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An Overview to our Latest Projects in Latin America

Category: ⚐ EN+architecture+Centro Histórico Abierto+city+Cuenca Red+ecosistema urbano+Plan CHA+Plan Encarnación Más+sustainability+technologies+urbanism

During the last year we have been busy with several projects and competitions (including the latest Open Shore project for West Palm Beach) which didn’t give us the time to look back and reflect on some of our projects from the last few years.

As maybe some of our readers know, Ecosistema Urbano has been working on several large-scale projects in Latin America since August 2014 when we won a competition to develop the Master Plan of the Historical Center of Asuncion, Paraguay. In 2015, we accomplished another significant project: the participatory process Centro Histórico Abierto for the transformation of the historical center of Distrito Central, capital of Honduras. We also worked on the transformative Cuenca RED project which acted on the Public Space Reactivation Plan of the Historical Center of Cuenca, Ecuador. After the first experience in Paraguay, we had another project in the city of Encarnación, giving origin to the Plan Encarnación Más, composed by an Urban and Territorial Planning and Sustainability Plan.

In these four cases, the urban issues and the peculiar situations that required our intervention were distinct yet shared many common features. More specifically, the enthusiasm and interest shown by the people directly and indirectly involved was apparent throughout all of the projects, but also the opportunities that these experiences have given us as an architecture firm, to test ideas, tools, and methodologies.

CONTEXT

Although they share the same area of origin, each of these cities has developed unique problems and issues. Some of these, such as the ones found in Encarnación, are physical-territorial matters such as the recent loss of the city center because of the controlled rise of the water level in the Yacyretá dam. That event led to the envisioning of a “Sustainable Development Plan” and  “Urban and Territorial Ordering Plan” in order to prepare the city for the future. In the case of Cuenca, the need for a new plan was determined by a series of big changes underway: the definition of a new model of mobility and the progressive emptying of population that afflicts the historical center, World Heritage Site since 1999, and headquarters of most of the commercial, touristic and economic city’s activities. In the case of Asunción and of the capital of Honduras, the project regards the transformation and the regeneration (both physical and social) of their historic centers. The Distrito Central is part of the development framework of the new urban axis “Choluteca River”.

SOCIAL

1 – Participation

The first of the projects’ common keys are connected with the theme of sociability, expressed in the form of participation. The citizens’ involvement, promoted both through a series of organized activities and through online platforms, has been one of the cornerstones of our work in Latin America. We involve citizens because we believe that the citizen is the only force able to achieve a deep and lasting change in the urban environment and so they should not be just a passive receptor of the changes promoted by the city’s institutions. That’s why in some cases, as in that of Asunción with the ASU-LAB, a space was created which could serve as an interface between citizens and institutions: a place for the execution of the city planning but also an open place where each person or group can drive a new regeneration initiative or attend a course.

Organized activities with the citiziens

Organized activities with the citizens

Participatory activities, such as workshops and events, have been geared to address representative members of the city such as children, university students, “active agents”, citizens and institutions. For each of these categories we have developed, project after project, a series of ad hoc initiatives.

Participatory process in Asunción, Encarnación, Cuenca and in Distrito Central

Participatory process in Asunción, Encarnación, Cuenca and in Distrito Central

For the children we created a “toolkit” with which we had them reflect on their perception of the city and with which they could propose their ideal vision for the city. The kit consists of portions of the city map on which they could draw and that, once recomposed, could recreate the overall image.

2 – Urban actions

These activities were followed by a series of urban actions so that the results could be shown tangibly in the city. In the case of Distrito Central, ideas were gathered in a week of workshops with 80 students from the three major universities in the city and have been translated into urban actions like “Las Gradas de la Leona“. The staircases are indispensable spaces in a city with a very distinct topography as Tegucigualpa. But in the city these vertical connections are often perceived as inhospitable, dangerous, and dirty places and therefore they are cut off from any kind of activity. The students’ work was aimed at legitimizing these stairs as a public space through cleanliness,  decor,  lighting, and the organization of a series of activities that achieved resounding success and participation.

Socialization along "Las gradas de la Leona"

Socialization along “Las gradas de la Leona”

In the case of Encarnación, one of the proposals that has distinguished our approach in this project was the inclusion of a series of pilot projects that accompany and translate into concrete proposals within the “Plan de Desarrollo Sustentable” and the “Plan de Ordenamiento”. Among these, one of the most successful pilot projects was the “Proyecto Piloto Bicisienda“, whose purpose is to improve the quality of life of the inhabitants by optimizing the use of alternative mobility and by raising awareness of the value of sports and recreation. Again we have sought the cooperation of citizens by promoting a series of initiatives (such as the construction of bike lanes in the city) in which the citizens could feel protagonistic.

Proyecto Piloto Bicisienda

Proyecto Piloto Bicisienda

3 – Informative events 

The disclosure of the participatory process to the citizenship, promoted both online through the project’s platforms and through open exhibitions, is a recurring phase in all four projects. We felt it important and necessary that each phase of the process was documented and could be easily accessible to all so that the citizens could be informed about the progress made in the project. Among these, the most scenic event, realized in Tegucigualpa, Cuenca and Encarnación, was the creation of a ” mosaico ciudadano“, a wall made of post-it notes with written words, phrases, and ideas about the city.

City mosaic in the several projects

City mosaic in the several projects

SUSTAINABILITY

Another theme of our projects in Latin America is sustainable development expressed in various forms: care and attention to the environment, the introduction of an alternative mobility system, the importance of education to the environment as an engine of sustainability, and the development of the project made in collaboration between private initiatives and institutional management. In the case of Cuenca, for example, our intervention was partly required as a consequence of the municipality’s willingness to define a new model of mobility for the historical center of the city consisting of ceasing car traffic in the center and building a new tramway system. This new model of mobility has direct implications for the current urban dynamics, as well as on the public space, as it tries to reduce the vehicular load of the city, giving priority to pedestrians and cyclists. This, and the creation of quality public space, led to strengthen the social, economic, and cultural role of the city’s historical center making it more pleasant for residents and locals. Our aim is to activate a historical center that promotes social, economic, and environmental development, as well as a more livable, habitable, and inhabited historical center.

Cuenca’s plan is divided into four aspects: an urban acupuncture strategy, which proposes small / medium-scale interventions to recover areas with potential; a development of a network of active courtyards, by transforming the typical patios of Cuenca in catalysts capable of generating new synergies, connections, and interactions between residents, visitors and inhabitants; a guide to the historic center re-design, which defines the main lines for the design of the public space; a process of socialization, to define the “acopuntura” and the active patios network strategies. The intervention strategy in the square “Mary Corilè” in conjunction with the creation of “La casa en el árbol” is part of the active patios network strategy. This square is an unused and degraded space, perceived by the residents as an unpleasant and dangerous place.

The square "Mary Corilè"

The square “Mary Corilè”

Among the several interventions proposed, such as the re-furnishing of the square, traffic closure, and the design of activities in collaboration with the municipality, there’s also the creation of “La casa en el árbol“, a space included in the existing trees of the square where educational activities in relation to the theme of the environment can be carried out. “La casa en el árbol” is set up as a space to get in contact and be familiar with the nature, built in harmony with the surroundings. Inside there are several “environmental” classrooms in which one can study natural resources such as sun, wind, and water. More specifically, one can study: a system of photovoltaic panels that generate the energy needed for the lights, rainwater harvesting structures, and urban gardens as environmental and ecological experiences for schools and kindergartens. It is, ultimately, an open classroom in which a new form of pedagogy built on the respect for the environment is proposed, in order to increase awareness of the natural resources and of their use, as well as increase awareness of existing technologies.


In the case of Asunción we proposed a strategic plan with ten actions in order to promote a connection between the several parts of the city through the development of spaces, named “corridors“, and of individual buildings, named “urban catalysts“, which might act as drivers of change and benchmarks within the city. The corridors are divided into three types: those “green“, which introduce a new green infrastructure in specific parts of the existing roads; those “civic“, which consist of a new network of public spaces along the roads in order to connect the most important historic and government buildings; those “dynamic“, aimed at creating active urban environments and encourage economic and cultural activities.

Configuration of a charateristic dynamic corridor

Configuration of a charateristic dynamic corridor

Among the actions of Asunción strategic masterplan one concerns the economic and landscaping regeneration of the “Green Active Coast”. Due to its topography, this area is subject to cyclical floods because of the rising water level of the Paraguay River. That forces the inhabitants of the informal settlements who live there to move temporally. While fully respecting the identity of the river and of the existing topography, we have proposed the creation of a green lung with a large sports area in continuity with the Bicentennial Park. We also promoted the integration of the informal settlements both within the urban fabric and in the areas of new urban expansion.

The Encarnación masterplan incorporates within its own name the concept of “sustainability”, since it is composed of the “Plan of Sustainable Development” and of the “Plan of Urban and Territorial Organization”. The “Plan of Sustainable Development” will establish the standards and mechanisms for the growth and for the future development of the city according to the criteria of sustainability. The “Plan of Urban and Territorial Organization” aims at directing the use and the occupation of the territory in the urban and rural areas of the municipality. Officially, the city will face in the next twenty-four years an increase of the population amounted to 62,000 people, for whom it will be necessary to provide a massive increase in housing. The model we proposed to face this need refers to the sustainable principle of “the compact city.” Through the identification of a physical border for the city’s urban growth, we have protected the rural areas from new settlements. Moreover, we encouraged, through private and municipal initiatives, the densification of areas already developed, by filling the vacant urban lots and expanding pre-existing single-family homes.

Example of urban densification

Example of urban densification


The new interventions follow the principles of the bioclimatic architecture: large overhanging roofs and vegetation as protections from the hot summer sunlight, the use of wind to moderate the hot and humid climate of Encarnación, the reuse of rainwater, and the increase of the vegetation to absorb CO2 emissions.

TECHNOLOGY

In all four projects, technology represented an important collaborative tool to promote our work and to enable everyone to be constantly updated on ongoing progress, but also as a support for the participatory process, so that the involvement of the citizens would not be exhausted with the end of the activities organized, but could continue to map needs, issues, concerns and initiatives for those interested.

For this reason we have developed a platform, called Local-in (formerly What if ..?), which has been adapted to each project according to their personality and to the peculiarities of each participatory process, while maintaining a common format. Local-in is a free and accessible to everyone application of collective mapping. In it, registered users can add messages, photos and geolocalised links, sorting them into categories and labels. It’s easily installable and customizable, in perfect harmony with the spirit of the projects themselves, and it can be found for each project under the name “AsuMAP” for Asunción, with the name “Encarnación Más” for Encarnación, as “Cuenca RED” for Cuenca and with the name “Centro Histórico Abierto” for Distrito Central.

 

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Get a Bike! | Ecosistema Urbano awarded at international cycle-friendly ideas competition in Oslo

Category: ⚐ EN+concursos+espacio público+tecnologías

Illustrasjon Get a bike

You are not stuck in traffic. You are traffic. Get a bike. Break free!

Under that motto, originally created for a commercial campaign and adbusted by Lisbon Cycle Chic, was presented Get a Bike, an international competition organized by Future Built in Oslo aiming to collect ideas about how to develop a growing cycling culture in and nearby the capital city of Norway. How to make the Oslo Region one of the best cycling regions in Europe?

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Hamar Experience 11 | Technology workshop

Category: ⚐ EN+dreamhamar+events

Last week the TECHNOLOGY workshop took place and Hamar response was even better than expected. We also had a workshop with students from Bergen School of Architecture, who resulted in a free lunch on Stortorget – with a cow as special guest!

On today’s Hamar Experience 11 Belinda Tato will share pictures and anecdotes from the workshop and the free lunch.

And of course, because Hamar is the star of dreamhamar, Belinda will share the spotlight with a citizen who participated on TECHNOLOGY workshop – Morten Fridstrøm. He will tell us about his experience and if the workshop was everything he expected!

Unfortunately, we will not be able to bring the cow to Hamar Experience. Nevertheless, you’ve got a date with the progress of dreamhamar on Monday, at 18:00h on http://www.dreamhamar.org/category/hamar-experience/

See you this evening!

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HAMAR EXPERIENCE 10 | TECHNOLOGY WORKSHOP STARTS TOMORROW!!

Category: ⚐ EN+dreamhamar

This is going to be a very interesting week in Hamar. TECHNOLOGY workshop begins tomorrow, Sept. 27th, at 18h at the Physical LAB, with media expert Bjarte Ytre-Arne as community activator.

The workshop will continue on Wednesday 28th, with blogger Juan Freire. TECHNOLOGY ends on Thursday 29th with a lecture and a round table with Bjarte Ytre-Arne and Juan Freire from 19 to 21h.

You can still register for the workshops (dreamhamar@gmail.com) or just show up at the lecture on the 29th.

You are all invited to participate, share your ideas and meet other people interested in the future of Stortorget Square.

Belinda Tato will talk about this and other subjects on today’s Hamar Experience. Remember, you’ve got a date at 18h with Hamar Experience 10!

More info on TECHNOLOGY workshop here (Norwegian)

 

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CDI, Committee for Democracy in Information Technology

Category: ⚐ EN+espacios sensibles | sentient city+internet

During the 5th social responsibility forum in Madrid organized by Net Impact and IE, I had the occasion to listen to a talk by Ashoka fellow Rodrigo Baggio, a devoted social entrepreneur and the founder of CDI – Committee for Democracy in Information Technology, a non-profit organization promoting social inclusion by using Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) as a tool for building active citizenship.
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Digital drive- Technological breakthroughs are changing scholarship all across campus

Category: ⚐ EN

At Harvard Business School (HBS), students use a software program to tap into a virtual Wall Street trading floor. At the Graduate School of Design (GSD), a computer-driven, robotic arm assembles walls and carves stone. At the Widener Library, digital specialists use high-resolution cameras to electronically capture everything from ancient Chinese manuscripts to Harry Houdini’s handcuffs.

Across its Schools and academic centers, Harvard is embracing cutting-edge technology that is rapidly changing the nature of scholarship, redefining research, opening doors to information, fostering collaboration, and revolutionizing classroom learning.

Camera Operator Edith Young scans a rare Chinese book with the help of special, high-resolution cameras. Young is one of many digital specialists across campus who are playing a major role in digitizing Harvard.

Examples abound across campus, and often involve stitching the Schools together. Recognizing the need for more digital interactivity, for instance, the Library Implementation Work Group, building on the work of the Task Force on University Libraries, two weeks ago recommended adopting a system that emphasizes a more harmonized approach to the global strategic, administrative, and business processes of the libraries.

The University’s leadership in information technology dates back more than 65 years to the Mark I, which is considered the first mainframe computer. It was the brainchild of Ph.D. physics candidate Howard H. Aiken, who envisioned a newer, faster, more powerful calculating machine.

The original Mark I, considered the first mainframe computer, holds court at the Science Center. Photo by Rose Lincoln/Harvard Staff Photographer

Technology in the classroom
Aiken’s mega-computer was the prototype that paved the way for the Blackberrys and iPods of today, the powerful handheld digital devices that are ubiquitous in Harvard’s classrooms. In those classes, the fans and adopters of such technology say, electronic devices aren’t driving education, but instead are supplementing the pedagogy.

Eric Mazur, the Balkanski Professor of Physics and Applied Physics, has used wireless technology in his introductory physics class for 17 years. His students use clickers, their own handheld devices, or their computers to send answers to a common website that registers the responses on a screen in the front of the classroom. Mazur introduced the clickers to ask questions of students, to get them to discuss their answers in small groups, and to have them try to convince each other of their own reasoning.

“In the end,” said Mazur, “learning and research is a social experience. It’s people, it’s not sitting in front of a book, or sitting in front of a terminal.”

Harvard professors increasingly engage their students electronically by using clickers, virtual office hours, videos and transcripts of their lectures online, and comprehensive course websites.

In the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), Katie Vale, director of the Academic Technology Group, and her team help instructors to enhance their curricula through technology. Together, they have created a virtual model of Harvard Yard in the 17th century and a three-dimensional visualization of a virus and its reaction to certain drugs.

“What we want to be able to do is make sure the teaching is driving the technology,” said Vale. “We want to be able to solve educational problems through the use of technology and encourage faculty to try new and different pedagogical methods, such as using clickers for active learning.”

In the HBS course “Dynamic Markets,” students emulate the New York Stock Exchange through their computers.  Joshua Coval, Robert G. Kirby Professor of Business Administration, and Erik Stafford, John A. Paulson Professor of Business Administration, developed a software program that simulates the financial markets. The program allows students to trade with each other, compete for opportunities, and learn the principles of finance.

“It’s a very powerful learning vehicle,” said Coval. “When it clicks, it gets imprinted in their psyche. The hope is that it will remain with them for many, many years.”

Martin Bechthold is a professor of architectural technology and director of the GSD’s Fabrication Lab, which is home to such digital devices as a computer numerically controlled, six-axis, robotic manipulator. Attached to a high-pressure water jet, the electronic arm blasts a mixture of water and garnet dust at, for example, a piece of marble to slowly carve it.

“Robotic fabrication of architectural components is, I think, one of the most exciting activities here with regard to the innovative use of technology,” Bechthold said.

Elsewhere, Harvard’s Initiative for Innovative Computing, an interfaculty effort, has developed ongoing projects that include the Scientists’ Discovery Room Lab. Part of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), under the direction of Chia Shen, the lab focuses on human-computer interaction. One promising project involves tabletop touch-screen technology that aids occupational therapy for children with cerebral palsy.

Efthimios Kaxiras, the John Hasbrouck Van Vleck Professor of Pure and Applied Physics at SEAS, and a team of collaborators have developed computer-generated simulations to model blood flow in the human cardiovascular system, work that may help to understand diseases.

In another example, involving a group of physicists half a world away at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, Alán Aspuru-Guzik, assistant professor in Harvard’s Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, has used a quantum computer to determine the energy of a hydrogen molecule.

The Berkman Center for Internet & Society, which created an early prototype podcast, is at the center of much of the University’s web research, exploring, analyzing, and enhancing cyberspace. And the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s (HGSE) Technology, Innovation, and Education program “prepares students to contribute to the thoughtful design, implementation, and assessment of media and technology initiatives.”

Harvard’s Center for Geographic Analysis buttresses University research projects with geographical information systems that use a combination of cartography, statistical analysis, and database technology. “When we try to bring time and space together, we start to be able to look at change taking place over time in many places at once, and that’s only possible with computation,” said Peter Bol, the center’s director and the Charles H. Carswell Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations.

During Harvard Extension School’s final CS 175 class for the semester, students present their final projects, which required the use of graphics applications. Course administrators shoot live video from the Maxwell Dworkin classroom for students taking the class remotely. Photo by Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer

Spread of distance learning
Thanks to technology, this year students at the 101-year-old Harvard Extension School can access 150 courses through its distance-learning program. Of those, 37 are Harvard College courses, and three are HGSE courses, all taught by Harvard faculty.

Students watch streaming videos of lectures and remotely interact with classmates and professors through real-time, virtual “chat” discussion boards, as well as through web-conferencing software and video conferencing. In smaller classes, students can dial an 800 number to take part in class discussions.

“By opening up its teaching expertise to a global audience, we are demonstrating how Harvard can contribute to the public good,” said Henry Leitner, associate dean for information technology and chief technology officer at the Harvard Division of Continuing Education. “It enables busy Harvard faculty, whose scarcest resource is time, to make their first-rate teaching accessible to a wider audience.”

Stanley Hoffmann, the Paul and Catherine Buttenwieser University Professor, several years ago agreed to open a class that he co-taught on U.S.-European relations on the condition that it be available to students in the Extension School and at the Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris, a prestigious French university.

“It was very instructive and enlightening for Harvard College undergraduates to learn firsthand the opinions of peer students in another part of the world.

Instead of engaging with an on-campus classmate from, say, Paris, Texas, they could discuss ideas with someone from Paris, France,” said Leitner. “It worked magnificently.”

Hunting for new online tools
John Palfrey, the Henry N. Ess III Professor of Law and vice dean for Library and Information Resources at Harvard Law School (HLS), has spearheaded an initiative to create a “library of the future” that uses technology to help the stacks “come alive in a virtual environment.”

HLS lab initiatives include Library Hose, a Twitter feed of what’s being acquired by Harvard’s libraries; Shelflife, a web application that researchers can use to access and comment on work, using common social network features; and StackView, a visual rendering of the library shelves.

Palfrey also is faculty co-director of the Berkman Center, which in 2003 created a free blogging platform for the University that now hosts more than 700 blogs. The blogs are critical, said Palfrey, because they offer scholars an important way to exchange information, allowing researchers to engage, solicit feedback, refine arguments, and “improve the quality of their work.”

Blogs can also reveal important social and cultural undercurrents, as in the center’s ongoing project evaluating the blogosphere in restrictive societies such as Iran and Russia. With these projects, “We can gauge what the reaction is to the state — what the state is blocking, who is starting these important conversations, and who is setting the agenda,” said Palfrey.

Imaging technician Lily Brooks photographs a Theodore Roosevelt manuscript in the digital lab in Widener Library. Photo by Rose Lincoln/Harvard Staff Photographer

Sharing the University’s collections
Using digital tools, the University is widening access to the massive collections in its museums, libraries, and archives, providing connections to ancient documents and prized holdings for anyone with access to a computer.

At the Harvard College Library, which consists of 11 allied libraries, items that have priority for digitizing include those that are at risk of deteriorating, that are unique, that are used often, or that are likely to fit well into existing class curricula.

A five-year collaboration with the National Library of China is digitizing the Harvard-Yenching Library’s vast collection of rare Chinese books. Another of its many projects involves digitizing more than 5,000 scarce 19th century Latin American pamphlets containing political and social commentary.

“It’s a benefit to Harvard, but much more broadly to the world at large,” said Rebecca Graham, associate librarian of Harvard College for preservation, digitization, and administrative services. “It promotes scholarship not only for the researcher and scholar, but also for those who are simply curious about a particular topic.”

Through the Open Collections Program, Harvard’s libraries, archives, and museums have created six online collections that support teaching and learning anywhere.  The collections bring more than 2.3 million digitized pages — including more than 225,000 manuscripts — to the web.

In addition, virtual visitors to the Harvard Art Museums can browse through images from its vast collections by tapping into its extensive online archives.

Harvard also has a key role in creating the Encyclopedia of Life, a one-stop information shop spotlighting the 1.8 million known living creatures on Earth, in collaboration with five partner institutions. The project is creating web pages with multimedia information, when available.

A collaboration between the Museum of Comparative Zoology and College of the Holy Cross biologist Leon Claessens is creating an online database, Aves 3D, that shows the museum’s 12,000 bird skeletons, including 3-D digital models of each species.

In addition, the Harvard University Archive is processing and digitizing 17th and 18th century holdings about Harvard in a program that carries special relevance. The documents, including papers and manuscripts from the School’s earliest presidents, shed light on the origins of the institution, and also on the country as it was struggling to come into its own.

“In this collection,” said University Archivist Megan Sniffin-Marinoff, “you see these parallels between the activities and the intellectual life and the public discourse here and in the emerging country at large, and the role that Harvard played in that evolution.”

The ambitious Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard project, under the direction of Stuart Shieber, provides an open-access repository for the work of University academics.

“We want to take things into our own hands and make sure people can read the things that we write,” said Shieber, the James O. Welch Jr. and Virginia B. Welch Professor of Computer Science, who heads the Office for Scholarly Communication, which spearheads campuswide initiatives to open, share, and preserve scholarship.

The program, created two years ago following FAS passage of an open-access policy, has put more than 4,000 articles online. Active for just over a year, the site has recorded hundreds of thousands of downloads.

Keeping the information highway open
What keeps Harvard’s digital engines running is a massive underlying structure that many users simply take for granted.

“There’s a critically important infrastructure that goes along with digital Harvard that people do not see,” said Anne Margulies, Harvard’s new chief information officer.

Harvard’s web system is one of the largest and most sophisticated private networks in the country. The fiber-optic backbone of the University links close to 500 of Harvard’s buildings on campus as well as the affiliated hospitals and other medical facilities. There are thousands of servers, tens of thousands of desktop computers, and uncounted mobile devices in the digital grid.

Tasked with maintaining what is underneath the computer platform, Margulies is also helping to develop Harvard’s digital future. One aspect has already risen to the top: video.

“Currently, 40 percent of traffic on our network is video. Some predict it will be 80 in a few short years,” said Margulies, who hopes to expand the network’s bandwidth to keep pace with the rising demand for video conferencing in classrooms and streaming of courses online. “We are seeing this explosion in the demand for video, and we need to make sure that our infrastructure is able to keep up with that and support it.”

Margulies relies on support from the Harvard Academic Computing Committee, a faculty and senior administration committee that explores academic information technology issues, principles, and policies for the University.

One technology effort under way is the collaborative group known as iCommons. The Provost’s Office created the initiative in 2001 after a number of deans expressed a desire for more cooperation in online learning among the Schools. Paul Bergen, director of Harvard’s iCommons, said the group offers a suite of online resources for teaching and learning. It includes iSites, an easy-to-use web publishing and collaboration system used by about 90 percent of courses at the University.

The humanities embrace digital
Digital scholarship in the humanities is a young but robust and expanding field. Authorities say that, while past research in the humanities was largely focused on qualitative methods of inquiry, digital media and web-based technologies are being brought into the mix more often.

“There is an increasing importance of visualization in humanities scholarship, and of geospatial components like mapping and other means of organizing knowledge, rather than in narrative form,” said Jeffrey Schnapp, visiting professor of Romance languages and literatures, visiting professor of architecture, and a fellow at the Berkman Center. At Harvard, Schnapp is collaborating with the libraries and museums to explore ways to animate their archives.

For the past three years, the Digital Humanities program has worked to raise awareness of the Harvard groups that offer digital services and support. As part of that effort, the program organizes a yearly fair in collaboration with Harvard’s social science division.

At the event, Elaheh Kheirandish, a fellow at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, presented a Micromapping Early Science project that offered a nuanced look at the development of science in Islamic lands through interactive maps that chart the transmission of scientific works and concepts.

“I am interested in the ways technology can drive the research,” said Kheirandish, a science historian. “Ideally, my hope is that this work generates research questions we would not have thought of without this technology.”

This article was published by the Harvard Gazette

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WeCommune: Tech Support for Communes

Category: ⚐ EN+espacios sensibles | sentient city


Post-ownership living
may be closer than we think. We see the evidence all around us, in the form of innovations from community kitchens to emerging mobility solutions. So, if people are recognizing the practical potential in social solutions, why aren’t even more models for collaboration, sharing and product-service systems thriving? According to architect Stephanie Smith, spurring the movement may be a simple matter of providing the tech support.

This week Smith, who heads WeCommune, plans to launch the first software platform designed specifically for, well, communing (if you visit, you may get a splash page while they transition). The platform’s services will allow groups of three or more people to self-organize a “commune” defined by a shared interest or shared zip code, and will provide tools for communicating, organizing and managing projects, and sharing resources. continue reading

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Sentient City: Interview with Fabien Girardin

Category: ⚐ EN+architecture+espacios sensibles | sentient city

sentient_barcelona

This interview is in the framework of a Phd research about new technologies and hybrid cities. It aims to demonstrate how this new tools can revitalize public spaces at the city. continue reading

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Call for Projects Interactivos? Lima'08: Magic and Technology

Category: ⚐ EN+technologies

Selection of a maximum of 10 projects to be collaboratively developed.
Through a program of reflection, research and production, the use of open hardware and software tools in a collective and interdisciplinary manner will be explored, in order to create technological prototypes with success in the Media from different perspectives: playful, creative and critical. continue reading