This week in the UK, the government has advised citizens to delete cloud-based data so as to save water. Meanwhile, there are stories that more huge data centres need to be built to support AI development. The citizens are being irresponsible. The corporations are being reasonable This is clearly an inverted narrative. It is a […]

I was reading this Wired article The Real Demon inside ChatGPT last week. There is an AI hype building towards that interstitial design sense of Placemaking by being in architectural control of buildings but not the streets, or sidewalk building in the paving slabs but not the cracks in between. That all the value is […]

I spoke at #CampDigital about how statistics and other research tools had a number of biases towards the wants and needs of Normal (mostly white men) people. I am reading Mapmatics by Paulina Rowińska now. It’s a book on the meaning and making of maps. I have had it for a while but Per Axbom’s […]

Floating bus stops cause a lot of argument. They are a design where the bike lane alongside a main arterial road passes behind a bus stop so bicyclists do not get stopped or wedged in by a bus stopping to pick up passengers. The bus stop ‘floats’ between two streams of traffic. Pedestrians need to […]

Just doing some work on new project and looking at some explanatory diagrams. The problem is the standard kind of diagram with boxes and arrows are not working. I have drawn multiple looped and linked diagrams but they fail to communicate something. With both sensory and systemic work, there is a problem of diagrams both […]

Car-centrism is so embedded that the question ‘Why do other public space users, like pedestrians and cyclists, need to press a button to gain permission to enter those spaces?’ is not really asked. Roads are defined as being for cars and their needs are prioritised above other users. The infrastructure automates their needs and imposes […]

I was helping facilitate an academic workshop with Abhay Adihikari and Inez Boogaarts on codesign on Friday and the issue of what do people do with the institution’s research came up. When a project finishes, when the report is published or the dataset filed; is that the end? Do things just stop? Where you stop, […]

There’s a terrible argument in design about desire paths. Generally it becomes apparent when someone posts a picture of a park with paved paths and a muddy line of a path cutting across the lawns. This is the desire path. The route ‘the people’ choose. It’s all tiresome BS. Desire paths are bad. They contain […]

I’m working thru some paper prototypes for a mini ‘How to use #Codesign workshop’ next week. This is for academics and professionals who are unsure of how to take their existing practices and research methodologies and use them with a community rather than on a community. What is key is to explain the Gap. Codesign […]

I started listening to Rutger Bregman’s new book Moral Ambition today. It’s a self-improvement book for people who want to make meaningful change (and with harsh warnings that it is useless for people who care only for their ego, money and personal happiness). Just one point from the opening chapters, there is a discussion of […]