Category: Sketchbook
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Sketchbook: Noticing planning notices
7 minutes·
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The primary interface between the UK’s planning system and the people and places it serves is a piece of A4 paper tied to a lamppost in the rain. OK, not always rain. But rain often enough. The paper is a public notice describing a planning application for some kind of ‘development’ somewhere in the…
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Sketchbook: Cities Unlocked
1 minute·
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We (Future Cities Catapult) launched a major project today: Cities Unlocked. Phase one of a collaboration with Microsoft UK and Guide Dogs, it's a demonstrator of how wearables and 3D soundscapes could improve mobility and wayfinding in a beacon-enabled city. In other words, how might we get around cities in the near future? You can…
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Sketchbook: Interview with Matt George, CEO of Bridj
As research for my recent Dezeen column, and the longer piece it was drawn from—both unpicking the promise and pitfalls of predictive urban analytics and transport startups—I asked Matt George, CEO of Bridj, a Boston-based startup, a few questions. I'm reproducing the exchange below, as I find Bridj really interesting for a number of reasons. Bridj…
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Sketchbook: Connected Streets
2 minutes·
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Much of the work at the Catapult is about making more holistic, integrated urban projects happen. While this can include governance and investment pieces, we’ve also been exploring technology at the street level. For example our Sensing Cities project, which is deploying air quality sensors across Enfield, Brixton, Elephant & Castle and Hyde Park, and…
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Sketchbook: Fabrica 2013 Informal Annual Review: Code: “News Machine” & “Sadly By Your Side”
Code was something we had to rebuild a bit at Fabrica this year. Although there had been a strong code culture at Fabrica in the past, from the likes of Jonathan Harris, Oriel Ferrer Mesià, João Wilbert, Bethany Koby & Daniel Hirschmann and the late Andy Cameron of course, when I arrived the then Interaction department…
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Sketchbook: Fabrica 2013 Informal Annual Review: Film: “Ai Pioppi”
Film work has been at the core of Fabrica's output and culture since the start—the original creative director was Godfrey Reggio (of Koyaanisqatsi fame) and Fabrica even has an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film from its time as a production company around the turn of the century. So it's been particularly rewarding to see…
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Sketchbook: Fabrica 2013 Informal Annual Review: Collaborative strategy
Frequent travellers, or those that have moved jobs a lot, know that the outsider sees with fresh eyes, but only for a while. I recently opened a Dezeen column with a favourite thought from John Le Carré (via Rosecrans Baldwin) “John le Carré said the only way to write about a place was after visiting…
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Sketchbook: Fabrica 2013 Informal Annual Review: Fabricanti Handbook
On my second or third day here, I showed the peerless Tom Sachs Studio “Ten Bullets” movie. Enjoy: “Ten Bullets”, tongue in cheek and deadly serious at the same time, captures the spirit of a studio, of its people and of the work they do there (without showing the work, really.) I knew right away that…
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Sketchbook: Fabrica 2013 Informal Annual Review: From departments to studios
On my first day at Fabrica, I held a meeting with all the staff and researchers. I talked about a few things, but the primary message was about the opportunity in moving to a transdisciplinary studio model. The studio model I had in mind was drawn from long experience—the multidisciplinary teams I had created, or…
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Sketchbook: Fabrica 2013 Informal Annual Review: Journalism/magazines: Colors #86 and #87
I'm incredibly proud of the work done by the COLORS team in the last year, from the "Going to Market" issue that launched just as I started, to the recent issues on "Making the News" and "Looking at Art" (with the pages of the fourth pasted up on the wall of the COLORS office as…