Category: seminar

A sense of new academic term

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New academic term of UCL officially started on 22nd September 2014. Thousands of new students walk around the campus, and they fill Bloomsbury area with vibrant energy. Dr. Adam Dennett begun his GI Systems and Science class for new post-graduate students of CASA with welcoming slide on 1st October. In this year, CASA opened two new post-graduate courses: MSc SmartCities and Urban Analytics and MRes Smart Cities. Therefore, he has developed a lot of the course materials and structure for the students during last summer days.

 

On the same day, when CASA held SHOW AND TELL, which is a traditional CASA event to introduce each other, I apparently realised that the new term is just started! Most members of the lab came up and introduced themselves at this inaugural meeting.  

 

Emer Coleman’s seminar was followed on 7thOctober under the title of “Open Data and the City: Looking back and Looking Forward”. She explained open data as a way of engagement and empowerment and how citizen can be benefited and can participate in making better urban environment. Several good cases, such as Hello Bristol, were mentioned.


After the presentation, many questions were emerging from the audience. Transparency, security, effectiveness and so on. However, I was uncomfortable when she criticised, with some sentences from Adam Greenfield’s “Against the smart city”, big corporations that IBM and Cisco have been pushing smart city idea for money rather than people or better society. I could not catch the difference between the big brands, which get profit by providing new city systems and solutions, and her company, which get profit as well by providing efficient transport solution and application. There might be a matter of size.

These adventures would be enough to feel a sense of the new term. However, UCL email was unusually hacked on 9thOctober. All UCL students got 3000 emails (including me) with bello. It was a big issues not only in the campus but also in the UK as The Independentannounced. Steven Gray, a specialist of large datasets at CASA, analysed what has happened with his Big Data Toolkit and posted it on his blog.
 
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Bristol, CASA, Open Data, seminar, Smart city

A sense of new academic term

Posted on by

 

New academic term of UCL officially started on 22nd September 2014. Thousands of new students walk around the campus, and they fill Bloomsbury area with vibrant energy. Dr. Adam Dennett begun his GI Systems and Science class for new post-graduate students of CASA with welcoming slide on 1st October. In this year, CASA opened two new post-graduate courses: MSc SmartCities and Urban Analytics and MRes Smart Cities. Therefore, he has developed a lot of the course materials and structure for the students during last summer days.

 

On the same day, when CASA held SHOW AND TELL, which is a traditional CASA event to introduce each other, I apparently realised that the new term is just started! Most members of the lab came up and introduced themselves at this inaugural meeting.  

 

Emer Coleman’s seminar was followed on 7thOctober under the title of “Open Data and the City: Looking back and Looking Forward”. She explained open data as a way of engagement and empowerment and how citizen can be benefited and can participate in making better urban environment. Several good cases, such as Hello Bristol, were mentioned.


After the presentation, many questions were emerging from the audience. Transparency, security, effectiveness and so on. However, I was uncomfortable when she criticised, with some sentences from Adam Greenfield’s “Against the smart city”, big corporations that IBM and Cisco have been pushing smart city idea for money rather than people or better society. I could not catch the difference between the big brands, which get profit by providing new city systems and solutions, and her company, which get profit as well by providing efficient transport solution and application. There might be a matter of size.

These adventures would be enough to feel a sense of the new term. However, UCL email was unusually hacked on 9thOctober. All UCL students got 3000 emails (including me) with bello. It was a big issues not only in the campus but also in the UK as The Independentannounced. Steven Gray, a specialist of large datasets at CASA, analysed what has happened with his Big Data Toolkit and posted it on his blog.
 
Continue reading »
Bristol, CASA, Open Data, seminar, Smart city

CASA Seminar: Parameterizing land use planning by Talia Kaufmann

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Image1.Talia Kaufmann gave the presentation at CASA Lunchtime Seminar. The image was taken by Networking City.

 On 10th July 11, 2013, CASA Lunch Seminar was commenced in The Rockefeller Building. Talia Kaufmann, who is a visiting student from MIT Master in City Planning, provided her current research ‘Parameterizing land use planning’. After she finished her bachelor degree in Architecture Tel-Aviv University, Israel and worked as an urban planner for the Tel Aviv-Yafo City Planning Department.

Throughout the presentation, she showed brilliant ideas and cool images. Also, some arguable points were emerging in her presentation, and the considerable discussion between audiences and Talia was continued.

For example, one of her main idea is to randomly capture Google Street View images from several targeting cities and ask people to answer their sense of images. And it becomes the score of each city. The audiences questioned about the precondition of the idea. Can we measure the feeling of the city by just watching some images? Would there be the gap between the feeling of Street View images and the true feeling of cities? Is there any delicate setting for cultural backgrounds and individual subjectivity of participants?

This seminar could be a good opportunity for her to listen others’ comments, articulate the ideas and develop many possibilities of her research.
 

 

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CASA, methodology, seminar, Street View, urban planning

CASA Seminar: Parameterizing land use planning by Talia Kaufmann

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Image1.Talia Kaufmann gave the presentation at CASA Lunchtime Seminar. The image was taken by Networking City.

 On 10th July 11, 2013, CASA Lunch Seminar was commenced in The Rockefeller Building. Talia Kaufmann, who is a visiting student from MIT Master in City Planning, provided her current research ‘Parameterizing land use planning’. After she finished her bachelor degree in Architecture Tel-Aviv University, Israel and worked as an urban planner for the Tel Aviv-Yafo City Planning Department.

Throughout the presentation, she showed brilliant ideas and cool images. Also, some arguable points were emerging in her presentation, and the considerable discussion between audiences and Talia was continued.

For example, one of her main idea is to randomly capture Google Street View images from several targeting cities and ask people to answer their sense of images. And it becomes the score of each city. The audiences questioned about the precondition of the idea. Can we measure the feeling of the city by just watching some images? Would there be the gap between the feeling of Street View images and the true feeling of cities? Is there any delicate setting for cultural backgrounds and individual subjectivity of participants?

This seminar could be a good opportunity for her to listen others’ comments, articulate the ideas and develop many possibilities of her research.
 

 

Continue reading »
CASA, methodology, seminar, Street View, urban planning

BSP Seminar – Compact cities or garden suburbs?

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Dr. Nicolas Falk presented for Bartlett School of Planning. Image is taken by Networking City
In this year, Bartlett School of Planning run BSP seminar series over the semesters. On 6 March 2013, Dr. Nicolas Falk, Director of URBED (Urbanism Environment Design), provided a presentation the title of “Compact cities or garden suburbs?” at Central House of UCL.
Because I was bit late, I could not watch all his presentation. He suggested simple but well-summarised planning keywords and showed relevant examples over the European cities. For example, he argued there are five key elements to reach Smart Growth. The five keys can be represented as 5C: community, connectivity, character, climate and collaboration. And he mentioned the meaning of the community with examples such as  ‘Schools as community hub with Houton, NL’ and ‘Places for all ages with Reiselfeld, Freiburg, Germany’.
Connected city, Five finger strategy and Redefining Greenbelt were mentioned as the future direction for smart growth in the UK as the conclusion of the lecture. In particular, he had expressed the negative feeling against current Greenbelt policy. According to him, the greenbelt of London is little bit old-fashioned and the greenbelt has been a strong obstacle to expand development areas and connecting between London and other cities. Although he said Redefining Greenbelt as one issue of the future direction, all three items should be accompanied with the reorganisation of London’s greenbelt. 
During his lecture, some questions were emerging by myself. Is really Green belt the obstruction of smart growth? Is there smart growth? If possible, how are different process and method needed compared to typical urban development? How can it work in high density?
I think there are two reasons why the questions were come up.
In the first, he emphasised the term of ‘smart’ and ‘smarter’ several times in his lecture. However, the term, smart, has been considering with the development of technology in our built-environment while his suggestions and examples were more familiar with sustainable urban planning and design.
Secondly, the key issues what he argued are too abstract and vague. We know community, connectivity, character, climate and collaboration are crucial factors. People might want to listen from him how we can achieve those factors, what kind of process, the roles of stakeholders and so on.

One of his lecutre slide. Image is taken by Networking City
There are good materials of urban design, field research and regional study on the homepage of URBED. They have run urban design and architectural design studios at University of Sheffield, so we can find the links of interesting students’ works. Also, they published ‘Sustainable Urban Neighbourhood’ in 2010 what includes some contents of today’s lecture.
 
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london, seminar, urban design, urban planning, URBED

BSP Seminar – Compact cities or garden suburbs?

Posted on by

Dr. Nicolas Falk presented for Bartlett School of Planning. Image is taken by Networking City
In this year, Bartlett School of Planning run BSP seminar series over the semesters. On 6 March 2013, Dr. Nicolas Falk, Director of URBED (Urbanism Environment Design), provided a presentation the title of “Compact cities or garden suburbs?” at Central House of UCL.
Because I was bit late, I could not watch all his presentation. He suggested simple but well-summarised planning keywords and showed relevant examples over the European cities. For example, he argued there are five key elements to reach Smart Growth. The five keys can be represented as 5C: community, connectivity, character, climate and collaboration. And he mentioned the meaning of the community with examples such as  ‘Schools as community hub with Houton, NL’ and ‘Places for all ages with Reiselfeld, Freiburg, Germany’.
Connected city, Five finger strategy and Redefining Greenbelt were mentioned as the future direction for smart growth in the UK as the conclusion of the lecture. In particular, he had expressed the negative feeling against current Greenbelt policy. According to him, the greenbelt of London is little bit old-fashioned and the greenbelt has been a strong obstacle to expand development areas and connecting between London and other cities. Although he said Redefining Greenbelt as one issue of the future direction, all three items should be accompanied with the reorganisation of London’s greenbelt. 
During his lecture, some questions were emerging by myself. Is really Green belt the obstruction of smart growth? Is there smart growth? If possible, how are different process and method needed compared to typical urban development? How can it work in high density?
I think there are two reasons why the questions were come up.
In the first, he emphasised the term of ‘smart’ and ‘smarter’ several times in his lecture. However, the term, smart, has been considering with the development of technology in our built-environment while his suggestions and examples were more familiar with sustainable urban planning and design.
Secondly, the key issues what he argued are too abstract and vague. We know community, connectivity, character, climate and collaboration are crucial factors. People might want to listen from him how we can achieve those factors, what kind of process, the roles of stakeholders and so on.

One of his lecutre slide. Image is taken by Networking City
There are good materials of urban design, field research and regional study on the homepage of URBED. They have run urban design and architectural design studios at University of Sheffield, so we can find the links of interesting students’ works. Also, they published ‘Sustainable Urban Neighbourhood’ in 2010 what includes some contents of today’s lecture.
 
Continue reading »
london, seminar, urban design, urban planning, URBED