Author: jiaqi

Alternative Futures – Jiaqi

Owning the city

Author mentioned, “The relationship between (digital) media technologies and the physical city has often been thought of in a straightforward, even simplistic manner.” This brings us a new way to rethink smart city. As architects, we design buildings, making cities but how to make a proper space of architecture for proper future is still a challenge. Will smart city really challenge us to design “internet of things” but not a real object, for example, a building? In this circumstance, is form of architecture still important? Maybe we just live in a box with smart technologies rather than skyscrapers？

Nowadays, a lack of information will not be a barrier for smart citizens to share information and internet of things. But how do we share “situated” information between citizens? Most of them love information of gaming, news or other different personal prefer? Is it hard to manage all data to distribute to citizens to helpful for making smart cities? And only sharing information and enjoy new technologies are not enough for making a smart city by DIY ways. How to using information and engaging in the process of making smart city maybe more important than sharing information?

Reframing, reimagining and remaking smart cities

“Smart city technologies enact algorithmic governance and forms of automated management.” From my perspective, it’s right but hard to complete. When we think to redefine our government, is it too late? Redefining a government is right way to reframe a smart city, but it is primary in the process of building smart city. After we build a smart city by using top-bottom way to build, then it is too late. But does that mean we should build a smart government first before building smart city?

Crashing and Hacking the Smart City – Jiaqi

“Buggy, Brittle and Bugged,” Smart Cities

  • “Today, we routinely send anonymous bug reports to software companies when our desktop crashes.” If this is a portable model to debug smart cities in the future, will smart citizens be prepared? Although we report these bugs, it is maybe too late because the bugs may have already lead to a crashing of the system. In this situation, should we rethink a new way to build a smart city? It may not be top- bottom or bottom- top that simple. Maybe we could start to build smart citizens first?
  • As the book mentioned, in the parts of the world, different countries face the same issue – surveillance, but they have different feedbacks. It brings the idea- situated smart cities. When smart cities are crashing, and every smart cities are different. Should we make all back-up ways all the same or we must situate back-up ways for specific smart cities in the world when smart cities face the same bug?

An Emerging US (and World) Threat

  • The author mentioned “Cyber Security Problems” and also gave “Recommendations” for basic problems of smart cities. Maybe there will be disastrous If we change all cities in this world to be smart cities one day, would we have the possibility to change them back to current? When we think about how to back up our technology masterpiece – the smart cities, should we think throughout for years how could we make a smart city(test bed) without bugs before we make the second one or we could predict and solve these bugs at least?

Open Source Urbanism – Jiaqi

The Open-Source Metropolis

  • From this chapter of the book, author’s main argument is coming from “The technology giants building smart cities are mostly paying attention to technology, not people, mostly focused on cost effectiveness and efficiency, mostly ignoring the creative process of harnessing technology at the grass roots.” Does he mean technology is not important or to say technology should not be the most issues for the construction processes of smart cities? Even if we move the concerned eyes to the people, we cannot really care about them without proper technology. In other words, people are the foundations of smart cities as the grass roots, but technology is water and nutrition.
  • In this book, “Pie in the sky” which means free WIFI. There is a competition between hackers and big monitored companies who both are building WIFI but one is free one is need to be paid. Who will win in the end? We don’t know yet. Smart city belongs to be open and free for people. But we still need governments who are manager currently, companies who are “making money for themselves” currently and free hackers of people who are fighting for smart cities. If all companies and governments are disappeared, do hackers really manage and create smart city successfully?

Urban Versioning System 1.0

  • “ The first consequence because of distinct the process of design from construction is a basic assumption that building only begins once the design process is complete.” This is a very interesting view for smart cities. The smart cities are very different from normal architectural view. The construction process and design process are almost moving forward together. When we use Arduino to making LEDs becoming a signal for detecting water temperature in the mean time we could engage in build the configuration by sensor and LEDs. Does this consequence change the way to build smart city? Does the way should be designing first and constructions later when we engage in the process of constructing a smart city?

DIY and Participatory Urbanism- Jiaqi

“Tinkering Toward Utopia”

  • “ Dodgeball had taught him that knowing where you are wasn’t actually that valuable; the value was in using that information to unlock new experience.” From this book, “Foursquare” is successful because of exploration new experience from current information. In this situation, to say there are a lot of data exchange in a single day in this world, but what is useful what is not useful? The biggest challenge of “DIYcity” is how to gather useful information(data) or how to use current information(data) for exploration new valuable interactions behind these data?
  • There is a very interesting part between “Bottom-up and up to bottom” ways. DIYcity which is totally bottom up organization…there was nobody giving orders but up bottom “Smart city” which has clear orders from the government. In this two ways, hackers or self-organizations seem to have different characters: one is “hand”, the second is “mind”. The contradiction here is should mind compromises to hand or hand compromises to mind? Then who could give this contradiction an order?

Engaging the Idiot in Participatory Digital Urbanism

Such “reports” might be considered idiotic since they slow down the assumed ways in which citizens are meant to participate in maintaining streets and instead raise open-ended questions and complaints that reveal how many types of street-based concerns and politics are not easily amenable to “fixing.”

  • The author talked about “the idiot” in participatory digital urbanism, these “reports” are idiotic, they are wasting time, misleading, slowing down the process. But the real idiot is data – wrong data. Although the idiot participatory cannot be avoided because Smart city is based on all citizens, based on people when we engage in participating digital urbanism, could we have a solution to filter the un-useful data?

Urban Data Infrastructures – Jiaqi

“Smart cities and the politics of urban data”

  • As the author mentioned in this book, “the fear for some commentators is the creation of highly vulnerable and costly urban systems, rather than robust systems that create efficiencies and resilience.” The author said “hackable”. Does that mean after smart city is hacked, it could not “smart” again or just say it is not under control anymore?  Will the infrastructures also can not regulating-self or say crashing, if we do not consider the cost of smart city before making it?
  • “…a fact is never simply a fact.Facts are produced, not simply measured.” The indicator, benchmarking, and dashboard all can not be a fact, but they could help measure a fact. When they all have been changing with the different time and space, does fact change along with them? But if fact is changing, why call it fact? Does Smart City need a fact?

“Digital Infrastructures of Witness: Constructing a Speculative City”

  • The author mentioned three witnesses here – measurement, automatism and contingency. Three of them, from my perspective, the hardest and easiest part is “contingency”. Because the most factors of contingency are citizens( sensing citizens & citizen sensing), the big data come from citizens and change along with citizens daily life and their routines. To say contingency is so hard to measure, manage and unpredictable, but why the author said contingency is a key way in which the concretization of digital infrastructure can be understood?

Sensing the Smart Citizen – Jiaqi

From Environments to Environmentality

  • Gabrys mentioned citizens should not denounce theses projects and proposals as tools of control, neither the governance, but to understand the ways how to distribute computational materializations. It ’s difficult to do with that, but how about another way to remake citizens in smart city – making citizens themselves to be the governance. Is that possible?
  • When technique become to the new environment in our world replacing the natural environment, for example, when you walk on the street, your attentions no more focus on the surrounding people, trees or birds but the smartphones, smart- screens, what do you sense the real nature? Is this issue would become to be a psychological problem of citizens?

What’s so smart about the Smart Citizen?

  • Top- bottom is to say a smart city in a box. How about bottom- top? could we call this way as a smart city on a tree? The author seems to say no matter which way to build a smart city, the technology is not the key. But what is?

Quantified Community: Hudson Yards – Jiaqi

The Quantified Community and Neighborhood Labs

“As QC sensor and computing infrastructure are integrated into more neighborhoods,…” (p11-p12)

The QC is more like a test bed to gather data and also manage data for the residents or permanent neighbors, but how to apply to visitors or temporary individuals who integrate into this”city”? If there are a quantity of temporary individual, will they interfere the system or not?

  • What is “ Isolated building or system mean(p4)”? Does QC have a scale of zone/ space? Does QC is also an isolated system?

Instrumental City

“… and now intend to use their new weapon — data — to revolutionize the old urban regime.” (p17-p18)

  • To say, data would be a new weapon in the revolution of an urban regime. But when data become to a new weapon.Could we just use these data from QC to apply to the rest of this city and others?

Tabula Rasa: New Songdo – Jiaqi

Smart Cities – $100 Billion Dollar Jackpot

  • “ The infrastructure is being laid, but the ideas and software that will choreograph it will require years, if not decades, of research and development in test beds like Songdo.” From the book, to say Songdo is really a good start of smart cities, but in some cases to say Songdo is like a test bed, a test of smart cities. How about the next smart city? What kind of information could be extracted from Songdo to improve infrastructure construction for next smart city?(environment?)
  • “Yet while untethered networks are the weakest links in the plumbing smart cities, they are the most valuable.” When machines that become to us, are we become to machines?

Smart Urbanism – Test bed as urban epistemology

  • “These individuals can be anywhere in the world; the territory is plastic and it does not need to be occupied” How to understand “territory is plastic”? Does it mean a smart city could also be plastic?

Smart Cities / Smart Citizens – Jiaqi

What Is a City that It Would Be ‘Smart’?

  • “Note that, in contrast to the notion of a person being part of the city – a city remade every day through the interactions of its citizens – these smart cities are somehow conceived apart from humans.” How to understand it?

Smart Cities

  • Townsend defined smart city as places where information technology is combined with infrastructure, architecture etc. Does infrastructure is so important for smart city?  When we build a new city now, should we consider about this city will be prepared for being built a smart city in the future?

Essay: On the smart city; Or, a ‘manifesto’ for smart citizens instead

  • Dan Hill mentioned crowdfunding platforms, he used “Kickstarter” as an example to ask the question, who decides what is best locally, when using a global platform?  Do we need a standard for this division or even not in the process of building smart cities?