Expanding Eco-Visualization: Sculpting Corn Production

This dissertation expands upon the definition of eco-visualization artwork. EV was originally defined in 2006 by Tiffany Holmes as a way to display the real time consumption statistics of key environmental resources for the goal of promoting ecological literacy. I assert that the final forms of EV artworks are not necessarily dependent on technology, and can differ in terms of media used, in that they can be sculptural, video-based, or static two-dimensional forms that communicate interpreted environmental information. There are two main categories of EV: one that is predominantly screen-based and another that employs a variety of modes of representation to visualize environmental information. EVs are political acts, situated in a charged climate of rising awareness, operating within the context of environmentalism and sustainability. I discuss a variety of EV works within the frame of ecopsychology, including EcoArtTech’s Eclipse and Keith Deverell’s Building Run; Andrea Polli’s Cloud Car and Particle Falls; Nathalie Miebach’s series, The Sandy Rides; and Natalie Jeremijenko’s Mussel Choir. The range of EV works provided models for my creative project, Sculpting Corn Production, and a foundation from which I developed a creative methodology. Working to defeat my experience of solastalgia, Sculpting Corn Production is a series of discrete paper sculptures focusing on American industrial corn farming. This EV also functions as a way for me to understand our devastated monoculture landscapes and the politics, economics, and related areas of ecology of our food production

The making of smart cities : borders, security and value in New Town Kolkata and Cape Town

The making of smart cities transforms not only infrastructures and practices but also the techniques of urban government and security, and economic processes. This thesis draws on analysis conducted in two research sites: Cape Town, in South Africa and New Town Rajarhat, a satellite township on the outskirts of Kolkata, to present three key arguments. Firstly, and as opposed to mainstream narratives that describe smart cities as seamlessly connected environments, this thesis suggests that urban digitalisation is linked to bordering processes. Whereas critical literature has comprehensively discussed the political implications and risks associated with smart city projects, such as corporatisation and technocratic governance, the specific relations between digital infrastructures and borders, within the urban space, have not yet been discussed. Secondly, this thesis argues that smart cities are inherently security projects, insofar as the deployment of a computing infrastructure of sensing initiates a preemptive apparatus. In security systems, such as the Emergency Policing and Incident Command (EPIC) program in Cape Town, or the Xpresso software for social media monitoring in New Town, algorithms are continuously modelling and acting upon future scenarios; from traffic jams to wildfires, from crime hotspots to citizens’ moods. My third argument is that the computing apparatus of security also serves as an infrastructure of value extraction. Recently, there has been much theorising and debate about security platforms’ economic operations, but the situated modalities in which they extract value from the urban environment remain to be examined. Overall, this thesis points to the socio-spatial, governmental and economic relations that computing infrastructures are generating, or reconfiguring, in the urban environment. These relations articulate distinct processes, including the hierarchisation and control of the urban space, preemptive policies and extractive strategies. Critically analysing these processes allows the registration of the political implications of smart city projects

METROPOLITAN ENCHANTMENT AND DISENCHANTMENT. METROPOLITAN ANTHROPOLOGY FOR THE CONTEMPORARY LIVING MAP CONSTRUCTION

We can no longer interpret the contemporary metropolis as we did in the last century. The thought of civil economy regarding the contemporary Metropolis conflicts more or less radically with the merely acquisitive dimension of the behaviour of its citizens. What is needed is therefore a new capacity for imagining the economic-productive future of the city: hybrid social enterprises, economically sustainable, structured and capable of using technologies, could be a solution for producing value and distributing it fairly and inclusively. Metropolitan Urbanity is another issue to establish. Metropolis needs new spaces where inclusion can occur, and where a repository of the imagery can be recreated. What is the ontology behind the technique of metropolitan planning and management, its vision and its symbols? Competitiveness, speed, and meritocracy are political words, not technical ones. Metropolitan Urbanity is the characteristic of a polis that expresses itself in its public places. Today, however, public places are private ones that are destined for public use. The Common Good has always had a space of representation in the city, which was the public space. Today, the Green-Grey Infrastructure is the metropolitan city's monument that communicates a value for future generations and must therefore be recognised and imagined; it is the production of the metropolitan symbolic imagery, the new magic of the city

Modelos digitales de información-sig y grafos- aplicados en el patrimonio: la fábrica edilicia en el antiguo reino de Sevilla en el tránsito a la edad moderna.

La presente tesis doctoral aborda la aplicación de dos Modelos Digitales de Información, mediante las tecnologías deSIG y Grafos, en el ámbito patrimonial, y lo hace desde un proceso científico y transversal que incorpora la complejidad de integrar distintos datos patrimoniales contemplando su escala territorial. En este sentido, tiene especial importancia debido a los siguientes factores: la creación de una base de datos susceptible de futura ampliación, uso y análisis; su incidencia sobre el abordaje del patrimonio a distintas escalas; su propuesta para la protección, conservación e interrelación de la información patrimonial y el desarrollo y puesta en marcha de una metodología que permite nuevos conocimientos y sinergias interdisciplinares bien como su reutilización en otros contextos patrimoniales. El trabajo contempla un dilatado repaso de las tecnologías de la información en él aplicadas y de iniciativas, anteriores y en curso, relativas a la aplicación de estas en la esfera patrimonial e histórica. Asimismo, establece una experiencia piloto, la cual tiene como objeto de estudio de la producción de la arquitectura del antiguo Reino de Sevilla durante el tránsito de la Edad Moderna que contempla las redes espacio-temporales generadas por las principales fábricas edilicias, con especial protagonismo de los profesionales y artistas implicados, considerando el contexto socio-económico, político, científico-técnico y cultural. Con ello se pretende comprender esta organización espacial, entendida como un sistema dinámico y no lineal. Y para finalizar, se presentan una serie de conclusiones y futuras líneas de investigación y proyectos, algunos que ya están en proceso de desarrollo y otros, de ideación.Premio Extraordinario de Doctorado U

ICS Materials. Towards a re-Interpretation of material qualities through interactive, connected, and smart materials.

The domain of materials for design is changing under the influence of an increased technological advancement, miniaturization and democratization. Materials are becoming connected, augmented, computational, interactive, active, responsive, and dynamic. These are ICS Materials, an acronym that stands for Interactive, Connected and Smart. While labs around the world are experimenting with these new materials, there is the need to reflect on their potentials and impact on design. This paper is a first step in this direction: to interpret and describe the qualities of ICS materials, considering their experiential pattern, their expressive sensorial dimension, and their aesthetic of interaction. Through case studies, we analyse and classify these emerging ICS Materials and identified common characteristics, and challenges, e.g. the ability to change over time or their programmability by the designers and users. On that basis, we argue there is the need to reframe and redesign existing models to describe ICS materials, making their qualities emerge

Responsive Architecture

This book is a collection of articles that have been published in the Special Issue “Responsive Architecture” of the MDPI journal Buildings. The eleven articles within cover various areas of sensitive architecture, including the design of packaging structures reacting to supporting components; structural efficiency of bent columns in indigenous houses; roof forms responsive to buildings depending on their resiliently transformed steel shell parts; creative design of building free shapes covered with transformed shells; artistic structural concepts of the architect and civil engineer; digitally designed airport terminal using wind analysis; rationalized shaping of sensitive curvilinear steel construction; interactive stories of responsive architecture; transformed shell roof constructions as the main determinant in the creative shaping of buildings without shapes that are sensitive to man-made and natural environments; thermally sensitive performances of a special shielding envelope on balconies; quantification of generality and adaptability of building layout using the SAGA method; and influence of initial conditions on the simulation of the transient temperature field inside a wall