City Cultures Reader

City Cultures Reader is an outstanding collection of 60 texts, focussing on the cultural aspects, frameworks and perceptions of cities. Organised into twelve sections this text draws on material from cultural studies, architectural criticism and theory, cultural and human geography, urban design and critical theory. This exciting collection of readings draws out the comparisons and contrasts of the city by the juxtaposition of texts in each section. The excellent line up of contributors discuss a variety of current issues including:
· utopian and dystopian visions 
· ecology
· social justice
· city form
· possible futures.
· every day life

Biography

Malcolm Miles is Senior Lecturer in Fine Art at Oxford Brookes University, Iain Borden is Senior Lecturer in Architectural History at The Bartlett, University College London and Tim Hall is Lecturer in Human Geography at Cheltenham and Gloucester College of Higher Education.

Who's Your City?

Visit the book website at www.whosyourcity.com for additional online features.

Overview
How the Creative Economy is Making the Place Where You Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life.
It’s a mantra of the age of globalization that where you live doesn’t matter: you can telecommute to your high-tech Silicon Valley job, a ski-slope in Idaho, a beach in Hawaii or a loft in Chicago; you can innovate from Shanghai or Bangalore.
According to Richard Florida, this is wrong. Place is not only important, it’s more important than ever.
Globalization is not flattening the world; on the contrary, the world is spiky. Place is becoming more relevant to the global economy and our individual lives. The choice of where to live, therefore, is not an arbitrary one. It is arguably the most important decision we make, as important as choosing a spouse or a career. In fact, place exerts powerful influence over the jobs and careers we have access to, the people we meet and our “mating markets” and our ability to lead happy and fulfilled lives.
Who’s Your City provides the first ever-rankings of cities by life-stage, rating the best places for singles, young families and empty-nesters. And it grounds its new ideas and data to provide an essential guide for the more than 40 million Americans of who move each year on how to choose where to live, and what those choices mean for their lives, happiness and communities.

Geo Logics

GeoLogics

Geography, Information and Architecture

Vicente Guallart

Vicente Guallart, pioneer of interaction between nature, technology and architecture examines the urban, social and cultural changes in our information society for new urban building. Presenting the last 15 years of his work, this book investigates architecture’s ability to construct systems for inhabitable environments in diverse environmental, social, and economic conditions. He crosses boundaries through collaborations in geology, sociology, engineering, economics, software and interface design. His projects follow a "natural" logic, referring to components originating in nature, as well as to environmental systems. A logic that connects nature with the transformations of urban spaces, social organizations, and the digital world.

Look inside: 
http://issuu.com/actar/docs/geologics

Space Graphysm

This bilingual publication in English and Japanese presents recent Japanese architectural projects for which graphic design plays the leading role. It presents the frequently award-winning designs of Hiromura Masaaki, a Japanese designer who made a name for himself with innovative projects which combine graphic design and architecture. 

The projects are showcased and discussed in four sections:
System - information design to clarify the structure of buildings, Graphysm - the use of typography in spaces to clarify the purpose of the space, Presentation - graphic design for exhibitions and installations, and Visual Identity - creating a visual identity for a space or building. To emphasize the importance of multidisciplinary teams in creating graphics for spaces, author and designer Hiromura Masaaki interviews professionals who collaborated on various projects, for example, an architect, a scientist, an artist and a photographer. Much of this concerns ?signing?, a subject long deserving attention. Space Graphysm fills the gap perfectly, providing readers versed in architecture as well as graphic and information designers with a wealth of innovative and inspirational projects. 

http://vimeo.com/5471619

Good City Form

 The purpose of Lynch’s book, Good City Form (1981) is to create a theory for determining whether the form of a city is good or bad – he calls it normative theory. This paper sets out the reason behind an initial impression that scholarship since then has failed to build on his theory. This is surprising for a work of such stature. If it is true, the review will examine why this may be so and then go on to see if there is any good reason why it could not be rehabilitated and form a good structure for a framework which is central to the forthcoming research project into masterplanning?




"This is a major work.... Lynch looks at connections between human values and the physical forms of cities, sets requirements for a normative theory of city form, reviews earlier physical images of what utopian communities might be, sees what is to be learned from hellish images, and helps us place city forms into one or another of three theoretic constructs: cosmic or ceremonial centers, the machine city, and the city as an organism. He tells us at some length how we might evaluate the 'goodness' of cities, speaks to the enduring issues of city size, growth, and conservation, and, having done all this, tells us about what his good city form might look like. The appendixes are a major part of the book, taking well over 100 pages.... This is a volume that in short order will be (or at least should be) standard, desired, provocative, influential reading for just about anyone concerned with why cities are the way they are and, more important, with achieving good places for people to live."
—Journal of the American Planning Association

City of Sound
http://www.cityofsound.com/blog/

Kevin Lynch: City Elements Create Images in Our Mind, 1960 By Ethan Sundilson

Background
Kevin Lynch, born in 1918, was a significant contributor to city planning and city design in the twentieth century. Kevin Andrew Lynch was educated at Yale University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and most notably, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. At MIT, he went on to gain Professorship in 1963, and eventually earned professor emeritus status. Aside from research and teaching, Lynch was consultant to the state of Rhode Island, New England Medical Center, Boston Redevelopment Authority, Puerto Rico Industrial Development Corp., M.I.T. Planning Office, and other organizations. Throughout Lynch's outstanding career, he produced seven books. In his most famous work, Image of the City(1960) Lynch describes a five-year study that reveals what elements in the built structure of a city are important in the popular perception of the city. In his experimenting, he used Los Angeles, Boston, and Jersey City as case studies. By analyzing the results of this work, Lynch figured he would be able to observe specifically what about a city's built environment is important to the people who live there.


Innovation


One of Lynch's innovations was the concept of place legibility, which is essentially the ease with which people understand the layout of a place. By introducing this idea, Lynch was able to isolate distinct features of a city, and see what specifically is making it so vibrant, and attractive to people. To understand the layout of a city, people first and foremost create a mental map. Mental maps of a city are mental representations of what the city contains, and its layout according to the individual. These mental representations, along with the actual city, contain many unique elements, which are defined by Lynch as a network of paths, edges, districts, nodes, and landmarks. First, paths are channels by which people move along in their travels. Examples of paths are roads, trails, and sidewalks. The second element, edges, are all other lines not included in the path group. Examples of edges include walls, and seashores. Next, districts are sections of the city, usually relatively substantial in size, which have an identifying character about them. A wealthy neighborhood such as Beverly Hills is one such example. The fourth element, nodes, are points or strategic spots where there is an extra focus, or added concentration of city features. Prime examples of nodes include a busy intersection or a popular city center. Finally, landmarks are external physical objects that act as reference points. Landmarks can be a store, mountain, school, or any other object that aids in orientation when way-finding.

Lynch sought to determine place legibility by administering an experiment, which consisted of questionnaire surveys, and interviews. The survey included thirty people in a central area of Boston, and fifteen each in populous Jersey City and Los Angeles. Boston was chosen on account of it being a very vivid city, containing many unique features that are difficult to navigate through. Next, Jersey City was chosen for its lack of distinctiveness. Finally, Los Angeles was selected because of it being a new city having relatively original form. The interview that accompanied the survey included requests for descriptions of the city, along with sketch maps (a drawing of their mental map), and a description of an imaginary trip through the city. Lynch found some very interesting consistencies in their imaginary trips, such as people veering off course to go through a vivid part of the city, and most people mentioning water and vegetation with pleasure in their responses. Another consistency in people's descriptions was a way-finding problem that people had, most notably in Boston, that coincided with the parts of the city that contained confusions, floating points, weak boundaries, isolations, ambiguities, and lack of character or differentiation. In addition to Boston, parts of Jersey City and Los Angeles were each found to be difficult to orientate in, on account of features lacking distinctness and identity.

Lynch made several conclusions from people's responses in the experiment. Lynch took the areas that people found vivid and assigned these areas a high imageability ranking. Imageability, another term introduced by Lynch, is the quality of a physical object, which gives an observer a strong, vivid image. He concluded that a highly imageable city would be well formed, would contain very distinct parts, and would be instantly recognizable to the common inhabitant. He also explains that a well-formed city is highly reliant upon the most predominant city element, paths. Examples of well-designed paths may include special lighting and having clarity of direction (not being comprised of confusing or ambiguous turns). Similarly, edges, districts, nodes, and landmarks are favorable contributors to imageability if they are meaningful, distinct, and not confusing. These elements, when placed in good form, increase human ability to see and remember patterns, and it is these patterns that make it easier to learn.

Lynch's findings have been implemented globally in city planning operations in recent years. Whether a new city is formed, or existing ones are further developed, residents have benefited from the use of more imageable city elements and clearer form. However, more research is currently being pursued in the related field of spatial cognition. Present research methods include using virtual environment technologies to investigate many unexplored areas. By using virtual environment technology, the experimenter can manipulate the geometry of the elements in the environment as well as their location in the virtual world (in a real world environment these alterations would be next to impossible). Specific research includes: finding specific angles of elements in a city that allow for easier wayfinding, and also determining how people position their head and body in relation to their environment in navigation. Recent results from this research suggest that people visualize their source location best when both head rotations and body translations are in sync with their visual cues. The previous spatial cognition research is a good addition to Lynch's research, as it aids in helping to determine precisely what about a city allows for easier perception and more accurate mental maps for the city dweller.  

Design Challenge

http://www.behance.net/gallery/V-WATER-viral-animation/43975

Feefback_1601

Subject Knowledge:
If you are proposing the integration of a City rhythm in our current mapping systems, then this sounds complex, but very interesting. I feel I need some clarification as we process. Do you want to incorporate different rhythms (China) and thereby find a way to bring historical + contemporary into a map, but with meaning.
You correctly identify information systems and strategies, but also consider how temporal information is conveyed in GDC.


Research / Analysis:
Foucs on systems of GDC, rather than being outcome driven. Think about the interplay of static and moving with color, form and information. Look for case studies where this already exists.
Yes,  field research as well as architecture research will help. Remember there are lots of communities in Geography, space planning, Urban studies who will have published research you can access.


Experimentation:
Just asking what City Rhythm is at this stage is good- keep it open. Don't assure it relates to information in print - what about ,3D protoyping modelling.

Rotterdam Railway

The station opened June 3, 1847 as the Delftsche Poort railway station. The station building designed by Sybold van Ravesteynopened in 1957 and closed on September 2, 2007. The building became too small for the increasing number of passengers.[1]
Completion of a new public transport terminal is expected in 2013.[2]
The station currently has 13 platforms, many being island platforms. The station is on the Amsterdam–Rotterdam railway, Breda–Rotterdam railway, Utrecht–Rotterdam railway and the HSL-Zuid. There is a train/metro service under the station on Rotterdam Metro line D, and, as of 2010, on RandstadRail line E.

Unit 1 | Critical Research Paper | Outline

l   Which key theme/issue/problem is at the centre of your proposal? State this as a question.

To begin with, the key issue at the centre of the proposal is the relationship between “the city rhythm” and “the visual-oriented”. In this kind of project, the city rhythm in the contemporary design, especially the guide system design, will be explored deeply.

Today, the world’s acceleration of the urbanization process, has an imperceptibly influence on the contemporary design. Fast-paced design, explicit orientation and artistic visual guidance have become the necessities of buildings, all structures and city public facilities required for functional design. These designs are extensions on account of conveying information in graphic design.

   

London, which as one of the core creative industries in the world, has temporal spirited very forward-looking in contemporary art and design. Meanwhile, its long historical and cultural background, destine to leave many things worthwhile remembering such as the historical parks & streets in the wave of city in this fast-paced process. Their visual guidance systems must be worth careful studying and re-designing.

At the beginning of the investigation, those excellent guide designs will be investigated. Such as art galleries, museums, art areas and so on. In addition, some western cities, such as London, Paris, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, etc. will also be visited and studied. In these cities to discover the rhythm of the city's design, will be in-depth analysis and reference.   

l   Breakdown your theme into issues and topics and describe them with a map and annotations. Do all your issues/topics remain in art and design or do you need to look at overlapping views from humanities, social sciences, technology, philosophy etc?

The issue of the theme is the relationship between “the city rhythm” and “the visual-oriented”. While, the main topic of the theme is integration of information，which can promote the development of graphic design. On the other words, the whole issue will be explored in the philosophy of the city. Similarly, as Anne Bush’s saying, ‘ Most designers, I believe, would agree that design has an important social role, and that design practice should be anchored in the very reality of its social consequences.’ ‘More important, it is this dialogic process that defines visual communication as a social activity.’ (2003.p.26) Therefore, as a designer, to explore the city rhythm and visual-oriented relationship is necessary. It could be argued that exploration of this relationship for the graphic design is also significant.

     Figure1: “the city rhythm” and “the visual-oriented”.

l   Where does your own viewpoint of the subject come from - what has shaped your beliefs?

The viewpoint of the subject comes from the book, which named ‘Design Without Boundaries’. It mentioned that ‘ In the course of the 1980s, the studio demonstrated time and again that it was possible for a progressive, even wayward, visual spirit to coexist with the most ordinary functional and commercial needs. Dumbar first designed the Spoorboekje, the Dutch railway timetables, n the early 1970s, with his team at Tel Design.’(1998, p.61) In my point of view, current design is no longer blindly to pursue innovation, this graduation thesis chases and conveys the concept of recreation so as to simplify the entities of sign system and enhance the sense of visual, while this functional expression can be traced back to further years.

It can be said that Bauhaus Institute of Design and Bauhaus design movement raised by it are the nouns immediately flashed in the brain while people talking about the design concept. People begin to face the reality emerging from industrial mass production, ‘The new design born on this basis uses functions as the objective.’ (Hara,2008,p.43)

Figure2: Rotterdam Railway

l   Identify key resources which you intend to use to direct the first stage of the research and explain what they offer potentially.

In the first stage, the key resources could be used are the field trips and books. Specifically, field trips allow the audience to establish an intuitive feel, while the participation of the audience can get timely and effective information. In a certain sense, it allows the audience to feel the rhythm of contemporary design in the city's influence. This resource is very important. Secondly, many classical case and analysis can be found in the book sources, it can optimize the information and get fastest into the theme which called city rhythm. For instance, the book, which named Guidance System Design (Uebele. A.2008. p.28) , gives me the potential methodology. It mentioned the word ‘information Integration’, which starts to play important role in various fields. Information integration is equally important in design field. As a result, this kind of method could help designers to analysis and redesign the work.

l   Attempt 1 relevant key reading and write down your analysis of that text in bullet points. Make clear what alternative or sympathetic viewpoints it offers to your own.

In the Guidance System Design, it mentioned the “Information Integration”. It could be argued that long with leap of the information technology, the word “Information Integration” starts to play important role in various fields. Information integration is equally important in design field. For designers, it is particularly important to regulate and integrate such multi-level information and scope as subjective and objective, ration and perception into different media. Information integration is the process to optimize allocation of information resources, expand application areas of information resources and maximize value of information. A final point worth considering is that this methodology can be applied to study relationship between the city rhythm and the visual-oriented, which could be very important and far-reaching.

l   Bibliography

    1. Heller S. & Vienne V. (2003) Citizen designer: perspectives on design responsibility,   

      New York: Allworth Press.

    2. Poynor R. (1998) Design without Boundaries. Visual Communication in Transition.

      Hongkong.

    3. Hara K.(2008) DESIGN OF DESIGN, Jinan: Shandong People's Publishing House.

    4. Uebele A.(2008) Guidance System Design, Beijing: China Youth Press

l   Appendices:

    1. Figure1: “the city rhythm” and “the visual-oriented”.

    2. Figure2: Rotterdam Railway

Unit 1 | Research and Practice Plan | Proposal WHAT | HOW | WHY

l   Which key theme/issue/problem is at the centre of your proposal? How do you want to investigate it; state this as a question – WHAT

To begin with, the key issue at the centre of the proposal is the relationship between “the city rhythm” and “the visual-oriented”. In this kind of project, the city rhythm in the contemporary design, especially the guide system design, will be explored deeply.

Today, the world’s acceleration of the urbanization process, has an imperceptibly influence on the contemporary design. Fast-paced design, explicit orientation and artistic visual guidance have become the necessities of buildings, all structures and city public facilities required for functional design. These designs are extensions on account of conveying information in graphic design.

   

London, which as one of the core creative industries in the world, has temporal spirited very forward-looking in contemporary art and design. Meanwhile, its long historical and cultural background, destine to leave many things worthwhile remembering such as the historical parks & streets in the wave of city in this fast-paced process. Their visual guidance systems must be worth careful studying and re-designing.

At the beginning of the investigation, those excellent guide designs will be investigated. Such as art galleries, museums, art areas and so on. In addition, some western cities, such as London, Paris, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, etc. will also be visited and studied. In these cities to discover the rhythm of the city's design, will be in-depth analysis and reference.   

l   Consider the different kinds of media and techniques that can be taken within design practice to help solve this issue/problem/theme - provide evidence? – HOW

There are core three kinds of media and techniques that can be taken within design practice to help solve this issue. They are space on the display, paper maps and interactive media.

Fist of all, space on the display, is a sense of the traditional industrial functional display. It guides the design show a rhythm in the city the most essential applications. It addition to its visual appeal, but also has a strong rational guidance function. Secondly, paper maps is another media that audience can accept visual information conveniently and freely. The audience can always read this paper guides that feel the design of the city rhythm in the application. Furthermore, the appearance of interactive media can also be taken within design practice, such as the software of mobile phone. This kind of media is not only easier to convey information, but also more interesting. Meanwhile, this multiple technique is also the breakthrough and challenges of this final project.

l   Which part(s) of the map of graphic communication design does your research and practice plan relate to (fields of interest)? – HOW

No doubt, information design and functional design is the most relevant core in the research and practice plan. In this kind of design which relevant to the city rhythm, information design, performance in all aspects. For instance, one sign system in the city is to focus on "information integration" method, classify and integrate current status in the area at all levels with such progressive indicator system as navigation map, building number, building information, house number, posters management and other fields in the area. In addition, this information is indicative design also played a role in the function on the other hand. Therefore, the maps of graphic communication design are information design and functional design.

l   What are your main sources of research (articles, books, magazines, websites, exhibitions, events, experts, other case studies etc.)? List at least 4 and describe why they are useful to the research and practice plan? – WHY

The main sources of research are field trips, books, websites and related to the designer or teams. The reasons are as follows. Specifically, field trips allow the audience to establish an intuitive feel, while the participation of the audience can get timely and effective information. In a certain sense, it allows the audience to feel the rhythm of contemporary design in the city's influence. As a result, this resource is very important. Secondly, many classical case and analysis can be found in the book sources, it can optimize the information and get fastest into the theme which called city rhythm. Thirdly, informative website is an advantage. This resource can help investigators to go to any place in the world, including some inconvenient countries and regions. Finally, Access to some of the designers involved in this type of design or team is a good resource selection. They are doing to share the difficulties of this theme and achievements. A final point worth considering is sometimes standing on the shoulders of giants can more easily close to success.

l   What type of experiments would you begin with in response to your research and practice plan? (duration 2 weeks in Jan)

In two weeks, first of all, the concept of city rhythm will be delved into. Also, an artist or designer will be found related to the theme of design. In addition, a museum guides will be analyzed while the impact of changes in the city will be seen to get further study in the subject.

More specifically,

I  Research on the city rhythm

(i) Research Direction and Significance of the Real Streets of London

(ii) Analysis on Sign System of the Real Streets of London   

1. Summary of Sign System    

2. Function and Classification of Sign System

(iii) Primary Investigation of Information Integration, the way to integrate the information of the city rhythm.

1. Functions of Information Integration   

2. Method of Information Integration

3. Factors affect urban rhythm

4. Analyze and integrate these factors

   

II Research on visual guidance

(i) The Virtual re-design Streets of London Present Sign System.

(ii)  Research and exploration at earlier stage  

1. Selection and Application of Visual Horizon   

2. Font exclusive to the Virtual Streets of London   

3. Color Selection   

4. Analysis on Building Materials