Code/Space. Software and everyday life
My review
Decoding how cities work: street level observations
Anyhow, most of them are clearly an invitation to broaden some predominant views on cities and avoid the Sisyphus condemnation of expecting a predictability level that will never happen. Great tools are emerging to ease understanding what happens in a city and can be used for any purpose, from energy demand patterns to traffic flows, from understanding the pulse and sentiment of citizens to personalizing public services delivery. But there is still a wide range of not digitalized information that is of crucial value and is part of a hidden code, the intelligence on the streets.
The intelligence of a city is on the streets
But it is not enough to add certain additional technologies or redress existing products with a more sophisticated covering. If we really want to contribute to a better urban development, it will be necessary to design these products taking labs to the streets and meet the people that are expected to interact with them. There we will find non-technological design variables that will be decisive in ensuring the products are useful.
Daily scenes in an intelligent city
Every day, in every street, thousands of voluntary and involuntary acts facilitate (or hinder) life. The attitude of care and the awareness of sharing a common space are, in all cases, the most relevant aspects of these stories. I do not know if they are intelligent behaviors, but they are relevant. Including these key ideas in the design of technological solutions for urban functions is essential so that these solutions are user-oriented, are proportionate to the actual scope and reach that technological solutions can offer, are understandable and have a useful urban function. Including these types of features in technological projects implemented in cities would help to better understand how cities function, how citizens behave and how to integrate unpredictability as an essence of urban life.
