ALEPH: How can we Communicate Design for a Public Agency?
Aleph’s design mission is to use the spatial skills of the architect to raise awareness and help optimise policy and regulation on the margins of the spatial implication of technological innovation on our urban environments and the public life of cities.A key strategy to this practice is the use of the architects’ visual communication skills to communicate to public agencies the design of the plausible future implications of tech.
Tech start-ups are often described as disruptors, in which they are encouraged to ‘break things’ and rebuild them afresh. However, there is an argument as explained by Eubanes, that suggests that contrary to popular belief, these interventions are not a revolution of traditional societal ways of life but rather evolutions. She argues that it is mostly a shift from analogous methods of control to digital and integrated systems of control, in which, even when apparently well meaning, these agile tech innovations, if implemented without due process and consideration, might only be perpetuating or even aggravating past issues of prejudices and biases in society.
Traditionally, public value and public purpose processes of policy development and regulation have been dealt with in a reactive form, in which ‘fixing market failures’ is the norm. Aleph argues of the relevance of introducing architects to the conversations currently being had regarding the collaboration of public, private and third sectors to co-create and co-develop such policies and plans for the public life of cities as an intentional development rather than as a reaction and or a ‘fixing market failures’ approach.
When one looks into how architects in their traditional practices communicate design for public agency, it appears to be confined to planning permission. Within the planning processes most large developments and urban design schemes involving infrastructure would apply for outline planning application to decide on massing, numbers, services, roads etc and once approved would go properly into design. Anything on a smaller scale will normally seek pre application advice from the local authority to establish a guide at stages 0–2 to help develop the brief and ensure that the project is aligned with national and local planning policies. The RIBA plan of work follows a long process where the planning alone usually takes at least 8 weeks and is engages principally the client, architect and local council.
When it comes to tech innovation, their ‘product’ or physical presence is often impermanent, small-scale, ephemeral or in constant motion which means they very easily fall through the cracks of the public review process, and are only noticed when their impact on the public life of cities has become significant. The designs of such tech start-ups are rarely if ever communicated or discussed with the public during their development, and so one could say that within the tech sphere there is no communication of design for the consideration of public agencies. Furthermore, even when these impacts become visible and public dialogue is engaged, architects often seem to remain outside the conversation.
It is already possible to generalise about the ways in which the digital business models have spatial implications, especially those of big tech entities such as Uber, Airbnb, Google and Facebook. We can point to a crowding of traffic, some spaces becoming vacant and others repurposed, the effects on rents, gentrification and raise a set of questions about the ensuing inequality such as can be seen across the digital business models, especially in urban environments.
Beyond big tech, small startups are also having a significant impact on the public life of cities, with the Las Vegas, Deliveroo dark kitchens and Appear Here being key examples. Las Vegas has begun a program called ‘Las Vegas Smart City’ where they will allow pretty much any tech start-up in the ‘smart city’ sector to test their products/services on the Las Vegas public right-of-way. Their argument is that the policy cannot be written until you understand the technology and that allowing these start-ups to experiment freely is the best way to understand which products they might want to take on board in the future.
However, there is another argument to be had which says that when tech is allowed to ‘experiment’ unencumbered by policy or at least a thorough understanding of the what the consequences might be, it is essentially allowing them to make decisions regarding the public space not necessarily concerned with the public good but rather with their own. Ben Green, author of Smart Enough City argues: “launching a series of pilots without a clear. Civic agenda can be dangerous”.
The GLA recent launch of the London Cultural Infrastructure plan is an adequate case study of setting a clear civic agenda which is aimed at the whole spectrum of actors in the city, from landlord and developers to local authorities, communities and individuals. In it, the communication of design for public agency becomes a key element, where a live map of cultural spaces across the city is easily accessible to all. This allows both private and public sectors to not only identify where these spaces are and aren’t and offers further toolkits of design specifications to make sure they are fit for purpose. The map easily accessible to all, synthesises existing data sets, making the vacuums in cultural infrastructure more evident. This in turn aids councils in supports culture at risk, developing policies, increasing investment where there is a demand for it and allowing planners to providing better advice to new developments. These new developments can then focus on the appropriate infra where there is a genuine need for it. Finally, it makes a conscious effort to focus on agility and meeting the demands of a rapidly evolving city such as London, attempting not to get stuck in the long bureaucratic processes traditionally associated with government and the built environment.
The key takeaway for Aleph from this case study is the ability to use architects visual communication skills to create a platform which tries to interpret some of the enormous amount of data being produced for a meaningful conversation involving public value and public purpose beyond simply fixing market failures. Within the context of the impact of agile tech on the public life of cities an early onset analysis of all this data being produced is what is mostly missing in most contexts.
Aleph will therefore attempt to provide thoughtful spatial interpretation of the new tech interventions within the city and the data being produced within its operations. It is vital that the manner of interpreting this data and communicating it are following architectural design thinking. This would allow an attempt of identification of opportunities for synthetic approach and possibilities of negative disruptions within the public sphere. Since the context within which Aleph is operating is producing constantly moving data, the communication of the findings should follow the nature of the data and be presented in a live digital platform which updates according to the new developments. This platform will provide a live map showing a synthesis of data analysis of tech ‘disruptions’ within the city and how the evolve; from the Deliveroo Dark Kitchens, to the cycle lanes defined by Deliveroo data and the routes of city mapper’s ‘alternative’ buses. The proposal then would be to create a forum within such platform for discussion across the spectrum of actors in the city from individuals to private corporations. Here architecture is used as a tool for engagement and agency of all in the public life of the city.
