VURB » Urban Interface Policy

VURB/Volume Workshop II: Builders at Play

alex — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 14:14:05 +0000

Archis/Volume and VURB present the Internet of Things Workshop II: Builders at Play. September 2-4, Waag Society, Amsterdam.

Following theMay 7th Internet of Things Workshop at the Staalvilla, Archis/Volume, VURB, Caro van Dijk and Alexander Zeh will organize the second iteration with the explicit goal of creating viable and functional prototypes for the city that research how you can instill a sense of co-ownership over a public territory.

The results of this workshop will then be presented and discussed widely at PICNIC 2011, which will take place between September 14-16 at the NDSM-werf in Amsterdam with the theme of Urban Futures. The three-day festival will explore globalization and its impact on our cities, our society and our lives.

This workshop is kindly supported by Pachube, Archis and the Waag Society.

Click here to download a PDF with more information regarding the workshop and subscribe to our mailing list for follow-up events.

The Program

September 2nd 2011, 10.00 – open-end

-Introduction of the workshop and introducing the participants
-Initial brainstorming session
-Start building prototypes
-Presentation of prototype concepts

September 3rd 2011, 10.00 – 20.00

-Open discussion about concepts and technical solutions
-Building prototypes
-Presentation of progress
-Feedback

September 4th 2011, 10.00 – 18.00

-Finalize prototypes and document process
-Presentation and evaluation
-Open brainstorm on the results
-Wrap up

Location: Waag, Nieuwmarkt, Amsterdam

The Medium is the Metropolis

neb — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 12:55:27 +0000

The age of ubiquitous computation is condensing around us even as you read this. The various systems throughout a modern city that you probably interact with everyday are beginning to maintain persistent memories of their own use, communicate with each other about their status, and even reconfigure themselves based on your dynamic needs.

In the same way that social networks and digital representation have had profound consequences on the cultures of print, music, and video, so too will the urban fabric of the city itself be transformed into an information layered, collaboratively shapable medium.

Urban Interface Policy

neb — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 15:51:36 +0000

As the city becomes the site of dynamic systems that can provide services and transform environments in public space, it is imperative that we consider carefully the ethics and politics of these infrastructures. In the smart city, what is written as programmatic software ‘code’ can easily become defacto ‘law’ as it imposes permissioning schemes and identity regimes on it’s participants. So far, the internet, and the open source software that powers much of it, has remained remarkably adaptable to the ideals of democratic and egalitarian societies. Every infrastructural advance, however, goes through a watershed moment where the governing design principles of the technology itself begin to influence the types of societal experiences they might produce. We need to attempt to understand the cultural ramifications of such infrastructural design decisions in this context.