Big data technologies and ubiquitous connectivity have revealed new potential operations for design practice. Beyond new tools and platforms that engage crowd-sourced and real-time data, big data technologies open up new ways of approaching design, new methods of practice, and new engagements with cities and publics. At the same time, the global population is urbanizing, and the Global South is ‘coming online’ with increasing access to cheap connective technologies. It is projected that one billion new users will come online in the Global South in 2015, radically changing the makeup of the digital publics and offering new opportunities for participatory civic structures.
This workshop will examine some of the prototypes for integrating big data into design practice, emphasizing participatory, responsive, iterative, and collective design strategies within a changing global environment.
Sara Dean is a lecturer in architecture at the UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design and the design director of anexact office in San Francisco, California.
Tomas Holderness is the Geomatics Research Fellow at the SMART Infrastructure Facility, Faculty of Engineering and Information Science, University of Wollongong.
Etienne Turpin is principal director of anexact office and Vice-Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the SMART Infrastructure Facility, Faculty of Engineering and Information Science, University of Wollongong.
Together, Sara, Tomas and Etienne coordinate PetaJakarta.org, a web-based public platform which uses a geo-social intelligence approach to big data in order to study and promote urban resilience.
Curated by Prof. Alessandra Renzi, produced by the Northeastern Center for the Arts
