Introduction: why a “sandbox”?
Welcome to the Spring 2020 instantiation of Urban Informatics II. Or PLA6102, if you want to be exact. Nominally, it is a course taught by Anthony Vanky in the Urban Planning program at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP).
But why “sandbox”?
A “sandbox” is a common feature in many playgrounds that facilitates unstructured play, imaginative construction, and tactile exploration. In innovation parlance, “sandbox” often refers to an environment where new codes, tools, and technologies can safely be tested.
This class, nicknamed “Sandbox” for short, engages both definitions as a means of engaging communities in the creation, regulation, use, and valorization of the increasing volume sensor-generated data in urban space… And we do it through various forms of unstructured play as a means of engaging and informing citizen as empowered agents in this paradigm.
In recent years, interest in “public life” — people’s daily interactions within the built environment (Gehl 2011) — has been renewed as urban spaces are being transformed into areas for recreation, socializing and human activity. However, many of the commonly-accepted theories in environmental psychology and planning were generated from limited observations — limited by time and space. This course asks in what ways can sensing technologies validate or challenge these theories of public space and social interaction, and how do we intersect them with aspects of environmental quality and justice, sustainability, equity and overall general well-being?
In this semester, in addition to addressing critical questions of environmental equity and the use of public space, we critically engage in questions of “play” as a mechanism to consider questions of human-computer-urban interfaces and interaction with the public.
Participants in this hands-on workshop will design and implement prototypes for the creating of data on human activity, and environmental conditions and quality. Students will also learn methodologies to analyze and present the data. We will use the university context as a living laboratory to test and reevaluate the commonly-accepted theories of public life while engaging in critical conversations that balance the positive aspects of better-informed design and policy with the challenges concerning data ethics, surveillance, and privacy.
