Brokering between heads and hearts: an analysis of designing for social change

This paper describes a fluid and responsive design process identified among certain practitioners involved in solving social problems or inspiring social change. Their practice is both user-centred and participative in its approach and addresses the shortcomings of many top-down initiatives. These people work tactically to weave together policy knowledge, funding opportunities, local initiative and ideas for improving social and environmental conditions, acting as connectors, activists and facilitators in different contexts at different times. Although their activities are recognisably related to more conventional designing practices, the materials they use in finding solutions are unusual in that they may include the beneficiaries themselves and other features of the social structure in which they are effecting change. We present an ethnographic study of practices in designing that focuses on social initiatives rather than the tangible products or systems that might support them. We explore the how design practices map to the process of winning local people's commitment to projects with a social flavour. To situate the discussion in a political context we draw on de Certeau’s distinction between strategic and tactical behaviour and look at how our informants occupy a space as mediators between groups with power and a sense of agency and those without. Keywords: Social Change; Ethnographic Action Research; Discourse Analysis; Designing In The Wild</p

Does land use and landscape contribute to self-harm? A sustainability cities framework

Self-harm has become one of the leading causes of mortality in developed countries. The overall rate for suicide in Canada is 11.3 per 100,000 according to Statistics Canada in 2015. Between 2000 and 2007 the lowest rates of suicide in Canada were in Ontario, one of the most urbanized regions in Canada. However, the interaction between land use, landscape and self-harm has not been significantly studied for urban cores. It is thus of relevance to understand the impacts of land-use and landscape on suicidal behavior. This paper takes a spatial analytical approach to assess the occurrence of self-harm along one of the densest urban cores in the country: Toronto. Individual self-harm data was gathered by the National Ambulatory Care System (NACRS) and geocoded into census tract divisions. Toronto’s urban landscape is quantified at spatial level through the calculation of its land use at di erent levels: (i) land use type, (ii) sprawl metrics relating to (a) dispersion and (b) sprawl/mix incidence; (iii) fragmentation metrics of (a) urban fragmentation and (b) density and (iv) demographics of (a) income and (b) age. A stepwise regression is built to understand the most influential factors leading to self-harm from this selection generating an explanatory model.This research was supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Strategic Team Grant in Applied Injury Research # TIR-103946 and the Ontario Neurotrauma Foundation grantinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Inner-suburban neighbourhoods, activist research and the social space of the commercial street

This paper tracks the transition of “creative city” planning from the gentrified downtown to the disinvested inner-suburbs. It attends particularly to contradictory notions of community mobilized by proponents of inner-suburban revitalization and by residents and business owners who daily inhabit inner-suburban commercial streets where cultural planning interventions are typically targeted. It further argues that those contradictory notions indicate immanent displacement pressure. The argument builds around data gleaned from an action research project in Toronto’s Mount Dennis neighbourhood, a former manufacturing neighbourhood that is now home to a large number of precariously employed new immigrants. We contend that community engaged research not only allows for an analysis of the race and class dimensions of creative city planning, it consolidates marginalized perspectives and opens up alternative possibilities for planning and development. We also claim that the relational, exploratory and sometimes fraught process of sharing knowledge with community-based researchers enriches critical research on the exclusionary politics of redevelopment planning

Investigating use of space of pedestrians

Understanding use of space of pedestrian is important to plan/design street environments or large public transport facilities. The purpose of a series of our research is to investigate use of space of various pedestrians in a variety of environmental situations. The research is a part of PAMELA project designed to test existing and proposed pedestrian environments and street facilities (i.e. a bus stop) under controlled conditions. This paper is aimed at setting out the background of the research, and presenting a basic frame work for subsequent research. Strength of our approach is the microscopic heterogeneous approach, where each walking person is regarded different from others. Relations among characteristics of pedestrians, characteristics of facilities/ environments, and resulting actions of pedestrians are carefully examined. Conclusion suggests directions of further research

Bounded Rationality and Heuristics in Humans and in Artificial Cognitive Systems

In this paper I will present an analysis of the impact that the notion of “bounded rationality”, introduced by Herbert Simon in his book “Administrative Behavior”, produced in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI). In particular, by focusing on the field of Automated Decision Making (ADM), I will show how the introduction of the cognitive dimension into the study of choice of a rational (natural) agent, indirectly determined - in the AI field - the development of a line of research aiming at the realisation of artificial systems whose decisions are based on the adoption of powerful shortcut strategies (known as heuristics) based on “satisficing” - i.e. non optimal - solutions to problem solving. I will show how the “heuristic approach” to problem solving allowed, in AI, to face problems of combinatorial complexity in real-life situations and still represents an important strategy for the design and implementation of intelligent systems

Complexity models in design

Complexity is a widely used term; it has many formal and informal meanings. Several formal models of complexity can be applied to designs and design processes. The aim of the paper is to examine the relation between complexity and design. This argument runs in two ways. First designing provides insights into how to respond to complex systems – how to manage, plan and control them. Second, the overwhelming complexity of many design projects lead us to examine how better understanding of complexity science can lead to improved designs and processes. This is the focus of this paper. We start with an outline of some observations on where complexity arises in design, followed by a brief discussion of the development of scientific and formal conceptions of complexity. We indicate how these can help in understanding design processes and improving designs

How can we deal with the contemporary places and spaces of new industries? A planner’s perspective.

This paper is concerned with developing a better understanding of the dynamics that affect the relationship between industries and their geographical and spatial context at different scale in the XXI century. It shows the peculiar point of view of a planner with a focus on space and place in building the new post-crisis economic landscape.The paper states that the changing patterns of places and space of industries are a good perspective to observe – and also to criticize – the dominant narratives “at workâ€: global city-regions (Sassen 1991), space of flows (Castells 1996), creative cities (Florida 2002; Landry 2000, Evans 2009, Scott 2010), and creative industries and clusters (Comunian et al., 2010).Starting from etherogeneous italian case studies – a post industrial district, a creative cluster, an urban fashion district, etc. – it seeks to understand also and the ways in which the territories of industries and economic production are studied and represented in urban research, and to some extent in popular discourse. Castells M. (1996), The information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, Blackwell, Oxford. Comunian R., Chapain C., Clifton N. (2010), “Location, location, location: exploring the complex relationship between creative industries and placeâ€, Creative Industries Journal, 1. Evans G. (2009), “Creative Cities, Creative Spaces and Urban Policyâ€, Urban Studies, May. Florida R. (2002), The Rise of Creative Class, New York, Basic Books. Landry C. (2000), The Creative City, Earthscan. Roy A. (2009) “The 21st-Century Metropolis: New Geographies of Theoryâ€, Regional Studies 43.9. Sassen S. (1991), The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo, Princeton U. P. Scott A. J. (2010), “Cultural economy and the creative field of the cityâ€, Geografiska Annaler 2, Series B.

Contesting Genetic Knowledge-Practices in Livestock Breeding: Biopower, Biosocial Collectivities, and Heterogeneous Resistances

Cattle and sheep breeders in the UK and elsewhere increasingly draw on genetic techniques in order to make breeding decisions. Many breeders support such techniques, while others argue against them for a variety of reasons, including their preference for the ‘traditions' of visual-based and pedigree-based selections. Meanwhile, even for those institutions and breeders who promote genetic techniques, the outcomes are not always as predicted. We build on our recent use of Foucault's discussions of biopower to examine the effects of the introduction of genetic techniques in UK livestock breeding in order to begin to explore the diffuse and capillary nature of resistance within relations of biopower. We focus specifically on how resistance and contestation can be understood through the joint lenses of biopower and an understanding of livestock breeding as knowledge-practices enacted within heterogeneous biosocial collectivities. In some instances these collectivities coalesce around shared endeavour, such as increasing the valency of genetic evaluation within livestock breeding. Yet such mixed collectivities also open up opportunities for counter-conduct: heterogeneous resistances to and contestations of genetic evaluation as something represented as progressive and inevitable. We focus on exploring such modes of resistance using detailed empirical research with livestock breeders and breeding institutions. We demonstrate how in different and specific ways geneticisation becomes problematised, and is contested and made more complex, through the knowledge-practices of breeders, the bodies of animals, and the complex relationships between different institutions in livestock breeding and rearing