Comments: (5)

How to make pizza, network design style

CATEGORY: ⚐ EN + dreamhamar + urban social design

 

Image by Seth W. (Flickr)
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Sometimes two simple words combine to create a concept difficult to understand, like network design.

Network design is the methodology Ecosistema Urbano is going to apply in the redesigning process of Storget Square, in Hamar. The name of the project is dreamhamar.

It looks like this:

 

Image: Multiplicity by Jorge del Corral (Ecosistema Urbano)
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It is basically a step forward in citizen participation processes. The best part is, network design can be explained with somethin as simple and familiar as pizza.

Imagine we want to create a recipe for pizza, a great pizza. I am choosing pizza because Geir Cock, an architect from the Hamar Kommune, told me pizza is Norway’s favorite food right now – Are you as shocked as I am about this???

If I were to make a pizza, traditional style, I would look at three or four pizza recipes. I would look at the ingredients list, and pick up one recipe or try to combine the two or three I’d liked the most. That would be my pizza recipe.

Now, if I wanted to make pizza through a collaborative process, I would make a post on my blog, my Twitter or my Facebook account, asking my friends for their pizza recipes – I would also call my mom, but hey, that’s just me.

We would all negotiate and reach a consensus on every ingredient,every preparation method, every final touch. We would probably end up with a little bit from each recipe, a compromise. Probably none of the people participating would be happy with the final recipe but just with the ingredients or cooking methods they won a negotiation on, like “The pizza is crap but I won the voting on the amount of tomato sauce which is just purrrrrrrrfect!“. This is how most collavorative processes work since the 70s.

The third possibility is to make pizza network design style. For this, I would make a post on my blog, write my favorite chefs and ask them to help me too. I would tell my friends to tell their friends and, all together, we would talk and debate about what makes a pizza a great pizza. I would probably organize a party for all of us to share ideas, talk about pizza, and even create a website about it, so those people who do not live near me could participate too. The more the merrier.

At the end of this collective brainstorming, I would have learned what ingredients are essential, the best baking methods – old, new, and impossible-, and what people expects from a good pizza. So I would collect all the info, and all of the ideas, and I would go back to my kitchen to write down three or four different recipes based on all the input received.

Then I would test them. They would be my own recipes, but close enough to the collected ideas that people could relate to them, be pleased with them in spite of being something different from what they said.

Also, “how to make pizza” would probably end up being a social network star – maybe even a global trend. I would have met lots of new friends – who would have also made lots of new friends themselves -, created a website debating the current state of pizza, and end up with the feeling of having become part of something.

And, of course, with the most amazing pizza recipe ever.

Read “public space” where I wrote “pizza” and you have the process for redesigning Stortorget Square. This is network design.

The outcome, the new square, will not be the work of one architect (traditional style), neither the result of a conventional collavorative process, a little Frankesntein from an exhausting consensual process. It would be the realization of what the people of Hamar have dreamt for Stortorget Square. Something new you can relate to.

So, come meet us. Join the dreamhamar network!

 

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Comments (5)

Hi,
I've loved the connection between collaborative design, network design and the pizza recipe. Very clear.

I just have two doubt about this:

01 It could be very stressful to try to have the recipes from everybody, translate it to a common canvas to be contrasted and extract some useful information. You may have no time for action and experimentation (Edison tried 70 kind of bulbs to find the right one, just imagine him asking to everyone what they think before starting to try). To much data may kill creativity.

02 If you collect ideas from everyone and then you go to the laboratory and you create the perfect pizza, and give it to the world as an artist, what is the difference between network design and artistic design? I mean at the end you have kind of information and then you create something with your signature, through your artistic process with you instruments…

Just two ideas to think about.
Best to all the eu team.

[…] Too much data could kill creativity.  That’s basicalle the message our colleague Michael tried to convey to us through his comment on How to make pizza, network design style: […]

[…] Too much data could kill creativity. That’s basically the message our colleague Michael tried to convey to us through his comment on How to make pizza, network design style: […]

Hola, me parece que la forma de contar este proceso de paisaje transversal ayuda a entender los “ques” y los “comos” de estos procesos. Para cuando un texto sobre dream hamar?
http://paisajetransversal.blogspot.com/2012/02/guadalmedina-documentos-de-trabajo.html

un abrazo.

Hola, Michael

Queremos hacer una serie de posts para meternos más en el proyecto. Lo suyo sería además hacer un ejercicio de transparencia, (auto)crítica y “extracción” de conocimiento, que siempre requiere más tiempo y esfuerzo, pero seguro que vale la pena.

Estamos viendo cómo podemos hacer para contar lo que la gente quiere saber, y contarlo bien, tratando de responder a las dudas que aparecen en torno a este proyecto.

¿Qué crees tú, viendo desde fuera, que es más necesario explicar? Y “todo” no vale como respuesta ;)

Saludos,

Jorge

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