|
|
||
ITP: Urban ComputingPlease check out the Urban Computing Blog for our class. Dormouse continues...
I think the second version of Dormouse turned out well. We found a couple good covers at Canal Plastics, spray painted the insides, and placed everything inside. They've been on the bathroom doors at ITP for over a week - working without a problem. During the class critique we had a few suggestions. One was to make only one, instead of two. In this situation that is true, but I think it is nice to know from either side - continuity counts. We are working on a new version which is brighter, and is normally off, green for go as Adam suggested. Only a week to the show! -- Wed, 07 May 2008 02:39 -0400
I am working with JaeYoon on this project, which he originally developed as "Urban Doorknob". Dormouse is an aid which lives on your door, warning you if someone is about to open the door from the other side and smack you in the face. We decided not go to with the doorknob approach, because they would be expensive and require changing the doorknob to install. We were in search of a low impact solution. Our first trial of use will be on the bathroom doors at ITP. ITP bathroom doors are big, heavy, and you always need to be careful when opening to prevent running int someone. Dormouse's goal is to decrease this risk. Bathrooms doors in New York are required to have a space below the door. We decided to take advantage of this fact to run the wires between the sensors. We developed an initial prototype with IR sensors, an arduino and LED's. For the display unit we mimiced traffic lights: green, yellow and red. Green, for go, is always on, yellow when someone is coming closer and red is stop. For power we are plugging into the wall.
User testing results: 1. 6 out of 14 people noticed the display unit. This is a problem, we need to try placing it higher. 2. The sensor worked, but wasn't great. We need to consider placement more, or perhaps use two. 3. Yellow was fairly useless as people walked through so quickly our unit went from green to red - so green and red should be enough. 4. Simply being red is not enough to make people stop, we need to use flashing, change placement, make it brighter... 5. How should we build the final enclosure? We are thinking laser cut plastic, or a gutted mouse... People seemed unsure how their presence effected the lights. It might be better to show the status of both sides of the door simultenously, so you can see how you are effecting the door, and what is about to happen on the other side. -- Thu, 17 Apr 2008 16:04 -0400
axe yelp as a data source, involve school, intervene The plan is to develop a joint project with the Academy of Urban Planning High School. Proposal Brief: The goal is to create a digital mural, both physically and virtually represented; a repository of information gathered and moderated by a group of high school students from the Academy of Urban Planning. Using the 400 foot mural wall at Knickerbocker and Woodbine as a backdrop, the students will conduct interviews in their neighborhood, involving parents, business owners and community members, about the history of Bushwick. These interviews (video and audio) will be compiled and then displayed through an interactive virtualization of the mural wall on the internet, and an interactive display placed near the mural wall, possibly on high school grounds. Ideally, the newest digital mural piece will be projected as an extension of the existing wall. The digital mural will also look to the future as students continue to conduct interviews in Bushwick about the current news of the neighborhood and its needs as a community. At the interactive display near the mural wall visitors will be able to record themselves, the content being monitored and edited by students. The goal is to create a live urban narrative generated and managed by students of that community, and promote community building. Renderings pending! References (mural background): http://bushwickbk.com/archives/198 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE1DF1230F932A15752C1A965958260 http://zine.artcal.net/2007/10/time-flies-in-bushwick.php -- Wed, 27 Feb 2008 18:20 -0500
RTRL? Real Time Real Life What if urban planning could occur in real time, reacting to elements in real life? By real life I mean the concrete needs of a community, in a way which addresses specific needs of that community. Both Howard and Le Corbusier had interesting propositions for urban planning with their respective Garden and Radiant City ideas. Jane Jacobs, however would take them to task for ignoring the complex nature of urban environments. She quotes Dr. Warren Weaver on the topic: "Much more important than the mere number of variables is the fact that these variables are all interrelated... These problems, as contrasted with the disorganized situations with which statistics can cope, show the essential feature of organization... They are all problems which involve dealing simultaneously with a sizable number of factors which are interrelated into an organic whole." Dr. Weaver, in 1958, speaks exactly to the complexity and interrelations Jacobs sees in her studies. Mark Hansen and Hans Rosling both have their takes on using data visualization to grasp the interrelations and meaning of data. I am less interested in visualizing data than in looking for traces of interconnectedness between seemingly disparate variables in complex data sets which make the foundation of information used by modern urban planners. Let us take Bushwick, Brooklyn as an example. In 1977 the area was ravaged by looting and fires from the infamous blackout of July 13th. Broadway business space had a 43% vacancy rate. Bushwick is a hodgepodge of industrial carcass, commercial, and residential areas. Today it is one of the last of its neighbors to undergo gentrification. Bushwick has strong indigenous African-American and Puerto Rican communities, among others. In order to guide urbanization a finger should be put on the pulse of the neighborhood. By mining for comments made of specific areas, I propose using Yelp as the city planner's figurative finger. Yelp has a repository of organic information with reasonable credibility. I wonder if this organic and candid information, as opposed to faceless statistics, could be the missing thread to tie disparate data together. Insight would be available on such questions as: - Which businesses are popular? - What does there seem to be a need for? - What isn't being utilized? - What are people's impressions of Bushwick? - What works and what doesn't? Of course Yelp alone is not enough; its scope is limited by the age and economic group which utilizes it. Could other sites which appeal to various economic and ethnic groups be created to serve as a data pool for city planners? Could comparison then be made between these sites to provide a fair and comprehensive base for urban planning? Previous/Related Art: Nathan Eagle's Reality Mining http://web.media.mit.edu/~nathan/ Real Time Rome (more work with cell phones) http://senseable.mit.edu/realtimerome/ Christian Nold does some awesome maps http://www.softhook.com/ -- Mon, 18 Feb 2008 19:30 -0500
Copyright © 1996-2008 Alexander Reeder |
