criminiels-blog

[criminiels-blog]

10. december

At the moment my concept involves a program to determine biometric data from ones face and then sending the info to a robot that mixes drinks. I think the general idea of turning personal data into something light, is quite funny, but i’m not sure if the robot part is actually ideal. Maybe i should just make the code more advanced, and then focus on designing the bar with bottles etc rather than the bot. If i keep my concept as it is, i fear that it will be very much an a-b kind of solution, where you do one thing (get recognized by the camera) and then recieve a drink of varying quality. If i decide to be part of the project, and be in a sort of coworker relationship with the code, i think there is more focus on the actual problem im dealing with -biometric data- rather than the gimmick that the bot would be

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current coding situation Python is now recognizing what i have written on paper, and reads it through my webcam. It then reads it and outputs a different message than what is written on paper. Technically my next step is to instead of outputting a message, i will connect it to a bar that will mix a drink. i will do this with raspberry pi, and hopefully it will run smooth currently my main concerns about this project is about the concept. To make the project fit my technical capabilities, i have stripped it a lot conceptually. I went from wanting to give faces as input to wanting to give objects, to now work with text as input. My main obstacle at the moment is to translate my research on biases into text format, rather than something tangible. A lot of personality is getting lost when the input is just a few words rather than the complexity of a face.

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second poster for my project WIP

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first poster for my project

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The Human Scale in Urban Planning

Are we forgetting the human scale in contemporary urban planning?

The rapid growth of urban environments that we have seen during the past 50 years, is a tendency that doesn’t seem to be slowing down. Peoples surge towards cities has required architects and city planners to invent methods to house more people in less space. Preferably close to the center. Envisioning the modernity as the time of the automobile, mid century architects laid out cities largely based on the vision that in the future everyone would drive a car. The consequence of this is seen in most of the major western cities, which were first to industrialize to the point were largely any family had at least one automobile. A modern city as envisioned by the modernist architects, showed to be more suited for the automobile than for the modern man himself. In this car centered environment, the role of public space would be diminished to only accommodate the car as it travels from work to home. Homes under these philosophies might often be high rises, where once in your apartment, you will have very little motivation to go outside. And what will await you if you were to go outdoors? In the worst examples of american cities, there isn’t even a sidewalk, and the air will be dirty enough, that it might be healthier to light a cigarette indoors.

We see the lifestyle and health issues this kind of city planning promotes. Luckily some architects and city planners are working towards another version of the city:

Whereas the modernists thought in terms of systems, one quarter for living, one quarter for industry, cultural quarter in one end of the city and shopping in the other, architects like Jan Gehl and Stig Lennart Andersson emphasizes neighborhoods that offer access to all the necessary social infrastructure. Ideally a city should be a space that has been laid out based on the scale of a human, rather than a motorized vehicle.

How can we better plan our cities to accommodate humans?

In his 1971 architecture classic “Life between buildings”, Jan Gehl examines how people interact with public space, and presents a number of conclusions based on his field research. Jan Gehl opposes the city as a systematic machine, where the human is condensed to a cog on the wheel. Based on a danish proverb, which translates into something like “where people are, people come”, he establishes that humans have a need to watch other people. This means that in order for an urban environment to thrive, people, amongst other things, need to be able to observe other individuals in their everyday doings. Observing, not in the way we watch a football match or a theatre, but simply seeing other people doing everyday things, like commuting to school or walking to the grocery store, is enough to keep people interested. As with car traffic, where we know that building more roads, means more cars, the same is the case with softer urban planning. Environments where pedestrians and cyclists are given more space leads to more dwelling and life in the streets. Now why is this interesting, why is it more favorable for neighborhoods to have more people actively using the public space, not just in cars?

Commuting by car often means that wherever we have to go to job or other obligations, are far away. Or at least not in our close proximity, neighborhood, etc. Having done our shopping duties on the way in some cast away shopping center outside the city, we get home late, and have little motivation to go outside of our apartment. In this scenario, what would happen is, that we would get less connected with our neighbors and general close surroundings. Unlike 50 years ago in the countryside, where everyone was more or less dependant on eachother, in this modernist reality, people are more likely to keep to their own little apartment cell, simply because it’s possible. Meanwhile more and more people feel lonely, so maybe the conformism of staying to your private self in a 2 room apartment, is not ideal.

Jan Gehl divides time spent in public space in 3 categories; necessary, optional and social activities. Necessary activities are the ones we do everyday, like grocery shopping or commuting to work. As such these activities focus on going from a to b, and is little concerned with the surroundings. Optional activities are the ones that really benefit from proper city planning: It is activities such as taking a stroll, sitting around on a staircase or sunbathing on a bench. These are activities that will mainly be present in areas that allow them to happen - where there is activity from other people. If we meet people from our neighborhood on a frequent basis, over time we become used to their faces, and at some point they might go from being a stranger to being a familiar face. The optional activity then might turn into a social activity, and a closer connection to one's surroundings is established.

Dronning Louises Bro in Copenhagen is a prime example of how removing heavy traffic and adding a wide biking lane has created a widely used hangout. More than 40.000 cyclists commute to and from work via this nerve every day. With enough for the eye to look at, it makes it a great urban space for optional and social activities. And no sunny day goes by where the spectator seats, or benches, aren’t filled with people watching fellow copenhageners pass by.

Jan Gehls vision is all about prioritizing urban space as a space intended for humans rather than cars or whatever else might be interfering with how we are experiencing the city. To put it in a practical perspective, it’s about designing public space on street level, rather than from a helicopter perspective. When we design cities from a helicopter the human scale is lost, and the consequence is, amongst other, public space that is not desirable to spend time in. Every space should be analysed from a human perspective, if it is to be suited for humans. This way it will be ideal for the speed of human nature rather than life in the fast lane.

So how does all this relate to modern day smart city planning?

“A smart city is an urban area that uses different types of electronic data collection sensors to supply information used to manage assets and resources efficiently.”

This is wikipedia’s definition of a smart city, and it is a set of tools many contemporary cities (including Eindhoven) are currently working towards improving. In it’s essence smart cities tries to manage public assets in a way that makes everything from morning traffic to libraries run smoother. Not all of these aspects interfere directly with the human scale of public space. Where I see a problem, is when smart cities seek to make everything run more efficiently, doing so trying to manage the movement of its citizens. This is in essence a economization of the public, where the general wish seems to be towards optimizing everyone, with the core purpose of creating economic growth.

This notion seems to me to be an extension of what the functionalists of the latter part of the 20th century tried to force upon industrialized cities. When the success of city planning is determined by how much we can optimize everything in order to make people move faster, we lose the human factor.

Even though the intention might be good, I think the surveillance that management of smart cities need, creates a distanced relationship to public space, where people become too conscious of their activities. Public space becomes a less relaxed environment, when we are constantly monitored, and this directly influences the aforementioned optional and social public activities. Smart cities seem to be a new step in instrumentalizing the public and moving everything towards a faster pace, rather than slowing down to the speed of a human being.

Sources:

Gehl, Jan: Life Between Buildings: 2006 edition

Gehl, Jan: Cities for People: 2010 edition

Van Mensvoort, Koert and Grievink, Hendrik-Jan: Next Nature: 2015 edition

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Really enjoyed this lecture from forensic architecture. They use architectural modeling to recreate evidence as to how war forces are breaking international law. This is probably the first time I'm introduced to something in this school that I could see myself doing as an intern etc

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Jacqueline talking about the new icons of design. I think it's absolutely irrelevant to be looking for new icons, what do we need them for? Discussion was limited and I walked away rather aggravated

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Our first class with Tereza. She does humoristic and edgy work, so I'm quite psyched to see what will happen

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More plastic knowledge and a presentation of our ideas for the hpa tail so far. David is expecting a lot from us, but I'm not planning to live up to these expectations. I have more learning, and plenty to do in other classes

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Wrote my first program with Ilja, Mathias and Dominik

It takes your mood and outputs a fitting song. I’m pretty psyched to have coded something, but i’m not sure how i will use this knowledge in further development

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Arnoud explaining plastics manufacturing for the HPA class. At the moment i’m not very psyched about this airplane thing. I used a whole year last year being told what projects i should make, with little autonomy, and now i’m forced to make an airplane, with no influence on the shaping and general design decision. I’m pretty fed up being told what to do, i just want to make my own projects. It’s the only way i will be engaged enough to actually produce something that might have quality. And also the only way i can be proud of what i make, and feel some sort of accomplishment from this school.

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Found this book about with pictures taken by grafitti cleaners, above a before/after picture of cleaning a electricity box. Found this quite witty and thought provoking

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Hitchhiked to münster to meet up with a good friend and see the Skulptur Projekte. There was a good bunch of inspiring work, favourites were Hito Steyerl and Michael Dean. Hito dealing with the problematics of robot warfare, and the absurdism surrounding the creation of machines designed to kill rather than help. Michael Deans sculpture was about the rollercoaster ride. what i really liked here was the energy, and nonchalance put into the work, so much playfulness, yet it was still very delicate. Definitely going back to Münster in 10 years