Uploaded on 2014-11-08 by duncanm12

[1]: https://edxuploads.s3.amazonaws.com/14154415746006454.jpg Future Cities Duncan Abbot Week 2, Exercise 1: Making the Invisible – Visible 1. The attached photo is taken of the popular Shinjuku district in Tokyo. It offers a wealth of information about the city’s structure and inhabitants. This information is: -Each floor on the building on the right (with Don Quijote written on it) has a large banner poster in the window detailing the contents of that floor, advertising to potential customers and letting anyone looking for a business there know where to find it. -On the ground floors of both the Don Quijote building and the building across the street to the left, the shops and restaurants are lit up and covered in large signs and letters to attract customers. These places distinguish themselves as places of entertainment and often-cheap food. The lighting and distinct poster-styling of their outside facades help direct and attract citizens and tourists from many blocks away, who wouldn’t realize the shops’ presence without this type of information. -The building to the left of the Don Quijote building shows itself to be either residential in the floors above ground, or to contain small offices that are not interested in publicizing their presence. This can be garnered by the series of small, dark windows that cover the outside of the structure. -The large advertisements on the sides and tops of the buildings to the left of the aforementioned one provide information about products to consumers on the street as well as in nearby high-rises. -The arrows on the street provide information as to which direction the cars should drive in. The divider in the middle of the road makes it clear that cars cannot make U-turns or pass by moving to the opposite side of the road. -Though it’s hard to see, in the lower right of the picture, right in front of the Don Quijote building, there are bicycles parked along the fence. This continues the entire block. -The leaves on the tree in the right of the picture make it clear that it is not winter yet, or that we are in a southern-enough country that trees don’t lose their leaves (which we are not). 2. Some of this information contains invisible information, which can be extracted out of it. Two examples of this are: -Bicyclists tend to park their bikes along the road against fences in this area, although there is often nota bicycle parking zone present. Some parking zones are along fences however, and people park bikes nearby these places when the zones are full. This reveals the information that bicyclists tend to park their bikes near places where other people park bikes, and the fact that there are bicycle zones seems to have been lost. -The popular shops that are lit up and have large signs above them are located on the corners of the street. This reveals the information that popular shops are often placed on the corners rather than along the street sides. Combined with the knowledge that the large neon signs above these shops are used to attract people from far away, it can be inferred that these shops are positioned in the corners to be seen from as many directions as possible. 3. Some of this invisible information can be used to generate knowledge, which can improve the quality of life, sustainability, and efficiency of an urban environment. Out of the information about the bicycles we can extract useful knowledge about the bicycle parking habits of Japanese citizens. Because bikes are parked alongside other bikes on the fences and not in the parking zones, a few important facts are revealed. Firstly, that there is not enough designated parking space for bicycles in popular districts, and secondly, that bicyclists park their bicycles near other bicycles, not in relation to the bicycle parking zones. This leads to the knowledge that there should be a better way to make bicyclists park their bikes near and in the designated areas, and that these areas should be expanded or made more numerous.