People are

walking
architecture
or making NearlyNets with MujiComp
Matt Jones, TechnoArk, January 2010
 Hello.
Hello. My name is Matt Jones, and I’m a designer. I work at a
small design and invention company called BERG in London.
 We make our own
stuff, but we also work
with people like the
BBC, Bonnier and
Nokia

We do product, service and media design, and produce our own

products to take to market.
We also do a lot of prototyping and storytelling about possible
futures, like this piece in collaboration with Timo Arnall, and AHO
in Oslo for their Touch Project. It’s a film called “Nearness” that
explores interactions between things that touch each other
invisibly - in many ways a homage to Fischli & Weiss’s “The way
things go”
Today though I want to tell some stories about possible futures
within cities...
Which first of all involves telling some stories of the recent past.
This is Lord Richard Rogers, who has - alongside being one of the
most successful architects globally of the last 40 years - written
two great books about cities and their part in building a
sustainable future. You’ll notice that if you are a globally successful
architect, it’s very important that your clothes, furniture and book
jackets are colour-coordinated.
 “Our cities are
now linked,
and learning...”

Late last year, I went to a talk by Lord Rogers, where he said

something quite evocative. That our cities are increasingly linked,
and learning. Quite a sound-bite.

It put me to mind of Roger’s early career...

Because, back in the 60’s when he wasn’t a Lord - Richard Rogers
was a radical architect reconfiguring the city with buildings like
the Pompidou Centre in Paris, based on radical theories of
cybernetics, space, social-networks, robotics and space stations...
The radical theories of a group called Archigram...
Archigram were a group of young architects who decided to make
magazines full of their ideas, drawings and manifestos from
1961-1974,
You might be familiar with their walking city project...
They weren’t just architects.
They were really interaction designers.
They were really software designers.
Who saw systems and services as the things in architecture that
would enable behaviours, rather than just the buildings...
They even used the term “Social Software” back in 1972! That blew
me away when I found that while researching an earlier talk about
this area.
Essentially they were user-centred designers, working with
technology to create humane exciting environments with
technology... with a liberal dash of 60’s psychedelia...
Chris Heathcote /
http://antimega.textdriven.com/antimega/
2009/01/20/cheer-up-its-archigram

My friend Chris Heathcote thinks they were on the right track, and
that a lot of the things they were motivated by and proposed are
worth re-evaluating. He wrote a great blog post about how our
urban technology has finally caught up with Archigram’s
thinking... I used to work with Chris at Nokia and he’s a fantastic
source of critical thinking about technology, place and the city.
Of course, our predictions about the future and technology, no
matter how convincing - always miss some of the greatest
disruptions. For instance, William Gibson, who coined
‘cyberspace’ in his visionary novels of the 80’s never once featured
mobile phones. Archigram saw the car as the ultimate symbolic
technology of personal freedom - perhaps today we’d say it was
the mobile phone.
The car changed the development of the city irreversibly in the
20th century. I’d claim that mobiles will do the same in the 21st.
 “...the study of the precise
laws and specific effects of
the geographical
environment, consciously
organised or not, on the
emotions and behaviour of
individuals.”

This is Guy DeBord. French philosopher and head troublemaker of

the Situationist Internationale, who coined the term
“Psychogeography”

He defined it as:
“...the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical
environment, consciously organised or not, on the emotions and
behaviour of individuals.”
 “...a whole toy box full of playful, inventive strategies
for exploring cities...just about anything that takes
pedestrians off their predictable paths and jolts
them into a new awareness of the urban landscape”

But this alternate definition cited on wikipedia fits almost exactly,

for me...
 “...a whole toy box full of
playful, inventive strategies for
exploring cities...”

As a description of what we carry around in our pockets - our use

and experience of the city is being profoundly changed by these
things.
 New Maps
http://www.openstreetmap.org

With these new senses we can make new sense of what’s around
us. New maps. This is the work of openstreetmap.org who gave a
small group of people GPS units for a small amount of time and
created this wonderful image of the viscera of London’s flows and
connections.
 Neurones

You can’t not look at something like that, and see biological,
cybernetic parallels... The bottom-up building of complex,
reflexive systems...
 “Our cities are
now linked,
and learning...”

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Leading to statements like Sir Richard’s perhaps.

>OLYLUL_[&
>OLYLUL_[&
>OLYLUL_[&
 ...and servers, sensors, routers, cameras &c.

So, the smart-phone-toting citizens of cities are creating a new

opportunities for urban designers to work with, and within. As
Archigram said, “people are walking architecture”
 +67739
SMART+67739
CITIES FROM SMART PRODUCTS
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I want to talk about the opportunity that we’re interested in - it’s

>OLYLUL_[&
our contention that you can help create smart cities* bottom-up
by creating meshes of smart products.
>OLYLUL_[&
*your definition of what “Smart Cities” means may vary, I’m using it to describe cities that become better by some measure
>OLYLUL_[&
ecologically, socially, culturally - by the utilisation of information technology.
“Always design a
thing by
considering it in
its next larger
context
...a chair in a
room, a room in
a house,
a house in an
+67739environment in a
environment, an
+67739 city plan.”
+67739

Another architect, from Finland in the beginning of the 20th C,

>OLYLUL_[&
Eliel Saarinen gives us our guidance.

>OLYLUL_[&
>OLYLUL_[&
 2x +67739
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I also want to use as a starting point - two pieces of thinking from

>OLYLUL_[&
Clay Shirky.

>OLYLUL_[&
>OLYLUL_[&
Clay Shirky:
Situated Software /
http://www.shirky.com/writings/
situated_software.html

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Clay Shirky describes in his essay “Situated Software” - the

>OLYLUL_[&
phenomenon of many informational tools being created cheaply
that are locked to a local context. http://www.shirky.com/writings/
>OLYLUL_[&
situated_software.html
>OLYLUL_[&
Clay Shirky:
Permanet Vs Nearlynet
http://www.shirky.com/writings/
nearlynet.html

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Combine this with another essay from Clay - where he decscribes

>OLYLUL_[&
something he calls “The NearlyNet” http://www.shirky.com/
writings/nearlynet.html
>OLYLUL_[&
>OLYLUL_[&
 “[the] nearlynet is better
aligned
“Call thewith
firstthe
network "perma-net," a world where
technological,
connectivity economic,
is like air, where anyone can send or receive data
and social
anytime forces that
anywhere.
help networks actually
get built.”
Call the second network "nearly-net", an archipelago of
connectivity in an ocean of disconnection. Everyone wants
permanet -- the providers want to provide it, the customers
want to use it, and every few years, someone announces that
they are going to build some version of it.

+67739
The lesson of in-flight phones is that nearlynet is better
aligned with the technological, economic, and social forces
that help networks actually get built.”
+67739
+67739

In this essay, Clay compares large top-down efforts to create all-

>OLYLUL_[&
encompassing infrastructure with more nimble, individually-
driven patch-works of technology and ‘self-service’: “[the]
>OLYLUL_[&
nearlynet is better aligned with the technological, economic, and
social forces that help networks actually get built.”
>OLYLUL_[&
“Always design a
thing by
considering it in
its next larger
context
...a chair in a
room, a room in
a house,
a house in an
+67739environment in a
environment, an
+67739 city plan.”
+67739

If we consider Saarinen and Shirky together, we might conclude

>OLYLUL_[&
that we set about transforming our cities with technology by
building a stack of ‘situated software’ and ‘nearlynet’ type efforts –
>OLYLUL_[&
small pieces, loosely joined, each considered in its next larger
context…
>OLYLUL_[&
 MAKING SMART
CITIES BOTTOM-UP
WITH PRODUCTS
Which leads me to the main subject of my talk, pursuing ‘smart
cities’ bottom-up by designing smart products…
 'Ubiquitous
computing' (or
'ubicomp') and the
'internet of things'
remain academic
visions, and the
products that might be
seen to have come to
market are no more
than curios mainly that
are sold to niche
markets.

So here’s a somewhat contentious opening gambit. Ubicomp is a

bit hampered by its visionary beginnings.

[I don’t mean to pick on Steve Mann, even though I’m using an

image of him to illustrate this point - but the brilliant furrow he’s
ploughed for many years is somewhat symbolic of the ‘jetpack’
visions of ubicomp that pervade the discourse.]
 UBICOMP
NEEDS
SOME MUJI
We need a different starting point from the technodeterminist. I
think that we need to start from a simplicity and desirability -
Ubicomp needs some “Muji”.
I’m using the products and ethos of the Japanese retailer “Muji” as
short-hand. For accesible products that have a degree of simplicity
and desirability to them. I’m also a big fan of Muji’s designs.
 Able to be appreciated as cultural,
design objects rather than technology.

They should be tasteful, simple, clear,

clean, contemporary, affordable, in order
to be invited into the home.
By injecting some Muji into the world of connected objects, they
might find their place in the home. And the City.
They should not be
ubicomp, they should
be MUJICOMP.
 MUJICOMP

I ran a short workshop at the Microsoft Research Social

Computing Summit in January this year (2010) about “Mujicomp”
- it was full of practitioners, makers and theorists who have had lot
of experience in the field of ubicomp, urban computing and
connected objects - the reframing of the discussion that
“mujicomp” was interesting and fruitful I thought. I loved Mike
Kuniavsky’s (http://orangecone.com) assertion that we ‘abandon
functionality’ as a tactic...
 (ALMOST)
MUJICOMP
And there are number of designers and engineers pursuing what
we might call Mujicomp already - the Wattson by DIYKyoto is an
excellent example of a connected object that is beautiful and
useful. “I make energy saving easier, and I’m gorgeous.”
 (ALMOST)
MUJICOMP
This is Wattcher by Marcel Wanders - it’s another energy monitor
(the ‘hello world’ of home-automation?) simple, unobtrusive,
attractive. I’d say this is very mujicomp!
 (ALMOST)
MUJICOMP
Here’s some early attempts at Mujicomp from BERG.

This is a 10cms tall plastic version of me - called Availabot.

The availabot is a small likeness of me that plugs into the USB
port of a computer, and when I’m online or chatting to you, it
would stand to attention. When I’m not it would fall slack to the
table. This gives you some idea of the attention I’m giving our
conversation, in the physical space you’re in.
 (ALMOST)
MUJICOMP
Availabot video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=w0voYnEjFcQ, and there’s more on the project at http://
berglondon.com/projects/availabot/
 BBC

Olinda

(ALMOST)
MUJICOMP
This is another connected-device product for the home we’ve
done: Olinda. Olinda is a radio, that is modular, connects to the
internet and enables you to tune into radio stations that a small
group of your friends or family are listening to. More on Olinda
here http://berglondon.com/projects/olinda/
 EXTERNALITIES &
THRESHOLDS

One thing about these objects though, aside from the functionality
and delight the object it self might produce - they can generate
externalities, that might be viewed as positive or negative -
building platforms - or pollution. Also, through the range within
they can effect our behaviour, they create thresholds in our
environment...
 Hertzian Tales
Hertzian Tales, Anthony Dunne p101
“...Radio, meaning part of the electromagnetic spectrum is
fundamental to electronics... All electronic products are hybrids of
radiation and matter... Whereas cyberspace is a metaphor that
spatialises what happens in computers distributed around the
world, radio space is actual and physical, even though our senses
detect only a tiny part of it.”
 “IMMATERIALS”
“Immaterials: the ghost in the field” by Timo Arnall and Jack Schulze: video here: http://berglondon.com/blog/2009/10/12/the-ghost-
in-the-field/

Jack Schulze: “We want to understand RFID, to see it. To have a

literacy in it, a dialogue with the antennae and radio space as one
would with any material.” The investigation reveals the very
threshold of the immaterial field.
 MUJICOMP

Mujicomp should seek to make legible the externalities and

thresholds that the ‘immaterials’ it is made-up of make possible.
 (ALMOST)
MUJICOMP
Here’s a Fon phone/router. If you’re familiar with Fon, you’ll know
it’s all about offering externalities and thresholds - that is, it
creates a secure public hotspot for people to use a portion of your
home bandwidth. The phone/router itself is pretty normal
innocuous there’s no clue as to it’s purpose apart from the great
big fon branding.

It’s quite an abstract notion perhaps - which is not made any more
concrete by the object. How might a future object that creates such
an invisible public/private threshold manifest?

How might we show that this object creates infrastructure? Should

it?
 “[the] nearlynet is better
aligned
“Call thewith
firstthe
network "perma-net," a world where
technological,
connectivity economic,
is like air, where anyone can send or receive data
and social
anytime forces that
anywhere.
help networks actually
get built.”
Call the second network "nearly-net", an archipelago of
connectivity in an ocean of disconnection. Everyone wants
permanet -- the providers want to provide it, the customers
want to use it, and every few years, someone announces that
they are going to build some version of it.

+67739
The lesson of in-flight phones is that nearlynet is better
aligned with the technological, economic, and social forces
that help networks actually get built.”
+67739
+67739

Which brings us back to Clay’s conception of the “nearlynet” -

>OLYLUL_[&
what is the role of design in making the assemblage of ‘nearlynets’
desirable, and hence, accelerating their scale?
>OLYLUL_[&
>OLYLUL_[&
 MUJICOMPfrastructure

How might we design for mujicompfrastructure!

“Always design a
thing by
considering it in
its next larger
context
...a chair in a
room, a room in
a house,
a house in an
+67739environment in a
environment, an
+67739 city plan.”
+67739

…how might the design of connected objects should be and can

>OLYLUL_[&
be considered in the next larger context - to create bottom-up
“smart cities”
>OLYLUL_[&
>OLYLUL_[&
 PORCH-COMPUTING

At the Microsoft Research gathering I mentioned previously – we

talked about ‘Porch-Computing’…
 PORCH-COMPUTING

…literally considering smart objects and services that could act at

the threshold of public and private, in the same way that a porch
or stoop modulated the spaces between the street and the house.
Semi-private/Semi-public computing.
 PUBLIC/PRIVATE SMART SPACES

We had very little time to delve into it, but it seems to me to be a

very rich space to start to investigate. From practical problems like
RFID-tagged refuse leading to the current obsession in the UK
press with recycling ‘surveillance’, to more behavioural and
architectural-psychology-related questions of threshold, issues of
security and identity... the list goes on.
 “DOORWAY” by Simon Unwin

It’s one of the richest areas of literature to mine as well, which

helps... This is a fantastic book by one of my old architecture
professors, Dr. Simon Unwin called “Doorway” http://www.studio-
international.co.uk/books/doorway.asp
 Simon Unwin, Doorways
“Entrances are things here things are
delivered or left for collection. The postman
delivers mail, the milkman leaves a bottle of
milk on the doorstep. The waste-disposal
officers of the local authority collect the
garbage and black rubbish bags from our
front gates. Entrances, doorways, gates
represent that interface between the private
realm of the individual or family, and the
public services that help support them.”

Here’s a quote from Dr. Unwin’s book “Doorway”, which

illustrates the richness of the doorway as a place to investigate
connected objects, services, spaces and the city...
NOLLI MAP OF ROME

I think that visualising these thresholds between the privately-

owned and the publicly-used - the services and the objects that
connect them, the desire-lines that connect them – will lead to not
only to more interesting, desirable outcomes for what was known
as “ubicomp”, but also for the cities that it will slowly, but surely
start to inhabit.

This iconic map of rome - the ‘Nolli’ map - shows all the
interlinked ‘public’ space in Rome - the piazzas, and the interiors
of churches as a continuous space.

If we consider what we might aggregate ‘bottom-up’ nearlynets

from these personally-desirable objects and services, we will create
a more reflexive and rich connected layer in the cities of the near-
future.
 JANE JACOBS

"Cities have the capability

of providing something for
everybody, only because,
and only when, they are
created by everybody."

While all the time bearing in mind the words of Jane Jacobs…
"Cities have the capability of providing something
for everybody, only because, and only when, they are
created by everybody."
 Thanks
Matt Jones
mj@berglondon.com

Thanks for your attention!