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.
Popularity: 29% [?]
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.
Popularity: 24% [?]
Every day, in a city the size of London, 30 million meals are served. But where does all the food come from? Architect Carolyn Steel discusses the daily miracle of feeding a city, and shows how ancient food routes shaped the modern world. Understanding the flow of food will help us reconnect with what we eat.
Popularity: 20% [?]
East L.A. resident Olga Perez has to take two buses to a store about eight miles away to get fresh fruits and vegetables, or decent cuts of meat, for her family.
“The only thing I can get at my corner store are spoiled or expired,” explains Ms. Perez, a dental assistant and single mother who lives in a two-bedroom apartment with two daughters and a granddaughter.
The round trip costs her $5 and limits what she can carry home. “I can only get so much milk and when I get home the eggs are cracked and the bread is smashed,” she says.
Popularity: 21% [?]
More than 10,000 families will be moved out of historic old city to make room for low-rise apartment blocks.
Popularity: 24% [?]
While the Wall stood, the zone between East and West Berlin was a potentially deadly space. But since the end of the Cold War, it has mostly stood barren. Now a Dutch landscape architect wants to transform the former no man’s land into a series of secret gardens and recreational areas.
Popularity: 44% [?]
Will Allen, a farmer of Bunyonesque proportions, ascended a berm of wood chips and brewer’s mash and gently probed it with a pitchfork. “Look at this,” he said, pleased with the treasure he unearthed. A writhing mass of red worms dangled from his tines. He bent over, raked another section with his fingers and palmed a few beauties.
Popularity: 29% [?]
Urban Farming’s mission is to create an abundance of food for people in need by planting gardens on unused land and space while increasing diversity, educating youth, adults and seniors and providing an environmentally sustainable system to uplift communities.
Popularity: 38% [?]
Eric Gordon, a professor of new media at Emerson College, and Gene Koo, a fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, just won a MacArthur Foundation grant for their innovative new take on community planning using Second Life, a three-dimensional virtual world which users explore as avatars.
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Popularity: 43% [?]
Elderly people who live below the poverty line and perceive their neighborhoods to be dangerous are more likely to have a mobility disability. Researchers suggest that even perceiving one’s neighborhood as unsafe can ‘get into the body’ and, ultimately, prove hazardous for elder health.
Popularity: 18% [?]