The way it works is very simple. They asked people to get outside and take photos of vacant and/or underutilized properties in their town or city and post them to Twitter or Instagram using the hashtag #BuildHereNow. The goal was to start to identify properties that could “use a little love" and to encourage city builders who might need a little push to develop a particular property.
I’m a big fan of crowdsourcing information and I love the idea of digitally annotating buildings and spaces. In this case, it’s about pulling together the desires of the community,
Hashtags are a great way to quickly make something like this happen, but I would love to see a purpose-built tech platform do this in a more permanent way. Of course, it doesn’t just have to be about developing. Buildings are rich in information; hopefully so rich that a platform like this could survive.
If you think about it, property titles are already a form of annotating real property. So this isn’t really a new idea.
But now technology allows us to harvest all kinds of other information – such as what people would like to see built. Imagine the possibilities if we became more effective at collecting, organizing, and leveraging this data at scale.
It’s becoming harder and harder to think of tech as a distinct silo. Tech is embedding itself into so many traditional industries that, one day, every company will probably be a software/technology company in some regards.
It’s for this reason that I often think and write about tech and its impacts on the built environment.
An interesting example of this phenomenon is a recent art installation by fuse* called AMYGDALA. What it does is translate collective social media sentiment (specifically from Twitter) into an audiovisual art installation housed within an urban space.
“The news and thoughts of users spread across social networks in real time. And so an event with worldwide implications immediately involves millions of people sharing their own opinions and emotions: happiness, anger, sadness, disgust, amazement or fear. Thus, imagining Internet as a living organism, we might think that its emotional state may be given by the overall emotions shared by users at any given time. AMYGDALA listens to shared thoughts, interprets states of mind and translates the data gathered into an audiovisual installation capable of representing the collective emotional state of the net and its changes on the basis of events that take place around the world.”
As you might guess, this includes adding phone chargers in train cars and buses and wifi throughout all the stations (by the end 2016). They will also be replacing the MetroCard with an all digital fare system that will include mobile payments.
But the reality is that this isn’t about being millennial-friendly. This is about joining the 21st century.
The way it works is very simple. They asked people to get outside and take photos of vacant and/or underutilized properties in their town or city and post them to Twitter or Instagram using the hashtag #BuildHereNow. The goal was to start to identify properties that could “use a little love" and to encourage city builders who might need a little push to develop a particular property.
I’m a big fan of crowdsourcing information and I love the idea of digitally annotating buildings and spaces. In this case, it’s about pulling together the desires of the community,
Hashtags are a great way to quickly make something like this happen, but I would love to see a purpose-built tech platform do this in a more permanent way. Of course, it doesn’t just have to be about developing. Buildings are rich in information; hopefully so rich that a platform like this could survive.
If you think about it, property titles are already a form of annotating real property. So this isn’t really a new idea.
But now technology allows us to harvest all kinds of other information – such as what people would like to see built. Imagine the possibilities if we became more effective at collecting, organizing, and leveraging this data at scale.
It’s becoming harder and harder to think of tech as a distinct silo. Tech is embedding itself into so many traditional industries that, one day, every company will probably be a software/technology company in some regards.
It’s for this reason that I often think and write about tech and its impacts on the built environment.
An interesting example of this phenomenon is a recent art installation by fuse* called AMYGDALA. What it does is translate collective social media sentiment (specifically from Twitter) into an audiovisual art installation housed within an urban space.
“The news and thoughts of users spread across social networks in real time. And so an event with worldwide implications immediately involves millions of people sharing their own opinions and emotions: happiness, anger, sadness, disgust, amazement or fear. Thus, imagining Internet as a living organism, we might think that its emotional state may be given by the overall emotions shared by users at any given time. AMYGDALA listens to shared thoughts, interprets states of mind and translates the data gathered into an audiovisual installation capable of representing the collective emotional state of the net and its changes on the basis of events that take place around the world.”
As you might guess, this includes adding phone chargers in train cars and buses and wifi throughout all the stations (by the end 2016). They will also be replacing the MetroCard with an all digital fare system that will include mobile payments.
But the reality is that this isn’t about being millennial-friendly. This is about joining the 21st century.
Here in Toronto, we finally have our
Brandon Donnelly
Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly.
And here’s a video of it in action (click here if you can’t see it below):
[vimeo 154049756 w=500 h=281]
What I like about the project is how it takes something digital and ephemeral and then both aggregates and translates it into something physical within the urban environment. It’s a perfect visual representation of how technology and networks are – for better or for worse – seeping into our daily lives.
PRESTO card
working on all streetcars and in almost 40% of the city’s subway stations. This is a huge improvement over our laughable and antiquated token system, but it’s not enough. I really hope the next rollout is a mobile app that will allow everyone to pay with just their phone.
We also have wifi in about 30% of our subway stations, but again this is not enough. By the time you get authenticated (do you need to have Twitter now?), your train is usually arriving and then you enter a tunnel where no wifi exists. We need to be looking at the entire tunnel network. (Related topic: LinkNYC)
I say all this because I am a big supporter of public transit. Despite all the positive things I write about Uber, ridesharing, and driverless cars, I do not believe that they will eradicate the need for a strong transit backbone. This is fundamental to our city building efforts.
So let’s do our best to delight people when they take transit.
And here’s a video of it in action (click here if you can’t see it below):
[vimeo 154049756 w=500 h=281]
What I like about the project is how it takes something digital and ephemeral and then both aggregates and translates it into something physical within the urban environment. It’s a perfect visual representation of how technology and networks are – for better or for worse – seeping into our daily lives.
PRESTO card
working on all streetcars and in almost 40% of the city’s subway stations. This is a huge improvement over our laughable and antiquated token system, but it’s not enough. I really hope the next rollout is a mobile app that will allow everyone to pay with just their phone.
We also have wifi in about 30% of our subway stations, but again this is not enough. By the time you get authenticated (do you need to have Twitter now?), your train is usually arriving and then you enter a tunnel where no wifi exists. We need to be looking at the entire tunnel network. (Related topic: LinkNYC)
I say all this because I am a big supporter of public transit. Despite all the positive things I write about Uber, ridesharing, and driverless cars, I do not believe that they will eradicate the need for a strong transit backbone. This is fundamental to our city building efforts.
So let’s do our best to delight people when they take transit.
