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?