The Cartographer's Dilemma

TY - GEN

T1 - The Cartographer's Dilemma

AU - Holm, Lorens

AU - Guzzardo, Paul

PY - 2010

Y1 - 2010

N2 - The city is quickening. We hover between built space and media places. Place making that takes no heed of the knowledge environment is no longer sustainable. In the era of pervasive computing we need better maps to manage the built environment. The Cartographer's Dilemma proposes a new place making action plan for a withering public sphere. We need to develop new epistemic assemblages -street probes -for navigating alandscape of space and information. The city as site and form of knowledge begins with Patrick Geddes, the evolutionist/planner who celebrated the Greek polis, who was a pivotal link in an intellectual lineage that extends from Darwin to contemporary media theorists. With projects like the Outlook Tower and the Cities Exhibition, Geddes left behind a tool kit on synthesis, gear to map sites and record knowledge, and assemble pIaces where mapping persists. He saw the city as an evolving search engine, a tableau you drifted through, synthesizing as you move. For Geddes, you became a citizen when you glimpse the future and humanize it Mindful of Geddes -and wedged between a data space and a hard place -this paper will explore how place makers can begin to rethink the neighbourhood enclave and reprogram them as precincts for knowledge creation and creative action. This paper uses Geddes' work on the city to rethink the implications of the digital environment for the space we call Civic. It recalls projects in the UK context, that address this space as an archive of knowledge and identity. The Cartographers Dilemma is relevant for the re-cabled megalopolis that will need strategies for capitalising on this status. It will argue for a new definition of the sustainable city, by projecting the urban planning theories of Patrick Geddes onto the evolving 21 st century media environment.

AB - The city is quickening. We hover between built space and media places. Place making that takes no heed of the knowledge environment is no longer sustainable. In the era of pervasive computing we need better maps to manage the built environment. The Cartographer's Dilemma proposes a new place making action plan for a withering public sphere. We need to develop new epistemic assemblages -street probes -for navigating alandscape of space and information. The city as site and form of knowledge begins with Patrick Geddes, the evolutionist/planner who celebrated the Greek polis, who was a pivotal link in an intellectual lineage that extends from Darwin to contemporary media theorists. With projects like the Outlook Tower and the Cities Exhibition, Geddes left behind a tool kit on synthesis, gear to map sites and record knowledge, and assemble pIaces where mapping persists. He saw the city as an evolving search engine, a tableau you drifted through, synthesizing as you move. For Geddes, you became a citizen when you glimpse the future and humanize it Mindful of Geddes -and wedged between a data space and a hard place -this paper will explore how place makers can begin to rethink the neighbourhood enclave and reprogram them as precincts for knowledge creation and creative action. This paper uses Geddes' work on the city to rethink the implications of the digital environment for the space we call Civic. It recalls projects in the UK context, that address this space as an archive of knowledge and identity. The Cartographers Dilemma is relevant for the re-cabled megalopolis that will need strategies for capitalising on this status. It will argue for a new definition of the sustainable city, by projecting the urban planning theories of Patrick Geddes onto the evolving 21 st century media environment.

KW - MAP

KW - Game

KW - Digital Media

KW - Urbanism

KW - Civics

KW - Patrick Geddes

KW - Sustainable Community

M3 - Conference contribution

SN - 9789957540036

VL - 4

SP - 419

EP - 433

BT - Proceedings SB10 Amman

A2 - Lehmann, Steffen

A2 - Al Waer, Husam

A2 - Al-Qawasmi, Jamal

PB - CSAAR Press

CY - Amman

T2 - 2nd International Conference on Sustainable Architecture and Urban Development

Y2 - 12 July 2010 through 14 July 2010

ER -