Community Remarks™ is an app PlaceVision developed to facilitate place-based communication online. It has been successfully utilized in the City of Buffalo, NY and Northbrook, Illinois to get citizens talking about what’s great and not-so-great about their community. We are currently in the process of deploying customized Community Remarks™ solutions for a variety of communities across the nation which got us thinking of several ways folks could utilize this tool.

Here is how it works (in a nutshell):

1. Drop a place marker on the map
2. Make a comment
3. Vote comments up or down

Features such as voting, the comment form, and place marker images can be customized. This is because the Community Remarks app was built with core features and functionality that can easily be “skinned” to change its appearance. This opens up opportunities for the application to be utilized in a variety of ways such as:

1. To solicit feedback from citizens during the creation of an urban plan

If you are creating a downtown area plan, regional transportation plan, or zoning ordinance this tool is proven to increase public participation and provide a platform during community meetings.

2. To document/survey properties in the field and create a live report on an iPad

If you are conducting multiple field surveys and site visits to document existing conditions, this tool can provide a secure easy to use web-based GIS formatted for an iPad.

3. As photo contest to get place-specific photos and vote on them

Thinking about gathering photos from the community? Do more than just post an entry form on your site, enable people to tell you where the photo was taken, then let the community vote on the winner.

4. To report non-emergency issues or place-specific concerns to your government

Are there issues in your neighborhood that are easier to express on a map? Place-based commenting is the best way to answer what and where at once.

5. Make your own “personalized” maps of your favorite restaurants, hot spots, and share with friends

Want to express yourself? Been there, done that? This tool provides you with a personal database of place specific comments. Use it to create a map of your favorite restaurants, shops, hot spots. Invite your friends to collaborate and share their favorites into a private, personal map.

If you’d like to know more, check it out at the Community Remarks™ web site.

Imagine you are within 60 feet of the Clough Undergraduate Learning Commons site on the Georgia Tech campus. You have tuned into the local AR channel on your iPhone. “Ding, Come see what the Clough Undergraduate Learning Commons will look like. ” You have just been notified that you are within proximity (60 feet or less) of the Clough GeoSpot, denoted by an emblem on the ground at the location you should stand.

Once standing at the GeoSpot, you indicate your presence to the browser, Argon. You also check off on the option to increase your accuracy by loading a panoramic image from your location to steady and more accurately line up the augmented graphics with surrounding buildings.

Argon then displays augmented content authored for this scene. Although the Clough Learning Commons is currently under construction, the browser lets you to see what the building will look like once complete. Interactive elements such as clickable icons and buttons on and around the new structure open content bubbles, play videos, and present images and informative text.

Point the phone around to see various parts of the building, sidewalks, and landscaping. Landscaping and public space decisions can be finalized on site by evaluating options. Sine it’s connected to the internet, votes on the best option are tallied in real-time.

The building rendering can be switched out for a wire frame version to reveal interior rooms and circulation patterns. An image gallery can be seamlessly integrated into the browser to flip through renderings of the building over a 24 hour time period. A video monologue from the architect tells the story of the building’s design process. Once the building is complete, there is the potential for students and faculty to leave comments around the building through augmented tags. Rarely do architects have the opportunity to retrieve direct feedback from the users of their design. The use of place-specific tags and comments connect what, where, and who to the physical environment.

The visualization can be any combination of the following features:

• Region trigger informing channel subscriber they are within proximity to a GeoSpot

• Introduction audio narrative auto plays on check in

• Building rendering shown based on time of day

• Image gallery flips through building renderings (1 rendering for every 2 hours) to show shadows, lighting, etc.

• Landscaping, sidewalks, and exterior finishes can be turned on and off

• Building can be shown as wire frame

• Building material callouts can be turned on

• Video from architect, student body, or representative

• Users can go “inside” the building by clicking on a placed icon that reveals the interior view from that location

• Callouts can contain a variety of content for marketing, PR, or wayfinding purposes

In ESRI GIS, you can export your data as a KML file. There is a free extension you can download to provide you with this capability. Then, I uploaded the KML file to the web server. Then I went to the Google Maps page, maps.google.com where in the address bar, I put the path to one of my kml files which looks something like this: http://www.buffalogreencode.com/kml/strong_weak.kml. Google Maps will load this KML file as a layer once I hit the search button with the above file path in the address search bar.

I then customized the size of it by selecting the share link and customizing the size and original zoom. Google Maps will provide you with iframe code that you can copy paste into your web page to embed the map on your site. Check out all 45 KML Google Maps I created to summarize the citizen of Buffalo’s concerns and the future possibilities.

Your website should facilitate a conversation around your projects, community, and city in which you work. It should be easy for you to post content to your site and social networks automatically. Facebook, Twitter, Ning, and third party sites such as AIA KnowledgeNet (via RSS) can be connected so that anything posted on your site appears on other sites as well. You should be able to monitor your effectiveness in driving traffic and interest.

Visualizing building data can be quite useful and help to showcase development in context. Emerging technologies in Augmented Reality among other web-based tools can “mashup” GIS, CADD, and databases into one viewing environment for the web and mobile devices.

Citizen commenting applications are hot right now. Anything that solicits community feedback will drive traffic and provide a platform for community dialog. Podcast tours that combine images and audio can be effectively used for guided tours to educate visitors and residents about the past, present, and future of a place.

Urban planners struggle with visualizing streetscape improvements. Commercial streetscape improvement plans (such as TIF districts) can be interactive to show before and after development. For districts with facade improvement programs, the visualization can show a business owner what appropriate alterations such as windows, signage, entryways, and planters would look like. In historically sensitive areas, a new development can be derailed if the community doesn’t like it. Interactive visualization of the proposed building’s facade allows for individual features such as porches versus juliette balconies or a pitched versus flat roof to be switched out during a community meeting. Cost factors can be attached to each concession to monitor design changes the market could actually support. I’ve been in many community meetings where the developer had a difficult time communicating with residents because he didn’t have a way to interactively show alternatives and the costs attached to them. Ultimately, these community meetings ended with communication failure.

If you struggle to utilize visualization and communication strategies, then you need an expert who knows how to affordably leverage technology for your profession.

Reality mining is answering the questions “where are the people?” and “what are they doing right now?” Location, call logs, and proximity are data that is gathered from smart phones daily. But, how do we make sense of this data to build more intelligent spaces that better serve people?

Sense Networks is striving to answer these questions with an application called macrosense that strives to “extract value from their location data, one of the most unbiased and rich sources of intelligence on human behavior.”

Just how do they obtain location based data from hundreds of people? I’m not sure that it can be purchased like a marketing list. Mobile apps like Foursquare and Whrrl (which I don’t use because I don’t want anyone to know where I am at any given moment) require you to “check in” to physical locations. These apps are tracking their users which will eventually open up place-based advertising opportunities.

On Nov 3, 2010, Facebook announced it wants to replace Google in the mobile search. Instead of searching for sushi restaurants nearby on Yelp or Google, Facebook will help you based on where your friends have recently eaten or suggest. The influence of Facebook “friends” can change the dynamics of how people move through a city at any given time. And Facebook already knows a lot about each user including their geography.

4% of Americans use location-based services, but it will grow just as cell phone ownership did. More data will be available (probably for purchase) to answer questions about who is doing what at any given time. Imagine how this data becomes intelligence behind a plan. Location-based intelligence has the potential to shift the art of place-making.

You have probably seen the commercials for the Xbox Kinect where the game tracks the user’s body as he/she mirrors the dancer on the tv screen. This is only half of what the system can do. I don’t have one (yet) and this isn’t a commercial to buy one. I want to point out some of the features of this technology and how it can change the way we work and experience places.

In this photograph taken from the video below, the demonstrator is waving his hand. What he is actually doing is browsing through the menu shown behind him. The video camera in the Kinect tracks his movement allowing his body to be the controller. There is the potential to get fatigued quickly but the invisible controller streamlines the interface and enables him to control it from a distance. Kind of reminds you of the movie, Minority Report doesn’t it?

Imagine that you are browsing files on your computer (without sitting in front of it) and you are about to walk through your 3D renderings on your flat screen tv. Using this technology, it is very doable.

Back in 2001, I learned how to create virtual reality, where a tracking system like this one tells the computer where you are located in the virtual world and what you are looking at. The goofy goggles turned the virtual world into a 3D one, like in the 3D movies you have probably seen in the theater. We aren’t far from a combination of user tracking, ubiquitous interface, high-definition projection, and 3D content immersively coming together in the workplace. In fact, you can ad-hoc this type of system today for around $17,000.

For now, we have a love affair with the touch screen such as on the iPad, iPod touch, and iPhone. These interfaces are designed with the fingertip (and mobility) in mind and track information such as where you are and the direction you are facing. If you work in the field, you might consider a touch screen version of your project management application which can be designed for ease of use with large buttons, simple navigation, and quick loading. The ability to touch and track a project, correspond from the field, snap a photograph and have it automatically geotagged and sent to your database can save you a lot of time and frustration.

I’m using my iPad to carry presentations with me on the go, perfect for conferences and meetings where a laptop would be clumsy and might not be able to connect to the internet.

In December, I launched a podcast, tourchicagolakefront.com meant for any type of mobile device that can download and play podcasts with embedded images. It is a 7 stop bike tour of the South Lakefront that talks about the architectural history and future plans for the waterfront area in Chicago. While you stand at one of the stopping points, I bring up pictures on your mobile device–some historical photos of the location and others are views from an angle that you can’t see from where you are standing but are relevant to the story. Podcasting can greatly impact the public’s understanding of place and engagement with urban planning and design. If you have an idea on how to utilize video podcasting for historic preservation, planning, or architectural design, I can help you bring it to life.

I recently completed a new website, StudioD architecture. We wanted to keep it simple but take advantage of technologies that would enable us to syndicate content, keep it updated, and present a portfolio on the site and on a map. A firm’s website can look very different from the competition but share the key fundamentals which are:
- News and articles
- A Portfolio
- About, Contact, and relevant pages

The objective is simplicity in the aesthetics, we aren’t trying to do too much or detract from the content. Too many design-related sites aren’t easy to read or navigate. Many are outdated and difficult to keep current. So, I put this anatomy presentation together for what I think the basic functionality should be. Robust on the backend, easy on the site visitor.

I know small firms have suffered lately, no doubt, but that doesn’t mean you can get away with neglecting your site, especially your online portfolio. It amazes me how many architecture firm websites have become stale over the last year. Look closely at yours and double check the following:
- Is your latest news post over a year old?
- Does your portfolio show well on high resolution monitors?
- Does the look and feel of the site reflect the quality of your firm’s work?
- What differentiates you? Is it reflected on the site?
- Does it still use Flash (and, gasp! have a splash page with a “Enter site” link for a home page)?

And last but the most important** is your site easy to navigate? Does it use eccentric navigation rather than a clear, intuitive menu bar? Prospects don’t have patience for artsy navigation; they want to get to the good stuff in less than 2 clicks.

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you better ensure a website budget is created for the new year ($2,000 can generally get you a face lift).