Data & Urban Design
“Our buildings have actually been augmenting the human experience for millennia. And now our digital technologies are playing a much bigger role in that human experience.”
Transcription:
Kachina Studer 00:16
Have another architecture design panel for you but this one actually focuses on urban data and design. So this is going to get into a little bit of kind of the IoT space, this kind of data collection mass data, all of that. So hopefully you stick around. I'm sorry cities and buildings generate flourishing unseen environments. There are beautiful reflections of our daily lives in the spaces we occupy in this panel we're going to discuss the vehicles for immersive data and how they interplay with the built environment. And I am Katrina Souter I am a VR AR UX strategist and product development lead at arrow Street. We have with us. Hong Howard Dang, I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly. The Creative Director for radical department. Tyler Shannon data scientist architect and urban strategist and arrow Street and Vivian Wu an architectural designer and AR visionary at arrow street as well. So, I will jump into the first question. How do you see IoT and public data being beginning to augment our lives.
Honghao Deng 01:27
I six is already happening, like, think about this. If I want to go to a movie right now I'm probably going to check out my browser like say that as a Showtime. And then I basically the gear issues are well pops up and now like the router movies will show up also based on my search histories. And then my attack laid the movies for IMDb score to decide and I might check, also for the location of the nearest theater on ways or Google Maps to see whether I'm going to be able to be there on time. Well, like this is a really linear and repetitive process of like using the data to make a decision, but like, what if we have this like comprehensive augmented reality layer it says, like, jaw logically map on the physical world with the data visualization. I believe our decision making, can be way more fast, more natural. For example, if I want to decide to go to a movie, I probably just look outside, and the movie theater will be all highlighted. And now, like, I'll also go a little bit since, of the feeling whether the movie theater is like crowded or not, whether it's a road their road to there is like flow of traffic. And then if I gaze associate I might be able to listen to the kind of comments of people talk about why their environment is good, or whether it's good for a certain movie. So like, with this comprehensive layer on top of using visualize all the data around, people will be able to just going out without checking other checking on their phone or their browser, before they go out just look outside, okay that place seems super nice to go for a movie I would just go there right now. I think
Tyler Shannon 03:15
taking a step back, our buildings have actually been augmenting the human human experience for millennia. And now our digital technologies are playing a much bigger role in that human experience. And they're changing much more quickly, then our building technologies are, and we like to say that technology is fast buildings are slow. And so I think as our society uses more and more technology collects more and more data as architects we can start to harness that data to make more informed decisions about our buildings and cities. And so I think with this new technology comes an opportunity to rethink and sort of tweak the building technology that goes along with that.
Vivian Wu 04:11
Yeah, I think. Data is changing our life, mainly through, especially the built environment through the augmented reality devices. And these AR devices are enhancing our lives in a way that they can make our built environment more in informational and he can lead us as architectural designer to rethink the split between the two dimensional internet interface. And the physical environment. So I think the opportunity would be how can we ask designer, the designers to represent this data, three dimensionally in our space.
Kachina Studer 05:11
So there are, there are a few examples out there currently of ways we're augmenting our current environments with the mass data that's out there. So this data unification. Basically, all the data that comes from every source that is public domain private domain and creating applications out of it. How is this providing us ubiquitous connectivity and is that a positive thing is that a negative thing. Does it help us or does it hinder us?
Honghao Deng 05:44
well before I answer this question. I think like sometimes people do prefer like there's environment to be very static, and then now like dynamic changing. Well, to answer the question, I think like there's already a lot of data and unification data out there, but it's from the user's perspective like data connectivity means that like they need to see the data but also they need to make use of the data. Well, like, let me please allow me to continue the imagination, having this geological map to augment the data of data visualization. So, all pharmaceutical work. So like if you're not a tourist, and then if you don't check your web browser or do any like background research before, before you go outside, you see the urban surrounding it few likes is kind of try and there is no activity going on, but the truth is not like that. But if you have all this data happening around you like visualize and map correctly of your surroundings. As a, for example, as a foodie when you go set all set, you will be directly seeing and when spa and feeling like, okay, Sam speaks looks were delicious. I'm going to go there for lunch and then without checking any like Yelp, or any, like, platform, based on using ratings. Well, if you are party cat, then you just go outside and can feel like okay my friends are there and my friend that there, and then there's something interesting partying going on right there and then without checking any of the Facebook pages or event pages. Well, I think this type of technology. Technology Integration of data actually empower people to make decision more naturally and more smoothly and how people live better and easier, rather than becoming a slave to the technology.
Tyler Shannon 07:39
I think unified data is, it's going to lead to connected cities and I think that's a conversation that we're seeing an arrow street become more and more sort of at the forefront, especially as we think about autonomous vehicles. And I think that comes from. It's an interplay between both the private and the public sectors, they have to work together to come up with policy and and and safe ways of sharing this data to make sure our cities can make use of it in a well maintained and intentional way,
Vivian Wu 08:12
I think, add on to that. I think also data scientist and designer should collaborate with each other to produce more. I'm understandable, and I, easy to use tool for the inhabitants in the space because we are, we should we shouldn't just give the users the raw data, we should be. They should be articulated and then interpreted by design decisions. I think that's the key as I'm using or using those data's.
Kachina Studer 08:58
So, all of this data collection. This is from public domain in almost every circumstance from some point of view, whether it's an application you're using on your phone, it's the public that's giving this data to companies to public data platforms. And there are a lot of issues with the proprietary aspects of that and who has ownership over that data. And even if the data is anonymous like it's a source that we're getting from like the bike shares or other public transportation kind of anonymous source data that's just collected. How is this aggregate data, effective for open source projects, and should the applications and solutions that are coming out of like open source public data, should they ever become fully proprietary or should there be an output from those applications that is still open source.
Honghao Deng 10:01
This is a very tricky question. I wish I don't need to answer this but, like, I think we need to look at this question, you no longer, you no longer on, like, for example, if you think about like the urban environment in our cities. 20 years later, I think a lot of thing will be way more automated. But what does this automation come from has to be filled by all this data collected. So, there's definitely a lot of security and also privacy issues. Even in like our smart home domain, a lot of time when you're trying to do like home automation for a client. The first thing your client is going to ask is that like essentially I got all of this kind of question it's like, are you going to plant a camera in my bathroom. So, like, but we definitely want to not only do that people, but we do need like sensor collection sensor data collection to give you a non From now on, no frustration like automation in every corner of the room. For now we use VR sensors. Well, I think like maybe that the decentralized technology will help us along on the privacy and also security issue around this, but also on the logic side, I think. Users should be the owner of their own data, and then rather when users are trying to use certain services that is going to authorize others. Other people's shared data. Then, I think, to take it to it shouldn't be just by paying a fee. It should be there, the users consent to share their own data.
Tyler Shannon 11:42
I think it's important when addressing this question to make sure we actually know what public data is. What does public data mean, and essentially it's any information that's in the public realm. And that could be generated by any number of people, governments, it but there's a subset of public data, called open data that is actually defined as being well maintained structured, and most importantly easily accessible because not all public data is easily accessible, and going along with that whenever you're looking to use public data in any type of product or solution. You need to be thinking about who collected it how it was collected, any data is going to have a bias, based on who collected it. And I think it's important to be aware of that. So I think if you're looking to use public data as a way of developing a product or solution. It should really only be used as a benchmark for testing your initial products, and then your your solution should have some type of mechanism to collect new more relevant information that will later inform further developments of your of your product.
Vivian Wu 13:02
Yeah, I agree with Tyler, I think we as designers has half the responsibility to interpret the data for the users, and then transform it into something that is more representational and informational rather than just exposing all the data's like a privacy's to all the users, I think. I'm also I'm, I'm thinking probably in the future the definition of privacy will change. So we'll see them,
Kachina Studer 13:42
so I know a number of you have had projects that kind of relate to this next question so feel free to talk about those a little bit as well. We basically are going to see AR popping up everywhere, because we're going to have devices that show us that. And it's kind of interesting, who owns that domain who doesn't own that domain what applications are you running at one time. Are you using a singular application that shows you an augmented world. But I wanted to ask you a question that was asked. Similarly, in the last panel will immersive data and interactive layers interplay with the built space in architecture or cities going to become hosts to our content.
Honghao Deng 14:30
I think, like I said in the last panel like if so material ality and also the tectonic of architecture that remain on change and doesn't evolve. And there'll definitely be two extremes, one is certainly become at the end, a white box. Like, they're all like, like they're holding activities today, there'll be holding dynamic transformative augmented reality content in the future, because it's more efficient. On the other hand, you might be another reality that like architecture itself become more pure and more focused on art and become like more rich on spatial experience. And it's like, augmented reality is job to find the function inside to provide all the program and functionality. But just like what's an elevator to skyscraper to actually help each other to technology always help the form of building to evolve and the form of building alpha drive the technology to evolve, it's very likely that the form and also the materiality the technology tectonic of architecture in the future will evolve. And we're going to showcase a little bit of it. At the end of today's presentation, which is using this new BBN of architecture technologies, using vapor, to create augmentation of weather of the richness of our nature insight architecture.
Tyler Shannon 15:58
I don't think it's an either or, I think it's probably both will happen. But I don't think that architecture should be a white box that plays host to digital technologies, I think that we, we want to make sure that whatever the architecture we're designing remains accessible, and whatever digital technologies we embed in that architecture remain accessible and so if an architecture becomes reliant upon a device, a handheld device headset whatever we need to make sure that that is something that everyone can experience because, I mean, as architectural professionals, we want to make sure that we're designing for the, the well being of the public, And we can't overlook how that accessibility really impacts everyone that's using the space
Vivian Wu 16:56
from a personal standpoint, I, I tend to think of data as a raw material that needs to be articulated by design decisions are based on like research and analysis of the users, the context, the site. And so, it's not to say that one is more important than the other. I think they should both be both be grounded in human experience. So, I'm, like, a project I've done at school. It's I uses Instagram post to generate holographic forms, so that people can experience the real time data more easily. And I think all of that are all based on design decisions so I tend to think they're both important.
Kachina Studer 18:04
Thank you.
