The World Dataviz Challenge 2019 “is a challenge organised by the City Councils of Barcelona and Kobe that aims to encourage citizens to contribute to improving different aspects of the city by analysing and visualising data in formats that may go from infographics and graphics to interactive maps, etc. The challenge will take place at the same time in both cities and final projects will be presented in Barcelona. As in the previous edition, Dataviz can be about any aspect related to the city of Barcelona. However, this year we want to put emphasis on a worldwide issue, cities and the climate emergency, in line with the Climate Plan, which integrates all Barcelona City Council’s work in relation to climate change.”
“Red urbana escolar de refugio climático para Barcelona” (“Urban School Climate Refuge Network for Barcelona”). Proposal for a participative technical project with an online, interactive, open-interface map superimposed with: A. Different city networks (green spaces, water, facilities and sustainable mobility networks). B. Demographic profile to reveal citizens’ needs (population density, child/adult/female populations). C. Environmental indicators (air quality, location of NO2 stations and measuring points.). By mayorga+fontana arquitectos and Jorge Rodríguez Corolari. (City F.O.V. Urban Lab).
3 minutos
“Disaggregating data in this way–examining the city as a set of patterns formed by a series of interrelated sub-systems–can clarify the patterns and may help us to detect new ones. […] We move the process from analysis to synthesis. This is an important step toward design–but only if the variables are selected creatively”.
Denise Scott Brown, 2004. Translating the patterns. “Architecture as Signs and Systems”
One of the winning proposals in Barcelona City Council’s World Dataviz Challenge 2019 1 was an interactive open-data platform denominated the “urban climate refuge network”, which links up schools, education facilities, public space, sustainable mobility and socio-environmental conditions to provide knowledge about the city and promote urban improvement projects2. The model it envisages for the city is that of an urban ecosystem in which the different subsystems are interstructured via a network of schools interconnected with public space. This network would provide a framework for a new environmental balance of material synergies and relationships, and between buildings, streets, trees, water, air conditions, people, activities, means of transport, etc. The intention is to take what already exists as the basis for innovation, to connect the past and the present with a view to the future; to discover and rediscover the present city as a built space, a system of everyday relationships and a set of ongoing trends or projects. Without these premises, it would be very difficult to implement “smart” measures in our cities.
There is always a need to make social and environmental relationships more visible through the acquisition and use of data. Although it should not be forgotten that data collection constitutes a means rather an end, it is nevertheless a vital tool for measuring, verifying and visualising, a tool which makes it possible to rediscover the city and its urban life. It is a means of facilitating better governance, transparency and participation not only at citizen level but also among technical personnel and institutions. The huge availability of data has generated a need for new professional instruments and figures like “data visualizers” and “data scientists” capable of selecting, processing, mapping and making information transferable. But without the broader perspective and the planning and organizational skills of architects and urban planners, it will be very difficult for data handling alone to serve as an efficient tool for defining a “smart” city project.
The “new”, “smart” and “sustainable” cities now being built incorporating a wide range of technological solutions do not always represent clear improvements in design. Masdar in the United Arab Emirates, Songdo in South Korea and Città Foresta in México are really just enlargements of existing cities, the “smartness” of which does not truly assume the complexity of modern life and where, instead, the massive use of sensors and automated mobility or the exaltation of the new “green” paradigm are touted as signs of sustainability. This raises the following question: if human psychology talks about “theories of multiple intelligences” and can identify at least eight of them–intrapersonal, interpersonal, linguistic, musical, spatial, logical-mathematical, corporal-kinaesthetic and naturalist, is it worth extending that multiplicity and complexity of intelligences to the problem of urban development? If the potential and the relationships of differences, conflicts – but also of synergies, can be strengthened, two basic premises begin to become increasingly clear: built space, public space and environmental conditions are indivisible and, more importantly, the city of the future is, above all, the city of the present.
The World Dataviz Challenge 2019 “is a challenge organised by the City Councils of Barcelona and Kobe that aims to encourage citizens to contribute to improving different aspects of the city by analysing and visualising data in formats that may go from infographics and graphics to interactive maps, etc. The challenge will take place at the same time in both cities and final projects will be presented in Barcelona. As in the previous edition, Dataviz can be about any aspect related to the city of Barcelona. However, this year we want to put emphasis on a worldwide issue, cities and the climate emergency, in line with the Climate Plan, which integrates all Barcelona City Council’s work in relation to climate change.”
“Red urbana escolar de refugio climático para Barcelona” (“Urban School Climate Refuge Network for Barcelona”). Proposal for a participative technical project with an online, interactive, open-interface map superimposed with: A. Different city networks (green spaces, water, facilities and sustainable mobility networks). B. Demographic profile to reveal citizens’ needs (population density, child/adult/female populations). C. Environmental indicators (air quality, location of NO2 stations and measuring points.). By mayorga+fontana arquitectos and Jorge Rodríguez Corolari. (City F.O.V. Urban Lab).
