...Crowded...

Hot, Flat and Crowded by Thomas Friedman.

The case is made, the need is clear...the only thing missing (beside the actual leadership and money) is the tools, frameworks and designs.

While new batteries, better cables and technologies I will leave for the scientists, what is the role of architects and urban designers?

-Understanding the infrastructures (energy, transportation, data/information) on multiple scales, relationships, schedules and performance.

-Creating new relationships on the scale of the dwelling by representing the systems, the needs and the opportunities.

Urban Omnibus

new urban forum/blog/newsletter

http://urbanomnibus.net/features-forum/

New Suburban Landscape

Interesting article in the Times recently.
with the downturn in economy and thus home sales, a new urban landscape has been discovered by the skateboarding types. Within the suburbs of many a California town, homes are left empty with tempting swimming pools in the backyards, yearning for some kind of playful activity again.

Skateboarding frontiersmen have staked out neighborhoods, "mapping" different finds, usually going to the point of cleaning out the pools themselves. Activity is limited in time and noise, and the code follows to not enter the empty homes, litter or tag.

While this network plays out, others continue...and opportunities seem ripe for their intersection. Local government need to keep these pools free from waterborne insects and the like and work day in and out, seeking out pools that are risking public health. All the while, local pool businesses are suffering with less occupied homes and less homes with the ready cash for clean up.

What opportunities could arise when the three networks come together?
What work/health/community opportunities could arise?
How can the shifting state of suburban living create new frameworks for work/play/health?

Grounds for Free Speech

image credits: Thailand's Suvarnabhumi International Airport + the Acropolis of Greece

Recent news headlines have been displaying images of public spaces in connection with locally occurring protests. In Thailand, its the Democratic Alliance Against Dictatorship protesting Mr Somchai's People Power Party, locating themselves finally in both airports Bangkok, disrupting travel amoung other things. In Athens Greece, protesters asking for mass protests across Europe in responce to a local teenager shot by police, unvail banners on the walls of the Acropolis.

These are peaceful acts of communicating distaste for local governments, inaction by governing bodies. People are coming together to show and express their opionions. These acts culimate in public places, national/city gathering grounds. Space to express, to rally...and to disrupt.

These two examples highlight the changing arena of our new grounds for free speech. They are not sites of governmental policy making, not capital steps, houses of parliments... They are very visual public spaces...and most interestingly they are sites of international attention, places of high tourism and visability.

They are globalized sites. Local displeasing actions are now fed directing into global conversation. Using sites of recongnition (airports, monuments) that identify nationality (who and where it is) or homogenity (could be anywhere).

Seal Infrastructure

Sea Lions/Seals? taking a break along the pier in Santa Cruz.
What is the infrastructure of nature? How can the infrastructure of humans enforce natures infrastructure? Who are the stakeholders of a site? What materials, shapes, colors, sizes, shapes influence multiple programming for multiple users?

Building Landscapes

Academy of Sciences Museum in San Francisco, CA
The rooftop mimics surrounding hills, while planted with native plants
Mounds reflect the planetarium and rain forest exhibits within.

Water Wars

www.bluegold-worldwaterwars.com/

label it like it really is

Where it goes, not what it is....

Smart Bus Stops

This bus stop shelter in San Francisco offers the rider detailed information on where they are and how long they will be standing there for the next bus to arrive.

visualized information...efficiency, safety....all aspects promoting the use of public transportation.

what other means of informing users of public infrastructures be communicated?
mobile devices, light displays, audio, spatial?

Traces of Transportation

A web of electric bus lines in downtown San Francisco.
Traces of mobility woven above the streetscape. Visual reminders of paths, networks and vital infrastructures. Like the determined paths of subways and skytrains, the bus lines become determined, not limitless like the urban grid it floats upon. Visual cues alert travelers of crossing the path of a moving object...follow the line to find the next stop.

How can these visual cues disclose path type (color, shape, coded). How can they inform schedule, time table or final destinations? What other functions can this web bring to the city?

Seeing the Corner

another person...just seeing the city

Cornerville .... exerpt from Joseph O'Neil

"...I see twin phone booths; a pole with those multiple parking signs that demand the application of advanced logic to figure out what the devil the parking situation actually is; and a pole with a yellow crosswalk sign showing a faintly Hitchcockian man and woman on foot (Why does each carry a kind of briefcase? Why do the figures look so weirdly lethargic? Most mysterious of all, which person looking at this sign has not already realized that there is a crosswalk here?). There are also a very cluttered pole on which are mounted two pedestrian lights and a vehicular traffic light; a one-way sign; a sign alerting us to the possible presence of blind persons; a no-left-turn sign; a chirping yellow gadget (presumably for the blind); and, at the pole’s overhanging extremity, a streetlight..."

A City Drip System

urban sewer grates along the streets of San Francisco color coded with drops of altering primary colored paints.

Graffiti artists or City employee? Physical demarcations noting status of rainwater catchment system?

What are the physical or virtual notifications of the efficiencies of a network?

Street Signs

Pedestrian street signs...
know where you are - without needing to be in a car.

Street corners have the street names stamped into the concrete, allowing for the pedestrian (already simi-conscious of what is before them) to be a little bit more aware of their location
San Francisco, California

Tracing our Clicks

By monitoring what we google online, can we actually get a better sense of the what the general public are thinking, experiencing and doing?

Leave it to Google itself to find that out. Google Flu Trends for example, within this report taking data from the past four years to show that by identifying key search terms, Google Flu Trends can call a flu outbreak up to 10 days before the CDC an identify it.

From their site:

"Each week, millions of users around the world search for online health information. As you might expect, there are more flu-related searches during flu season, more allergy-related searches during allergy season, and more sunburn-related searches during the summer. You can explore all of these phenomena using Google Trends. But can search query trends provide an accurate, reliable model of real-world phenomena?"

..."real-world phenomena"...

How are our individual actions both virtually and physically understood within a collective?
What kind of "thinking" are we entering into a www database?
What kind of "thinking" could we begin entering into a www database to improve other social, cultural, economic functions?
What is a truly transparent city that can quantify satisfactions? dissatisfactions? qualifications?

image credit: google.org
additional article: new york times

Seed Project

David Cohen's The Seed Project

This "art" project asks people to plant organic basil seeds anywhere and everywhere. Its invites one to take the element of nature and imposes it upon the more "unnatural" environments within our everyday lives.

In regards to our urban environment, existing visual cues of "natural" have become so urbane that many fail to even recognize it as plant life. This project shakes up your daily commutes, questioning place, location and purpose of plant life in our built environments.










In a time of extreme greenwashing, what are the new visual cues of true environmental action?
What locations, programs, buildings, forms of employment within a concrete jungle of a city can programmed for understanding basic living processes?
What new forms of urban gardening can harvest not only moments of contemplation, but todays lunch?

Similar movements:
Guerrilla Gardners