Living Cities

Agglomeration is my new favorite word.

One (1) Jane’s Walk is coming up on Saturday May 7^th & Sunday May 8^th. Walkability = a measurement of an area's pedestrian friendline. Built environments that facilitate walking (to stores, work, school etc.) have higher real estate values, promote healthier lifestyles and have higher levels of social cohesion. Stop in at Show & Tell Gallery when you're outwalking. Shown here: Tessar Lo, Maps. Jane’s Walk iphone app

Two (2) The Apr 14^th Town Hall Who Cares About 17 Million Voters, moderated by Metro Morning’s Matt Galloway was inspiring and interesting, outlining opportunities for city-building innovation & triple bottom line considerations where development is concerned.

Three (3) OCADU & MaRS are continually curating fabulous talks. On Apr 7th: Reclaiming the City: The Architect/Planner as Eco-Urbanist. Stephan Lanz from Berlin 21 discussed their role in Berlin's revitalization, and approach to sustainable development projects & initiatives. And from architect and urban planner Graeme Stewart, Toronto's Tower Renewal project.

Four (4) Toronto's Creative Capital Initiative is gathering input to the city's culture plan, which will be presented to the Economic Development Committee on May 4th. Themes of note from the March 28th session: zoning, space use, support local, consideration of neighbourhoods further from the downtown core.

Leah Sandals covered the youth session in Youth speak up at culture planning talks.

Five (5) In some Brazilian cities, up to 30 percent of people live in slums, or favelas. Rio has nearly 300 favelas.

WASTE LAND Official Trailer from Almega Projects on Vimeo.

An emotional screening in Complexo do Alemão from Pierre-anthony Canovas on Vimeo.

Big Data, Visualization, Cartography + Geolocation

One (1) Fantastic presentations on Aesthetics & Visualization from OCADU’s sLab last week, by Sara Diamond, Patricio Davila and Gabe Sawhney. Fabulous references and information.

Numerous sites demonstrate data visualization possibilities, including highly accessible Socialcollider.net. Here’s a representation of @verredeleau over a week:

Some more examples of data, visualized...

Tracking Objects in Trash|Track:

Hans Rosling on global social and economic trends -- SUPER interesting.

"Visual Poetry06 was Boris Müller's

theme for a annual international German literature festival, and consisted of visualizations of the poetry texts themselves.

On visualizing relationships, patterns etc... here's an inspiring clip from Marion Bantjes' TED talk. Marion Bantjes, I Wonder is at OCADU until June 5th.

Two (2) Cartography. At the Art Gallery of Peterborough until June... Shown here: Toronto Island, Rowena Dykins

Dykins chose the ecological term, ‘RIPARIAN’, as her exhibition title. Riparian is an scientific term used to describe a zone or area found in nature which functions, as an interface between land and water to illuminate a kind of 'spiritual transmutation' made possible through the contemplation of 'the beautiful' or ‘the sublime’ found both in nature and in art.

and MICKY RENDERS: FINDING JOY

Renders holds a degree in biology from the University of Geulph, Ontario. FINDING JOY, extends the artist’s exploration of colour’s potential…. Colour has the power to evoke psychological, physiological and symbolic effects: colour as light, colour as emotion, colour as temperature…energy…atmosphere…space. Colour embodies the fullness of existence.

Curated by Carla Garnet

Three (3) Geolocation. BMW launched a $100 million venture fund in February that is aimed at developing “individual mobility solutions” through a startup incubator. BMW is interested in financing solutions related to any form of transportation ie car, bike, subway or walking. From @mashable