spaceshaper

In my Geospatial Analysis & Visualization class at UIC, we had a lengthy class discussion springing from an article we'd been assigned, The Utopianism of Children: An Empirical Study of Children's Neighborhood Design Preferences by Emily Talen and Mary Coffindaffer, published in the Journal of Planning Education and Research.The article speaks to the need to engage youth in the community planning and design process. In all spheres of the public decision making process, young people are very marginalized. This article makes the argument that young people bring new, perhaps more imaginative perspectives to ways to shape our public space. This was one of the more interesting discussions we've had in class and one that I've since thought a lot about.

One related initiative that I came across is a collaboration between CABE, beam, and the Bristol and Kent Architecture Centers called Spaceshaper, launched in Feb 2007. The web-based questionnaire, coupled with workshops by a trained facilitator, provides youth with the opportunity give their input on specific public planning projects. For some examples of previous workshops, see here.

Definitely a great concept, though there is obviously a wealth of potential that this tool leaves untapped. Will be interesting to see if the tool gets further developed towards a more interactive approach.

visual (r)evolution

CNN has done a feature, "A new way of looking at the world" that focuses on the growing diversity and use of visualization tools to express data in interesting, instructional and also beautiful ways. In other words, exactly the stuff this blog is made of!

What is a graph? A graph is a more accessible, easier and faster way of interpreting information that otherwise may take a certain expertise, and certainly greater time, to comprehend. Using this principle to visualize increasingly "data" - such as Ben Fry's work on Darwin's The Origin of Species - gives a whole new agency to visualization. Though visualization projects are more time-consuming for a "user" to create, they are much like Wikipedia entries in terms of their ability to instruct, social accessibility and function. I've been looking for a great visual on the health care legislation - so I'm excited to hear about Many Eyes, which features, among other great projects, visuals galore on issues surrounding the contentious health care debate.

Another development that the article touches on in the field of visualization is the ability to provide new insight on certain social, behavioral, environmental etc ideas and norms. Bruce Mau, who calls the merging of technical and cultural changes a "social revolution," has a particularly interesting installation that questions the way we, as humans, measure wealth. The installation makes us wonder - how did our mass culture form in such a way that we value money - a complete social construction - over something as critical and physically real as the number of species on earth?

If the proliferation and accessibility of such tools continues to grow, maybe a "visual" Wikipedia isn't so far-fetched?

atlanta mapathon

In an effort to position Atlanta as the most digitally mapped city in the US, over 200 volunteer organizers carried out a large-scale, mapping exercise in the city two weekends ago. The "mapathon" was organized by citizens, professors, geo-professionals etc and OpenStreetMap (OSM), an organization that promotes "the most accurate" mapping through open source mapping - allowing the public to contribute and access maps and geo-data free of charge. Basically Wikipedia and Google Maps had a beautiful love child.

The founder of OSM, Steve Coast, founded the organization to address what he saw as a lack of community and user contribution, as well as restrictive licensing that prevents public access to important and useful data.

The Atlanta Mapathon was apparently a huge success and will be followed up with monthly mini-mapping parties!

GOOD magazine: CEO compensation contest

GOOD Magazine's CEO Compensation Contest asked designers to create a graphic that explores and makes an interesting statement about executive pay in the U.S.. The winner (above, announced Oct 2) by Dee Adams is a great visual representation of hierarchy and the imbalance in pay and position between  executives and the employees that are (literally) beneath them. It's an awesome way to incorporate social commentary into an infographic.

 See here for GOOD's analysis on the winner and the entries of the runners up. Click here for other contest entries.

GOOD Magazine has a lot of interesting infographics and studies related to current public policy dilemmas, campaigns, claims etc in their transparency section.
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bring in 'da fun

According to the Thefuntheory.com (an initiative of Volkwagen), changing people's behavior (for the better) is as easy as introducing some fun into mundane tasks like throwing away garbage. Even if it's just a fun way for some Volkswagen employees to get a few laughs, or generate a little "green" publicity for the car company, it's a nice thought - changing behavior doesn't always have to be a deep psychological experiment, or a matter of garnering support to change public policy (though this is lovely as well) - sometimes we just have to put a little fun into it!

One of their projects, the world's deepest bin:

unlikely dream job: maldives cabinet member

Agence France-Presse — Getty Images (via New York Times)

Apparently the Maldives government is getting creative with its campaign to combat climate change. The President, VP and cabinet members held a meeting 20 feet under water to highlight the fact that if we, globally, don't cut our carbon emissions and engage in more sustainable activity, the effects - including possibly engulfing entire countries - will be irreversible.

Ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December - the first global meeting of its kind - accountability of each country is key. Though this underwater meeting is definitely largely a publicity stunt, I think that it's also a unique and clever way to integrate their local culture and environment to garner support for creative and innovative strategies to combat climate change. Plus, it's pretty baller.

now you see me...

via rebel:art

Love it.

IDEO: living climate change

Living Climate Change is a initiative of design and innovation consultancy, IDEO, that serves as an online space to discuss our approaches to climate change, particularly with the view that designers can play an essential role in visualizing our futures.

Instead of relying on policymakers to solve our climate change problems, thereby positioning ourselves as passive observers, the forum encourages us to all participate in thinking critically about shaping and adapting to our changing global world.

Living Climate Change is formatted as a blog with essays, imagery, visions etc. that are also categorized by various topics (ex: campaigns, photography, transit, youth etc). Though is it promoted as an open format for discussion, as of right now only certain contributions are published, and it relies largely on experts to create the material. It was launched fairly recently - at the end of September - so I wonder if the format will become more democratic as the site evolves...

no more bloodless sheets

via Frisky

My friend Ranya tipped me off to a product, Gigimo's "Artifical Virginity Hymen," via an article in HuffPo suggesting that Egyptian lawmakers may ban it. Gigimo is a sex-toy shop based in China, so naturally the marketing for this product focuses on fulfilling whatever fetishes men may have about women who are virgins. I am much more concerned about this product from a cultural perspective - Egypt's claim that the product encourages premarital sex, and undermines the principle of women maintaining strict purity. The argument is that the product allows women to misrepresent their sexuality, and thereby defy Islamic law.

In a society where honor killings/beatings are not out of the ordinary, this product has significant potential. At $30/piece, it's not necessarily readily available, but is much more so than hymen reconstructive surgery .

Does the product get to the root of the problem, the cultural stigmatization of women's sexuality in the Middle East? No, not directly. But hopefully such controversies, and yes, the associated media attention, will guide a more thorough discussion on the cultural implications of such a device. On the other hand, there is always the risk that any cultural exploration/intervention will only lead lead to colonial backlash and cultural defense in the form of stricter punishments.

it ain't cheap, but it's sexy

Theaster Gates presenting The Dorchester Project

"It ain't cheap, but it's sexy"  - just one the many choice phrases spoken by Theaster Gates, who presented The Dorchester Project at this past weekend's two-day Accidental Publics Symposium, co-hosted and sponsored by Northwestern University and School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). The symposium focused on temporary works of public art that, by nature, created an "accidental" or unintentional audience or community. The purpose of the symposium was to explore the ways in which these projects help "bridge the art and everyday life divide in present tense and real space."

I attended Saturday's discussion at SAIC on "Claiming Public Space" with presenters Dara Greenwald and Olivia Robinson (Spectres of Liberty), Theaster Gates (The Dorchester Project), Kyle Tidd (K1-430), Adam Farcus (Store Interventions) and Fereshteh Toosi (The Fourth River).

All of the talks were incredible explorations into the role of art in shaping and investigating our public realm, but to me Theaster Gates' Dorchester Project was the most compelling. Like me, he is primarily interested in visual art and urban/community planning, but does not limits his project to these fields of design, recognizing that all artistic disciplines and ways of viewing and interpreting the world are interrelated. The Dorchester Project is a house, 6918 S. Dorchester, on Chicago's South Side, that Theaster is continually transforming into a space for "creative activity" that is centered around a kitchen serving traditional soul food and Japanese cuisine. I'm planning on visiting the house, so I'll write more in detail when I do. But some of the themes from his talk that really resonated with me are:

1. These projects enable us to rely less on traditional institutions - museums, schools etc - as means to disseminate and receive cultural, historical and artistic information, and thereby create opportunities to develop deeper and more complex meaning and relationships with others and the world around us.
2. The role of this project as an "anti-gentrification" tool. The house allows people who would otherwise have no reason to visit this South Side neighborhood to engage in a new type of community. This community is independent of the typical commercial and residential transformations associated with gentrification. Instead of suggesting that people buy (cheap!) property in his neighborhood, Theaster encourages people to rent plots of land for gardening, or other community activities, in order to participate in more meaningful ways to the neighborhood.

Theaster (or should I say, Professor Gates), also teaches at the University of Chicago and is a fun-loving, brilliant and hilarious guy. Can't wait to check this project out and actually get a chance to chat with him.

Check out photos of the project via Theaster's site.

people-mapping by the mapping people

I read about Worldmapper and one of their studies on BBC News. Worldmapper itself is an initiative of various geographers at Sheffield University (and one at University of Michigan...) that reinterprets maps to visualize different demographic information. The map shown above is from a series of population maps that the group developed to emphasize population densities  in different countries.

Professor Danny Dorling, who oversaw the study, argues that the creation of these maps "changes how you think about places...if you really want a fair map of an area you do it by population. What you are interested in most of the time is people." (via BBC News)

While I don't necessarily agree with this statement (depends on what field you're working in!), I do agree, of course, that population is a critical measurement to take into consideration when studying regions. On a country-by-country level, I don't think that these visualizations really add much to the comprehension of population densities. However, from the perspective of say, a planner trying to get his/her bearings on a new town, city county etc, this would be a really helpful visual tool to interpret population trends throughout the area of study.

Many of the other visualizations Worldmapper does are really instructive, such as an animation that displays internet usage over time or one that shows age of death worldwide.

and the winner is...

 

RIO DE JANEIRO

I may be a Chicagoan, but I'm thrilled about Rio 2016! We watched the bid videos at work today (aired on ABC) and I have to say, theirs was definitely the most powerful/passionate. Perfect mix of the city, the culture and sports. Still trying to find it online and will post it when I do...

If used properly, this could be an amazing chance for Rio to improve its infrastructure, restructure (instead of just pushing out) its slums, improve its terrible crime rates and from there...who knows what could happen.

CONGRATS South America!!

One of the main complaints about the Chicago bid was that our performance was "flat" -  without a sense of passion and direct vision for our Olympic plan. I'd have to say I agree. Our bid, compared to the others, just seemed SO corporate and sort of took the fun out of the games. It was all about producing a sustainable, economically- viable and efficient games, which IS important but should be one of many focal points when we're talking about an international celebration that should be exciting, vibrant and a real shared experience.

These aren't THE videos that they played in Copenhagen, but they are promos for the bid:

RIO

MADRID

(This video is very focused on the actual plan - which the short promo videos played in Copenhagen weren't AT ALL. But alas, I can't find them...)

TOKYO

CHICAGO

CHICAGO ARTISTS MONTH

Meant to post on this yesterday. October is Chicago Artists Month!

Love this year's theme:
"Chicago Artists Month 2.0, refers to the concepts of interactivity and connectivity associated with Web 2.0, and highlights the ways in which artists interact with their audiences, interface with other artists, and use technology in order to create and distribute their work - locally, globally and virtually."

The month is chock full of events and a bit overwhelming...but I'll be posting about the ones that I'm able to attend and are of particular interest.

Sea the Forest for its trees

 

The Umi-no-Mori ("Sea Forest") project is an initiative of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. The project involves the conversion of a 30-meter high, 217-acre wide landfill on Tokyo Bay into a forest, including the planting of over 70,000 trees over the next three years. Grade-school children will be actively involved in planting these trees, which according to project chair Tadao Ando, will help them "understand that the environment is closely tied with human activity" (via Bloomberg).

Umi-no-Mori was initiated in part to support the city's 2016 Olympic bid. Not only will the forest serve to remind its visitors of Tokyo's commitment to "greening" the city, it will serve as the equestrian field in Tokyo's Olympic Park. The project chair (and very active board member of the Tokyo 2016 Olympic committee) is architect Tadao Ando, who is known for projects that emphasize a harmony between the built and landscaped world. As a Chicagoan I suppose he's currently my rival, but I think Tokyo's "carbon minus" approach to the bid would be so interesting to see in implementation. Will also be interesting to see if the Umi-no-Mori project still goes forward if the city doesn't win the bid...

heidelberg project

via Rosh Sillas Metro Detroit Photographer

This past week I had two students from Germany staying with me, Chrissi and Nadine, who study urban planning and geography respectively. As part of a university trip they were doing, they visited cities on the "Rust Belt," which are very interesting in terms of urban planning (or lack there of). Among them - Detroit. They showed me some photos of this art project/community that they had stumbled upon in the city - Heidelberg Project - and I was immediately fascinated.

The Heidelberg Project was initiated in 1986 by artist Tyree Guyton, his grandfather Sam Mackey and former wife, Karen Guton. Inspired by the tragic effects of the Detroit riots, which have made of Detroit a highly-segretated, poor, and altogether abandoned city, Tyree thought to reinvent vacant houses and lots on his street (Heidelberg) into an outdoor community-focused "art environment." Involving local kids and families from the community in a variety of art projects, the Heidelberg Project has become a model for community revival and using art to keep kids busy, off the streets and stimulated.

Check out the Heidelberg Project site for more photos, info on their 20+ years and some of their current initiatives and accomplishments.

Bit more on Detroit:
Cover story in this week's TIME, "Detroit: The Death - and Possible Life - of a Great City"

Eminem's new video for "Beautiful" has a lot of scenes of vacant/abandoned spaces in Detroit:

peepoo bag

The PeePoo bag is a biodegradable, self-sanitizing, single-use bag to be used as a receptacle for - you guessed it - pee & poo - for the 2.6 billion people living in the world who don't have access to proper toilet and sanitation facilities, and as a result are at high risk of becoming infected with life-threatening diseases.

When my roommate forwarded me a link from Design Observer on the PeePoo bag, I had 2 immediate, but conflicting thoughts:

1. This is a great temporary solution
2. The title and the concept seem a bit degrading

After reading a lot of the very heated commentary from readers of the blog, I am still conflicted about the overall approach and have some unanswered questions/thoughts that are really ever-present when I look at product design of this nature.

Function. The peepoo bag is a great temporary solution. It sounds potentially degrading, but if it's complemented with real strategies to improve sanitation and water access problems in the long-run, then the product isn't just a product - it's a symbol of a greater campaign, and a temporary fix that if implemented properly will save lives.

Timeframe. How long should "temporary" be? Can "temporary" products become a crutch that impedes progress towards finding more sustainable solutions?

Branding. I thought about branding in product design recently at a lecture on Project H Design given by founder Emily Pilloton at Columbia College. Project H worked on the redesign of the hippo roller, a water carrier concept originally developed by engineers Pettie Petzer and Johan Jonker that aims to increase water access for populations in rural South Africa by allowing them to carry significantly larger loads of water than did their previous method of carrying filled buckets on their heads.

When Project H did the redesign of the hippo roller (including a few functional improvements), they didn't want to fundamentally alter the actual look of the product, because it had become recognizable in the community and having one had become a source of pride. So, is this a culturally-, and community-sensitive approach, or does it feed into a certain sense of possession and accumulation that seems to be inseparable from product design...or both? Can branding be a positive way to proliferate ideas, concepts and innovative products, or does it always take advantage of our desire to accumulate?

park(ing) day chicago!

Friday was Park(ing) Day! Park(ing) Day began in 2005 with an installation by architecture & design firm Rebar ("interdisciplinary studio operating at the intersection of art, design and activism") based in San Francisco.  It has since grow to worldwide movement that encourages civic participation in reimagining our urban  infrastructure to include greater focus on open, green public spaces, versus our current car-centric urban landscapes.

In Chicago, architecture firm Moss Design, along with industrial design firm Strand Design, conceived of "urban park" in two parking spots outside Southport Grocery.

Video interview from WBEZ blog with Matt Nardella of Moss Design, the sustainable design studio in Lakeview on the making of and concept behind their parking spot design.

PARKing Day from WBEZ on Vimeo.

There doesn't seem to be as much critical mass behind the movement in Chicago as in other cities - haven't heard much about other groups/individuals participating in Chicago. I did get a note through my UIC listserv that the Urban Planning department there was leading an initiative on campus.

Park(ing) Day is particularly pertinent to Chicago with the recent heavily contested deal to privatize metered parking throughout the city.

Some shots from other cities, various years:

Original Park(ing) Day in San Francisco, 2005

Chicago, 2007

Honolulu, 2008

New York, 2008

Portland, 2009

UPDATE: Just received images of UIC's parking day this year. Wish I'd made it!

More here.

rethinking value

Related to the previous post on Kawano Takeshi's work:

Fabrica, Benetton's communications research center that commissioned Takeshi for the global warming awareness project, has done a lot of other interesting, innovative work. The group, based in Treviso, Italy describes themselves as an "applied creativity laboratory, a talent incubator" where young, modern, international artists develop innovative projects that have a communications focus.

One project that grabbed my attention is titled, "Colors of Money" which, in the wake of the financial crisis, examines the root causes of the economic meltdown - "the desires, the fantasy and the hubris which fuelled the financial abuses and brought about disastrous economic consequences".

The installation, exhibiting in Luxembourg through November 2009, includes a variety of media - photography, creative writing and art. It questions the "cultural dominance of finance" and explores the ways in which artists and designers are attempting to counteract this force that has so influenced the formation of our global, contemporary culture.

The exhibition corresponds with the 73rd issue of of Fabrica's Colors Magazine ("a magazine about the rest of the world" - that examines global trends & themes from innovative perspectives) - which has a feature that focuses on 15 different substances found through lab analysis of currency that had passed through hundreds, thousands, millions of exchanges...They then explore each substance found (ex: oil, microbes, metal, soil) and critically analyze its value and use in a variety of national and international contexts. For example - on the island of Yap, Micronesia, soil is a measure of wealth much like currency. This approach exemplifies the ways in which Fabrica breaks information and concepts down into pieces, parts. This approach allows the viewer/reader to critically analyze how "money" is a just false construct with no real or concrete value or utility.

Some examples of installations in the exhibit:

The Podium by  Erik Ravelo (Cuba, 2008)
"An interactive installation built with thousands copies of COLORS 73, this podium speaks to symbols of opulence in a society which encourages us to accumulate more and more to supposedly reach the top of the world. The podium invites visitors to go backwards: take some money, leave the rest, and watch the hierarchy slowly collapse as each of us do the same."

Piggy Bank by Sam Baron (France, 2009)

"Save money, spend money. Save money, spend money. Start over. An innovative design object, Sam Baron’s Piggy Bank questions the endless process of accumulation and expense that rules our daily lives by showing the futility of this social game we always lose."

More here.

melting zoo

Artist Kawano Takeshi was commissioned by the Italy-based communications research center, Fabrica, to raise awareness about the effects of climate change.

 

 

I haven't been able to find much else out about Kawano Takeshi's work, but these works have gotten a lot of attention. They have a lot of impact as graphics, but I imagine if the sculptures are life-like they'd have much more effect in person. Like going to a melting zoo...

dirty water for $1

Read about this UNICEF campaign over at Artsy Time.

For the dirty water campaign, UNICEF placed a "dirty water" vending machine in Union Square in New York. The vending machine provided consumers with 8 options, themed around diseases contracted from drinking contaminated water.

The campaign was created by communications firm Casanova Pendrill as an initiative of UNICEF's Tap Project, founded in 2007 to raise awareness about (and funds to combat) the poor quality of water in developing countries.

Operating on budget of $0, all materials and services were provided pro bono.

Video for the campaign

The end of this video is really disturbing: two idiotic girls making jokes about diseases that "make you skinny" because they involve throwing up and diarrhea... "yea, i mean if it doesn't kill you, it'll just make you skinnier." Tap Project responds with the message "There's still a long way to go." Good for them for keeping this in there - it's a reality check that these issues are not present enough in the public dialogue. You would never see people publicly making a joke like that about a disease like cancer.

It's unfortunate that people like this exist, and a mass-impact campaign will most likely never change their perceptions. What it does do though is:

1) raises funds using a combination of the brilliant vending machine concept (forgo the pack of m&m's to provide a child with 40 days of drinking water? i think so), text messaging and a probably less immediately successful, but still very accessible online donation option
2) provides people with something physical and visual to make sense of the pressing issue - rather than mere statistics, it uses a bright vending machine in the middle of one of the busiest areas in Manhattan and then, the bottle of dirty, brown contaminated water
3) makes the very critical connection between the 8 life-threatening (but PREVENTABLE) diseases and water sanitation & access. This provides a reminder, and in some cases newly informs people that these diseases are directly related to the dismal state of water quality in developing regions like Africa and India.

According to UNICEF, for every dollar raised, a child will have enough water to drink for 40 days. Donations raised by the Tap Project fund targeted projects that increase access and improve sanitation of water in a few countries within Africa, South America and in Iraq.

NEW BLOG, ACTUAL THEME.

Which is, roughly: the intersection of design/visualization and social change.

This blog is dedicated to appreciating and spreading awareness of the innovative products, works of architecture, urban plans, graphics, maps, graphs etc that serve to reinterpret, reconceptualize, and often recreate the world around us.

Inherent in the word "design" is a sense of functionality - design, versus art, has a function. Whether it be an innovation like the advent of the lightbulb or the redrawing of world maps popularized by Western cultures to expose their colonial misinterpretations - progressive design and visualization should be predicated on the idea that change is achieved by rethinking the very systems upon which we operate and the norms which we accept.

Instead of designing products, advertisements or buildings that serve the misguided wants of a mass consumer, temporary culture - designers should use their creative energy to create products, designs, or ways of visualizing the world/concepts/themes that seek to reinterpret the world around us, and that change our perceptions of what solutions are possible for the world's political, social, cultural, environmental problems.