1.2 reading Emily Fox

Using parametric methods to understand place in urban design courses

The importance of gathering and experiencing data “in-situ” rather than analyzing data found and interpreted by someone else is made clear in this reading. The level of engagement with data when collecting it first hand is unmatched compared to receiving data from somewhere else that has been analyzed by someone else. This reading also highlights the tools we are using for this class which is helpful to understand more in-depth how it will be used.

Data dimension: accessing urban data and making it accessible

What is so great about the Trash Track project is the participants’ desire to be involved, “Volunteers were eager to learn about the structure of the waste system and contributed their ideas” (pg. 69). This engagement was initially unexpected but turned out to be even more valuable to the project. I think what is so interesting about this project is that our system is set up in a way that allows us the ignorance of knowing where waste goes, and this is absolutely intentional. However, despite this system in place, people have the desire to bring that ignorance into the light and learn about these parts of our society that were intentionally hidden before. The beauty of this data collection project lies in its interest in what is not considered beautiful by society’s standards.

Food, Time, and Space: Mobile cuisine in New York and Portland

An interesting point about food trucks and carts that was brought up in this reading is the idea of stability and the levels of difficulty in which that can be achieved based on city rules and regulations. For example, Portland is much more welcoming to stationary food carts than New York City, where food trucks are constantly moving around. This difference in cities explains the higher number of stationary food carts in Portland versus the mobile and self-sufficient food trucks in NYC. The ability to stay in one place increases business through regular customers. Although food trucks in NYC are able to advertise their location on social media, the consistent movement of the food trucks to different parts of the city could potentially harm their business as opposed to if the truck was consistently in a single location.

Social “Coding”: Urban Processes and Socio-Computational Workflow Instruction and Objective

This reading discusses there is more data now than ever before. Virtually everything we do as an individual or collective society is tracked in some way and that data can be used to understand the surrounding context. The graphic representation was also discussed and how the data can be represented in a way that is meaningful and successful.