Mapping tool progress

Our collaboration with Mapcentia is showing results. Take a look on a live map of tweets from Manhatten NYC here. And a map (above) showing the results from the recent local elections in Denmark with twitter feed here.

We are currently having some problems with the maps – we are working on some new and even better maps. In the meantime you can have a look here. It is a map that students of Landscape and Urban design did as their first analysis of Hedehusene.

The links show how the very basic part of the mapping tool “harvest” geotagged tweets and show their #hashtags in different sizes according to how often the same #hashtag occurs.

The link that shows the live situation on Manhattan is “crowdsourced”. The CiTyBee mapping tool is more thought to be “curated” where it shows the stories that have been collected “on the ground” (the 1 : 1 mapping) Based on the “curated” map the crowdsoured map can take off and create an urban dialogue.

See more on our thoughts about mapping here.

City Agency

We are working on setting up a City Agency in Hedehusene collaborating with universities in Copenhagen and engaging local citizens, municipalities, developers, media and businesses. The aim of such an agency is to strengthen the local community using methods that are locally relevant and especially trying to engage those citizens that feel alienated by the traditional consultation processes or local democracy in general.

We are looking into new ways researchers and students get down on to the streets and engage with local people. We are developing the City Agency bringing a mix of qualitative, quantitative and spatial methods into local communities involving both students, researchers, local stakeholders and local media. We want educational institutions to play a role in promoting local stewardship in a way where both the local community and students and researchers benefit.

A City Agency would be part of a emerging network of City Agencies that are mainly based in Architecture Schools in Europe – so far in Sheffield, Copenhagen, Hamburg, Berlin, Stockholm

CiTyBee online mapping tool

CiTyBee has started to make an old dream real. In collaboration with MapCentia.com we are now developing an online mapping tool that boosts the efforts to tell stories “in and about the city”. Have a sneak view on a first trial version that is using the stories told on walks and public meetings in Hedehusene 2012 here. Stay tuned for further developments

Akcije Stari Plac – Zagreb

CiTyBee has started to collaborate with Marko Sancanin from Platforma 9.81 in Zagreb on a process where a team of sociologists, anthroplogist and landscape designers are working with architects to involve the Dubrava neighbourhood around an old marketplace in the eastern part of the city in creating a new urban space.

The Marketplace is deserted and looks a bit sad, yet it is surrounded by a soup kitchen, a professional boxing club, a local theatre and off course a café. See photos from the Neighbourhood here

The neighbourhood is a classic Zagreb half wild development with mainly selfbuild houses. It fits the porosity of Neaples that Benjamin and Asja Lacis wrote about in 1925:

In such corners, one can scarcely discern where building is still in progress
and where dilapidation has already set in. For nothing is concluded. Porosity
results not only from the indolence of the southern artisan, but also, above
all, from the passion for improvisation, which demands that space and
opportunity be preserved at any price.