Month: November 2006

Walking in the City

London is one of the most beautiful walking cities in the world, but it’s often hard to navigate above ground. Many people use the tube map to find their way walking the streets, even though it distorts our perception of distance and direction. As a result, people often use other transport modes even for short distances, when walking would be quicker and more pleasant: 1 in 20 people exiting Leicester Square tube station were found to have travelled a distance of less than 800m.To combat this over-use of motorized transport, and to get people out there using their feet, the exhibition proposes that London unite its myriad of bewildering street signs both typographically and formally: the same height, dimensions, fonts, terminology, etc. This will make it harder to lose oneself – and, in theory, it will also encourage people to go for a stroll around “one of the most beautiful walking cities in the world,” without relying on mechanized transport.

london’s inscrutable street signs are both a menace and a joy for losing yourself exploring. i’m sure analogies to info architecture could be found 🙂

3D Buenos Aires

i wonder if there is a rights framework in place to make some of these layers default layers?

This is the entire Federal district of Buenos Aires with complete highway system, the main roads and all of the remaining roads in the city. This file includes a large 3d portion of the downtown area and main buildings in Buenos Aires. It also includes the entire subway system of Buenos Aires. This file has a lot of 3d buildings with rich characteristics created with google earth polygons and also has some of the buildings and structures that are currently in construction in the downtown area.

Buenos Aires Street Art

I’ve been hopelessly obsessed with the street art in Buenos Aires ever since I arrived. I’ve been completely overwhelmed by the number and quality of the street stencils, wheatpastings, and graffiti around the city. They are often political in nature (see my previous post here), but not always. Some reference special aspects of Buenos Aires’ culture, such as the tango musician pictured above. Many reference pop culture icons (such as Jimi Hendrix, pictured below), while others are non-sensical, abstract, and whimsical. The function of these images is not necessarily to challenge the viewer’s sensibilities on politics, but rather to make them rethink the space they inhabitat. These images ask, ‘what is the function of the street in your city?’

the birth of a locative community?

IT Consumerization

“consumerization” was obvious years ago when you would use your private IT resources to get shit done because the lumbering IT department could not.

Few people would disagree that traditional enterprise IT is complicated. And expensive. And unnecessarily complex. Sure, it tries to solve complex problems. But is that always the most effective thing to do? Maybe it would be more rational to first solve the simpler problems in a more cost-effective and user-friendly way. Of course, IT professionals are perfectionists. But they tend to optimize the wrong dimensions. Consumers behave differently, because they are willing to forgo functional perfection in exchange for simplicity and cost-effectiveness.