Educating the smart city:Schooling smart citizens through computational urbanism

Coupled with the ‘smart city’, the idea of the ‘smart school’ is emerging in imaginings of the future of education. Various commercial, governmental and civil society organizations now envisage education as a highly coded, software-mediated and data-driven social institution. Such spaces are to be governed through computational processes written in computer code and tracked through big data. In an original analysis of developments from commercial, governmental and civil society sectors, the article examines two interrelated dimensions of an emerging smart schools imaginary: (1) the constant flows of digital data that smart schools depend on and the mobilization of analytics that enable student data to be used to anticipate and shape their behaviours; and (2) the ways that young people are educated to become ‘computational operatives’ who must ‘learn to code’ in order to become ‘smart citizens’ in the governance of the smart city. These developments constitute an emerging educational space fabricated from intersecting standards, technologies, discourses and social actors, all infused with the aspirations of technical experts to govern the city at a distance through both monitoring young people as ‘data objects’ and schooling them as active ‘computational citizens’ with the responsibility to compute the future of the city

Hyperspectral enhanced dark field microscopy for imaging blood cells

In this work, a novel methodology based on hyperspectral imagery with enhanced Darkfield microscopy for probing and characterizing changes in blood cell components was tested. Two main categories of blood cells were analyzed, red and white blood cells. Unique spectral signatures of ordinary and most common deformed morphologies of red blood cells were identified. Moreover, examination of white blood cells allowed to characterize and differentiate active from inactive cells. The findings indicate the ability of this technique to detect changes in light scattering property of blood cells due to their morphological properties Since pathological states can alterate the discocyte shape, this preliminary, but promising application of the hyperspectral analysis to blood cells can be useful to evaluate significant correlations of blood cell spectral features in healthy and pathological conditions. The combination of the quali- and quantitative spectral signatures of hyperspectral imaging microscopy with the information of the subject health conditions may provide a new tool for clinical applications. © 2013 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.CSIC (Spain) for JAE-Pre 2011 Grant.Peer Reviewe

Temporariness in architectural regeneration

The previous chapters have considered regeneration as a long term investment in an area through securing the future of buildings and places of architectural and communal significance. This chapter expounds the temporal dimension of regeneration and specifically focuses on short term or time bound interventions, considering their longer term implications for architectural regeneration in the context of the economic and social sustainability of places. Temporary structures have always been a fixture of urban and rural places, allowing spaces to be used for different functions, such as weekly markets or seasonal festivals. In rural areas temporary structures provide accommodation for seasonal agricultural workers, while entire towns are temporarily constructed to house pilgrims (Mehrotra and Vera 2015). In many parts of the world, temporary street vendors contribute to diversification of the retail offer and activate public spaces in the urban realm. There are also a host of other temporary activities that combine the need for an activity or use with a space that is permanently or temporarily redundant and vacant. These types of temporary interventions, some of which are trendily referred to as ‘pop-ups’ are emerging as a recognised component in the process of urban regeneration in the UK and across Europe (Bishop and Williams 2012; St Hill 2015). Pop-up architecture has become a regular thematic focus of design events, including the Venice Architecture Biennale since 2016. The trend is epitomised by images of re-purposed shipping containers, street food outlets and other functions that are prefixed with the word ‘pop-up’ (St Hill 2015). Often initiated by grass roots movements and/or young entrepreneurs, pop-ups generally involve the temporary use of a redundant space for a commercial, semi-commercial or charitable/community function. Temporary interventions come in multitudes of size, shape and duration and can be characterised by their function, type of space they occupy, intended purpose, instigators or duration and longevity. Temporary, locally initiated (and sourced) interventions are often viewed as a commitment to a locality. From an urbanism perspective, they highlight the dynamic nature of the built environment and its accompanying social fabric, where change and innovation are inseparably incorporated into everyday rhythms of daily life. Temporary interventions are being actively encouraged as part of urban regeneration in the spirit of co-creation, a shared activity of place making between planners and users (Fernandez 2015). Nonetheless, temporary activities, especially those with commercial purpose, can spearhead new opportunities but also represent conditions of precarity. While the flexible nature of a temporary venture can support the development of new products and services and test their viability, temporality can also be linked to the hand-to-mouth nature of the less permanent business model. The purpose of this chapter is to examine the characteristics and implications of a growing trend of temporary and short term approaches being adopted in architectural regeneration. In doing so the chapter will explore the condition of temporariness and its implications for the urban environment, evaluate the roles various actors take on in the processes of temporary urbanism, and reflect on the physical, socio-economic, political and cultural implications in the context of architectural regeneration

Architectural regeneration and its theoretical context

Cycles of decline and rejuvenation, and the adaptation and re-use of buildings, have been common constants of the built environment throughout the history of human settlement. The more formalised practices of building conservation and regeneration on the other hand are an outcome of movements that emerged in the nineteenth century, which were informed by theoretical standpoints that were products of the post-Enlightenment positivist, rational and romantic outlooks (Gelernter 1995). Some of these theories and standpoints continue to inform interventions in the built environment, while others have been eclipsed by alternative worldviews and environmental realities. Architectural regeneration as a notion and as a distinct discipline emerges from a number of those concurrent, symbiotic, complementary and sometimes conflicting theories. The purpose of this chapter is to position architectural regeneration into its theoretical context and to demonstrate how it continues to be informed by a range of contemporary philosophies. Worldwide, laws, policy and guidance concerning the protection and conservation of historic buildings have come to be based on a set of principles that have emerged from an international conservation movement that can be traced back to Eurocentric philosophies of the nineteenth century (Jokilehto 1999). The design of the urban realm, buildings and interiors meanwhile are regularly discussed and critiqued in the context of prevalent design theories which in the latter half of the twentieth century were deliberately separated from theories pertaining to the conservation of historic buildings. The processes of adaptive re-use, which architectural regeneration encompasses, can be seen simultaneously as part of the collective theoretical frameworks of conservation and design, and also outside of them. Although ‘architects have led the conservation world in matters of principles and philosophy’ (Muñoz Viñas 2011: 71), they have also been instrumental in de-coupling conservation from design. Architectural regeneration has emerged in this middle ground between conservation and architectural design. At the same time, the broader realm of regeneration is often positioned in the domain of policy, spatial planning and economic development. Growing environmental concerns and climate change awareness are driving innovation in multiple arenas, including urban planning and building design. The current environmental crisis has become one of the key drivers for making better use of existing resources as well as for buildings to adapt to respond to new realities (Leatherbarrow and Wesley 2018). Starting from the latter part of the twentieth century there have been an increasing number of publications on the subject of adaptive re-use. Nonetheless, a shared and accepted vocabulary and definition of what adaptive reuse is, and what it involves, remains ambiguous, with various terminologies and definitions prevailing (Plevoets and Van Cleempoel 2013: 13). The same ambiguity applies to regeneration more generally. One of the earliest books on the subject of re-use is Sherban Cantacuzino’s New Uses for Old Buildings, published in 1975. The content, as that of many others that have been published since, is prescriptive and focuses on potential new uses linked to building typologies. Many of the volumes that have followed have remained technical (Eley and Worthington 1984; Highfield 1987) and heavily depend on case studies that are used to exemplify the processes, practicalities and design potential of re-use (Austin et al. 1988; Larkham 2000; Morrison and Waterson 2019). A new perspective was introduced by Stewart Brand in his book How Buildings Learn, published in 1997, where the value of built-in flexibility is upheld as a characteristic conducive to easy adaptability and a long use-span for buildings. There remains, however, a theoretical vacuum framing the subject, which this chapter intends to redress. The chapter consists of two sections. In the first section we examine the various theories within which architectural regeneration is contextualised, and the second proposes a number of key principles that inform the processes of architectural regeneration