OPEN SOURCE ARCHITECTURE

Urban Infomatics Breakout

Howard Rheingold (Smart Mobs) wrote an article called Urban Infomatics Breakout. It deals with the evergrowing importance of mobile communication in regards to understanding the city. With the emergence of so-called locative media we can now see the possibilities to close the digital/physical divide:

If you want to understand cities today and especially in the future, keep mobile communications in mind. Ten years from now, understanding the way people use mobile media will be as fundamental to urban planning as understanding the buildings they inhabit and vehicles they use.

I believe the most important critical uncertainty today is whether location-based media will develop as an open system like the Internet, where everybody will be free to associate a review, a photo, a video, a map, a work of art, a political polemic, a database, with specific locations -- or whether information associated with places will be a closed system where only those who buy a certain brand of proprietary software or only those who own the local franchise will have the right to write geodata to the readers almost everybody uses. Will entire populations of city-dwellers create, use, and exchange information and media associated with geographic locations? Or will the right to write or access restaurant reviews, geospecific photographs, neighborhood crime stats be constrained? If Westlaw can own the law, anything is possible. Will the cities of 2010 be inhabited by billions users of geolocation information systems and weavers of ad-hoc communication networks? Or will we be passive consumers of pre-packaged content fabricated by a few dozen synthetic superstars.

The Induction Cities

The neverending quest for information on anything dealing with urban experience socialfiction.org came up with an interesting site once again. It's called The Induction Cities:

The "induction cities" project began with our conclusion that a city cannot be designed.

Facts create a city. Redevelopment, opening up of "new towns," and so-called Bay Area projects are in progress. The market economy outpaces recognition of the city that is coming into being. Then, by whom and by what criteria is the city being built? It is hard to tell. This seems to go nowhere beyond the associations mentioned above.

In a nutshell, no one knows how to create a city/cityscape. Because they do not know, city planners plan the cities according to the textbooks. Building a city should be a project for creating a huge system. They know that something is wrong, but end up giving priority to the existing system over their individual initiative because of the time-consuming and too-minute procedures required for decision making and execution.

The reason for the current dilemma is the absence of a method for recognition of what really needs to be done to be put into practice. What we need is not critical perceptions of what a city is but a methodology for creating a city as well as a set of theoretical principles to buttress such a methodology. We do not need a conceptual drawing of a cityscape at its completion or legal regulations or programs of events or pocket-sized maps, but a way of creating a city that embraces the dynamism of the city.

anArchitecture

Found a link to this site on anArchitecture, weblog dedicated to architecture and architectural thinking. News, links and opinions. Encourages the interchange of information between architectural interested. Check it out, it's worth it!

to all dutch map mongers

The map mongers are a group of people dedicated to the encouragement of all things map-like in the Netherlands, organising informal gatherings of those interested in maps and mapping, urban space, GPS, locative media, [social] networks, psychogeography and what have you.

Inspired by an international scene, http://webmapper.net and http://socialfiction.org started the Map Mongers. Driven by the as yet unexplored possibilities of these new mapping technologies and the gut feeling that in the Netherlands countless people are interested in these subjects, but are not yet connected.

The Map Mongers are not a group, but a high tech tea party.

We will meet for the first time at
Tuesday 20 January
19.00 hour
Cafe De Zaak, Minrebroedersstraat 9 (behind Stadhuis)

get in touch if you are interested in attending

mail@webmapper.net || info@socialfiction.org

map mongers RSS feed:
http://urbanxml.com/mapmongers.xml

Locative media

Nettime posted an interesting article on locative media. It even points to the social impact of locative media and the similarities/differences with the open source movement in this respect.

Locative media uses portable, networked, location aware computing devices for user-led mapping and artistic interventions in which geographical space becomes its canvas. The rhetoric of locative media gestures to a utopian near-future in which the digital domain and geographical space converge, and the course it plots towards this future demands not only that data be made geographically specific but also that the user - if not defined by their location - at least offers up their location as a condition of entering the game. In this respect, not to mention its choice of tools, locative media operates upon the same plane as military tracking, State and commercial surveillance, its concern for pinpointing and positioning shared with coercive forms of social control, forcing a consideration of how locative media might challenge, or be complicit with such forms of social control, and of the point at which the locative utopia rubs up against the dystopian fantasy of total control. [...] In its focus on the user-led and collaborative, on community projects and social software, on the creation of open tools, locative media offers a similar political moment to the open software movement. But a politics that is distinct to locative media - a politics of location -is not immediately apparent. Locative media proposes a form of dissent that is "collectively constructive rather than oppositional".

Space and culture

Socialfiction.org points to a new weblog on Space and Culture by Anne Galloway (Purse Lip Square Jaw).

De psychogeograaf als mythograaf

Op socialfiction.org staat een interessant artikel over de manier waarop psychogeografie een belangrijke rol zou kunnen spelen in het ontwikkelen van een hedendaagse urbane mythologie, een manier om zelfs nieuwe, ogenschijnlijk identiteitsloze gebieden te voorzien van een eigen verhaal.

Uit de vele cynische reacties op wat er terecht is gekomen van het uitgangspunt om van de Vinex locaties geen 'grauwe huizenzeeën' te maken, blijkt de behoefte aan een middel om betekenis & ervaringsniveaus te verlenen aan grootschalige stedenbouwkundige projecten die blijkbaar buiten het bereik van de architectuur ligt. De verveling die de geplande diversiteit van Vinex opwekt schreeuwt om een manier om piekervaringen als horror & terror te integreren in de beleving van een plek zonder geschiedenis. [...] Een mythologie, als open source proces van zingeving, is de optelsom van een netwerk van verhalen die collectief ontstaan zijn & elkaar door de jaren heen bevestigen, versterken & (her)interpreteren. De mythograaf schrijft geen mythologie, maar compileert deze uit bestaand materiaal & dikt aan waar de sublime dat vereist. De verschillende manifestaties van mythologieën uit het verleden suggereren een aantal randvoorwaarden voor een succesvolle mythologie: deze is een vorm van geschiedschrijving die onherkenbaar is versmolten met het fantastische, of het is een in verhaalvorm gegoten bewijsvoeringen van een idee of filosofie. Op een nog dieper gelegen niveau is ook de omgeving waarin de mythologie ontstond direct verantwoordelijk voor de inhoud ervan. [...] De psychogeograaf als mythograaf kan ook hier de 'doelloze' wandeling inzetten om de diepliggende details die het karakter van een gebied bepalen los te weken van haar context: door gesprekken af te luisteren, door de omgeving te leren waarderen voor wat deze is, door eigen vooroordelen wat het betekent om in een bepaalde omgeving te zijn los te laten, door geen kwalitatief oordeel te vellen, door alternatieve scenario's op te stellen, door follies te bouwen & graffiti te analyseren, door de geschiedenis van een gebied te bestuderen: door nauwgezet een gebied te ontleden & karakteristieke aspecten te isoleren kunnen de bouwstenen van een stedelijke mythologie ontstaan die tijd & brede verspreiding nodig hebben om tot volle wasdom te komen.

The Folkland/Cycloschematic Proposal

Also check out Andrew's proposal for a database of copylefted architectural projects, called The Folkland/Cycloschematic Proposal:

To help promote the use of copyleft agreements for architecural works, a web site, Folkland/Cycloschematic, will serve as repository for copylefted architectural projects and offer architects some of the same tools the open source software developers use to help collabrate and manage these generative works.

How might Folkland/Cycloschematic work?
Folkland/Cycloschematic will follow the model sourceforge.net. Similarly to what sourceforge offers software projects, Cycloschematic will provide a home and free services for copylefted architectural projects. The copylefted schematics associated with these projects will then be accesible to the public and may be copied, modified, customized, remixed, and constructed by anyone who downloads the schematics, as long as they, too, retain the copyleft permissions on the developed variations.

Copyleft architecture

Last week I received an email from Andrew Dribin. He referred to one of his own projects called copyleft architecture. It raises some questions similar to the ones I put forward in the open source architecture article.

The objective of this project is to undertake a critical analysis of copyleft, an alternative form of intellectual property, within the context of architecture. The project is a social and political proposal within the realms of information architecture that addresses the critical concern of ownership in our age of information and how our copyright agreements affect the process, production, and aesthetic value of architectural ideas.

One of the real world goals of this project is to advocate a cooperative effort in the architectural industry to design, customize and produce a good, cheap house. To address the limitations of any effort to produce a good, cheap house directly seems to be outside the realm of technology and rooted in social and economic condition of our era; recent phenomenon within the software community's development model and file-sharing networks, however, may be of great value to the software-enhanced architect.

Design protocol

It's time to do some serious catching up. It's been a while because of christmas holidays, illness and other delaying circumstances.

In December I had a really interesting conversation with John Habraken. We've been talking about the need for a reconception of architectural practice and the opportunities that would come out of this process. He showed me some work he has been doing at MIT. One of the projects is a design protocol for 17th Century Amsterdam facades. The protocol is translated into a computer program that can render a series of random facades. Here's a part of the accompanying introduction explaining the intentions of the project:

It is argued that the purpose od such protocols is not, primarily, to let a computer produce Amsterdam facades, (or for that matter Palladian villa's or Wrightian prairie houses) but to explore the extent to which a society of designers may share a design vocabulary and may formalize such a vocabulary. In other words, the exercise raises the question of the conventionalizing of design decisions as embedded in styles, patterns, and types, and the knowledge embedded in such conventionalizing.

PML demo

Socialfiction.org posted some screenshots of the very first demo of PML on the net. Unfortunately, he thinks it's too early to release the demo because it doesn't do much yet. But one of the important 'rules' of open source is that a program doesn't have to work properly but that it must hold a promise. PML is definitely promising:

A first demo of PML software [aaahhh] is almost finished [aaahhh]. It doesnt do much yet, but you can enter/save/load PML data as a txt file, + it has the option to save data as RSS file (urban xml) & to save the streetgram as a file to read/display by Graphvis. The next step is to add new export-functions for instance more Graphvis options so it's easy to make images like these automatically, instead of doing them by hand. For the time being this software will not be freely available (not because I want to sell it but because it's needs a lot of work) but do get in touch if you want to do a PML walk.

Palladio's children

John Habraken mentions a book on his website. It's called Palladio's Children. It deals with one of the major flaws in the self-image of architects:

In the last century architects have become fully immersed in the making of everyday environment. Historically occupied with churches, palaces, and fortresses, we have abandoned this traditional limitation to the extraordinary and monumental. At the same time, our professional self-image is still shaped by an ideology which denies that fact. The resulting conflict - between the way architects explain themselves and the work they actually do - confuses practitioners, teachers, students and the public alike. More importantly, it prevents us from doing well the tasks in which we are engaged. Neither our working methods nor our education allow the profession to be as effective as it could be.

ALTERNATIVE ECONOMICS, ALTERNATIVE SOCIETIES

After the loss of a countermodel for capitalism - which socialism, in its
real, existing form presented until its collapse - alternative concepts for
economic and social development face difficulties at the beginning of the
twenty-first century. In the industrial nations "alternatives," are,
namely, only broadly discussed when they do not question the existing power
relations of the capitalist system and representative democracies. Other
socio-economic approaches are, on the other hand, labeled utopian,
devalued, and excluded from serious discussion if even considered at all.

In the framework of the theme-specific installation, "Alternative
Economics, Alternative Societies," the focus will be on diverse concepts,
models, and utopias for alternative economies and societies which share in
common a rejection by the capitalist system of rule.

A project by Oliver Ressler

Galerija Skuc, Ljubljana (SI)
Opening: Wednesday, 29 October, 8 p.m.
30 October - 29 November 2003
www.galerija.skuc-drustvo.si

Dreamhaus: build your imagination

DreamHaus is a third person adventure / design game. DreamHaus uses architecture as an entry point for learning AP-level mathematics, engineering, and physics material. Players examine virtual architectural sites (such as the Tokyo Olympic Stadium), solve physics and engineering-based puzzles, and complete architectural design challenges using the game's design tools. Players may also participate in a web-based community surrounding the game, submitting their designs, viewing others' work, or offering critique on designs.

DreamHaus draws on the artistic allure of architecture and romantic history to make Engineering and Physics accessible to a diverse audience of players. Players explore fantastic virtual buildings, solve thought-provoking Physics and Engineering puzzles, manipulate virtual Engineering Systems, share their work in virtual communities. These game practices have proven to be successful with non-gamers in games such as Myst, SimCity, and The Sims. DreamHaus capitalizes on games' ability to represent buildings as systems, and allows players to learn through manipulating these systems. DreamHaus is grounded in David Perkins' Teaching for Understanding a pedagogical framework that is designed to foster deep, intuitive understandings of phenomena by providin learners multiple entry paths into understanding and performance-based modes of expression.

grasping urban structures

I found this site through socialfiction.org: Mauro's portal:: grasping urban structures. Interesting.

This site took me to yet another interesting one: Creative environments

What is PML?

PML is a protocol that can be used to capture meaningful psychogeographical [meta]data about urban space. PML is a unified system of classification that lurks behind the psychogeogram: the diagrammatic representation of psychogeographically experienced space.

PML is the base layer for a psychogeographical content management system that can

1. be used to transform a mass of subjective data into an objective representation
2. be used as an engine that, after being fed certain parameters, generates new psychogeographical drifts
3. be used to develop further a cartography that negates the territory
4. be datamined to show never before suspected patterns in the urban fabric
5. be turned into a knowledge base on urban environments
6. be fired up into a new mythology for urban space
7. be used to take the fingerprint of a city
8. make searchable urban features & experiences by means of the semantic web

CIVIC TV update

I have some catching up to do. First of all I want to give you some feedback on the CIVIC TV meeting one and a half weeks ago. It was a weird atmosphere and it looked like it would go on forever but it was interesting, really interesting!

• Derk Reneman [virtueel kruispunt] showed his vrtual cross road.
• Wilfried Hou Je Bek [PML] gave an update on his PML (Psychogeographical Markup Language) project. This project has a lot of potential!
• 2012 Architecten [recyclecity] talked about their Recyclicity project again, another really interesting project that I've been watching for a while now.
• Edward Mac Gillavry [collaborative mapping] gave an overview of what's going on in the open source mapping world. This is one of the most important fields for connecting virtual spaces and actual places!
• De Ruimte and Hieke Pars [Interfering: A travel Guide] talked about contextual interventions in urban space.
• Studio Popcorn [mediapolis] use computer games to point to something called mediapolis, a virtual space that has shown to be capable of attraxting over a 100,000 people at the same time.

architecture is over

I took this quote from an article (The world after Pong) by Studio Popcorn:

The city, yes, let’s keep talking about it. But architecture, it’s finished, over. Curtain. Paul Virilio

Lev Manovich

On sunday, I was in a discussion with Lev Manovich. Here's a piece of his article Models of Authorship in New Media on different kinds of authorship. The article gives an interesting overview on different kinds of collective authorship.

New media culture brings with it a number of new models of authorship which all involve different forms of collaboration. Of course, collaborative authorship is not unique to new media: think of medieval cathedrals, traditional painting studios which consisted from a master and assistants, music orchestras, or contemporary film productions which, like medieval cathedrals, involve thousands of people collaborating over a substantial period of time. In fact, in we think about this historically, we will see collaborative authorship represents a norm rather than exception.

As we will see, new media industries and cultures systematically pioneer new types of authorship, new relationships between producers and consumers, and new distribution models, thus acting as a the avant-garde of the culture industry.

The future is bright, the future is open....

Here are the notes of yesterday's introduction for the Beyond Authorship debate:

open source architecture

I want to outline an idea that I’m currently working on. It’s still in a phase of development and I hope it will be for a long time because the notion of development is actually at the core of the idea.

The main reason I started thinking about this idea is that architecture is becoming ever more autistic. Architecture, and urbanism even more so, should be directed towards the outside world and towards the future. They tend to last, so they have think forward
Architects dream of a better world.

At least they used to do so!

Lately I think we’re faced with an increasing gap between what architects dream about and what they actually build. Architects have become completely dependent on one mode of production: the developers model. Housing corporations have been commercialized, the government is busy deregulating and we hardly have a tradition of self-built homes or private clients. This has placed architects at the mercy of developers and their practice of risk management. As a result architects are becoming mere decorators of mediocracy.

Till sofar this lecture is not about dreaming a better future. But I will get there because there’s still hope.

I think in art as well as in software we see the emergence of alternative practices. They’re based on an open and collaborative development of ideas. Nicolas Bourriaud, director of the Palais de Tokyo, call this Post-Production. He says:

“In the face of economic abstraction that makes daily life unreal, or an absolute weapon of techno-market power, artists reactivate forms by inhabiting them, pirating private property and copyrights, brands and products, museum-bound forms and signatures. If the downloading of forms (these samplings and remakes) represents important concerns today, it is because these forms urge us to consider global culture as a toolbox, an open narrative space rather than a univocal narrative and a product line.”

We can see it in software as well. The open source movement has proven to be able to produce highly reliable software. Most of you will have heard of Linux, one of the bigger successes. Open source is based on opening up the source code, the software’s architecture. By revealing the source code anybody gets the chance to improve and modify the software. This creates a very refined and effective swarm intelligence.

I think a similar approach will be necessary to make architectural practice meaningful again. Architects have to focus on new organizational models for architectural production that can challenge the only model that’s left. Architectural practice should open up to do so. Arcihtects have to stop looking inward, stop asking what’s the essence of architecture. Instead they should look outward and forward and ask what architecture can do facing today’s issues and they should incorporate all new tools at hand.

It’s not so difficult if architects are able of putting aside their big egos. If and when they can see their own practice Beyond Authorship. Then they will be able to collaborate on developing an open knowledge base on architectural ideas that challenge today’s only model of architectural production.

Just to give you an example of the enormous workforce they can mobilize they only have to decide to stop competing against eachother in competitions. Competitions are a highly effective way of wasting valuable ideas with less than 1% of the ideas actually realized. To give you an idea I made a small sum of the hours spent on competitions. This makes a total of 200 architects that are full time employed working on competitions. That is 2.5% of all the architects in The Netherlands. That’s a rate for possible R&D that is almost comparable to that of highly innovative industries.

But even though we might never get to that stage, these practices are already emerging. They all deal with actual and local problems: democratization of housing, reuse of building materials, self-sustaining communities, micro-economics for urban revitalization, and so on. And they’re all developing tools for an open and collaborative approach to speed up this process and reinvent architectural practice at the same time.

So, I think the future is bright, the future is open.......

Forward thinking

Beyond Authorship
zondag 23 november, 16:00
BAK, Basis voor Actuele Kunst
Hamburgerstraat 28, Utrecht

Het lijkt of het auteurschap tegenwoordig in verval is geraakt. De unieke signatuur, de unieke stijl en de unieke geest worden alom bedreigd. Is originaliteit als waarde versleten? Voor sommigen betekent het een welkom einde van het benauwende regime van individualiteit. Voor anderen is het de opkomst van een culturele jungle, een algehele overwinning van het opportunisme. De gasten bespreken de potentie en de beperkingen van de invloed van nieuwe technologieën op de rol van de auteur en het delen van kennis.

Beyond Authorship
sunday november 23th, 16:00
BAK, Basis voor Actuele Kunst
Hamburgerstraat 28, Utrecht

Nowadays it seems as if authorship is in decay. Threats to the notion of the unique signature, the unique style, and the unique mind are ubiquitous. Does this mean that originality as a value is under siege? How should we interpret such a development? For some, this means a very welcome end to the restrictive regime of individuality. For others, it represents the emergence of a cultural jungle, a global triumph of opportunisme. The guests discuss the potential and limitations of new technology's influence on the role of the author and the sharing of knowledge.