designers and artists of his day – including Franz Schuster, Josef Frank, and Margarete Schütte- Lihotzky – and with protagonists of the so-called Vienna circle, of which he was a member.
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Popularity: 35% [?]
February 16, 2010 · Filed under Architecture, Density, Diversity, Information Design, Landscape, Legibility, Tall Buildings
At the newly unveiled Web site Shape Vancouver 2050, users are given a digital model of the Vancouver skyline, the ability to extrude buildings upwards, and a visual gauge of the resulting effects on the city’s downtown. As the user drags the digital towers higher and population density increases, meters at the bottom of the screen go up too—energy saved, carbon use curbed, dollars added to the city coffers.
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Popularity: 41% [?]
February 4, 2010 · Filed under Advertising, Artificial Landscapes, Authenticity, Information Design, Media, Public Space, Social Networks
Digital screens now line the walls of nearly every airport terminal, restaurant, convenience store, bar and waiting room in America. They have popped up in gas stations, taxis, schools and even on public buses. They wrap the exterior of L.A. Live and other major commercial complexes. And increasingly they rest in our palms, in the form of the iPhones, BlackBerrys and other smart phones that many of us rely on, like Dante following Virgil, as we walk or ride through the city.
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Popularity: 26% [?]
December 15, 2009 · Filed under Diversity, Emergence, Information Design, Infrastructure
Our world is now riddled with what C. West Churchman referred to as “wicked problems”: issues like climate change, healthcare, and education that are difficult to address because of their complex interdependencies and changing requirements.
Our day-to-day lives are also full of small problems and basic tasks that are becoming increasingly difficult to manage due to frequency and volume. For example, as healthcare moves towards a more consumer-oriented model, people will be asked to electronically track every aspect of their health. Add this to the complexities of managing a Netflix queue or digital photo library, or keeping computer software up to date, and you begin to get the picture. And these are just the simple tasks. We need new strategies for engaging with these complexities.
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Popularity: 28% [?]
October 22, 2009 · Filed under Grassroots, Information Design, Landscape, Social Networks, Urban Design, Visualization
Experimental Geography explores the distinctions between geographical study and artistic experience of the earth, as well as the juncture where the two realms collide (and possibly make a new field altogether). This lavishly illustrated book features more than a dozen maps; artwork by Francis Alÿs, Alex Villar, and Yin Xiuzhen; and recent projects by The Center for Land Use Interpretation, the Raqs Media Collective, and the Center for Urban Pedagogy.
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Popularity: 33% [?]
October 20, 2009 · Filed under Grassroots, Information Design, Planning, Public Life, Social Justice, Visualization
Brian House and Jesse Shapins were two of the co-creators of Yellow Arrow, an early locative media arts project and social software platform. In summer 2008, they co-taught the studio/seminar “Critical Urban Media Arts” at Columbia. Here, they discuss the conceptual background of the course and the pedagogical methods they developed, including Periplurban, a new platform for urban media research.
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Popularity: 28% [?]
October 20, 2009 · Filed under Grassroots, Information Design, Planning, Public Space, Social Justice
LimeWire founder Mark Gorton has recently announced to launch an application for open source urbanism, inspired by the peer-to-peer principle. Gorton’s goal is to stimulate “crowdsourced development, freely-accessible data libraries, and web forums, as well as actual open source software with which city planners can map transportation designs to people’s needs”, aiming to open up the city planning process to a wider audience and shine light on decision-making processes.
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Popularity: 23% [?]
October 20, 2009 · Filed under Information Design, Legibility, Urban Structure, Wayfinding
Big-city dwellers suffer their share of daily indignities: crowded streets, exorbitant prices, parades of slack-jawed tourists complaining about crowded streets and exorbitant prices. Not to mention the dirt, crime, dodgy politicians and constant rebuilding projects. These are the tests the mega-urbanite passes with a complacent shrug.
Until somebody messes with the subway map. Then it’s blood in the water.
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Popularity: 19% [?]
October 19, 2009 · Filed under Creative Cities, Grassroots, Information Design, Planning, Social Networks
Open Cities: New Media’s Role in Shaping Urban Policy was a two-day conference, produced by Next American City and funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, that united new media and urban policy’s top thinkers and practitioners. Through a series of panel discussions, presentations and networking opportunities, this conference will discuss new media’s strategies for dealing with a variety of challenges — such as how to build an engaged urban citizenry, best utilize municipal data and develop cost-saving technologies or networks to improve cities. For more about the conference, click here.
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Popularity: 19% [?]
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