serial consign

Over the last few days I've discovered a pair of interesting projects that explore urban form through computation. The first is an interactive map of Rome that locates and contextualizes a number of 18th century perspective drawings, the second is a software application that utilizes procedural modeling to generate expansive 3D cities.

Imago Urbis: Giuseppe Vasi’s Grand Tour of Rome is an interactive archive of the work of Giuseppe Vasi (1710-1782). Like Pannini and Piranesi, Vasi is considered one of the great vedutisti (delineators of urban space). His masterwork was Magnificenze di Roma antica e moderna, a 238 image, ten-volume collection of prints that provided comprehensive documentation of the architecture and urban character of Rome. The crux of the Imago Urbis project is that it is takes Vasi's perspectival views and locates them on the Nolli map. The screen capture above illustrates how the vantage point of each perspective is identified and how architectural and infrastructural "points of interest" are annotated and colour-coded so that the user can situate the drawing in relation to the surrounding urban fabric.

The statement for project contextualizes the relationship between Vasi and Giambattista Nolli (the author of the Nolli map) as follows:

Given that Nolli and Vasi were contemporaries and collaborators focusing on the same subject, it seems obvious that their work is intrinsically related; up to now no vehicle existed to effectively synthesize their individual achievements into a single resource that effectively evokes Settecento Rome. We believe that it will be extremely informative to place these 18th century documents into their 21st century context so that spatial relationships can be drawn and new conclusions reached about their continuing significance to the understanding of the city. Our overarching objective is to document and integrate two distinct graphic modes for representing the Eternal City: the pictorial view and the ichnographic plan.

This interactive piece functions as both a map and an archive, a historical document and a database of urban views.

This is the main interface for Imago Urbis, which identifies the location of each of Vasi's drawings. Beyond communicating the inventory of available views, the map resonates with the increasingly familiar process of geo-navigating through a set of images (on everyblock for example). I find Imago Urbis extremely engaging because it applies numerous tropes from contemporary urban informatics to a historical archive, breathing new life into old representations of urban space. In addition to the overall scope of the project, the elegant interface and design are also commendable; how can you not love an "urban viewport" with a taxonomy class for the sites of executions?

Imago Urbis was developed by Jim Tice, Erik Steiner, Allan Ceen, and Dennis Beyer from the Department of Architecture, InfoGraphics Lab and Department of Geography at the University of Oregon. This is the same team that brought us the Interactive Noli Map in 2005. [via the map room]

CityEngine is a new software system developed by Procedural Inc., a Switzerland-based developer with ties to the ETH Zürich technical university. In watching the video above, it is quite clear how this tool could be employed to quickly produce sophisticated models of urban space based off defined parameters, design rules, material palettes, etc. The application seems equally capable of generating meandering street geometry as it does detailing elevations - one can only imagine how useful a tool like this could be in the film or gaming industries (the software made quite a splash at fmx/08). More abstractly, the software speaks to the emergent nature of urban form and growth, when viewed in fast-forward the process seems even more amazing.

More information on CityEngine can be obtained at the Procedural website as there a number of additional animations available for viewing, Procedural CEO Pascal Müller's site is also worth taking a look at. [via digital urban]

Having connections to web development and architectural practice (I've developed sites for two architecture studios), I'm rather opinionated about the manner in which firms archive and market themselves online. In general, I think the presence of most architecture firms on the web is tremendously underwhelming and the organization of an online portfolio almost always boils down to the "timeline vs. project typology" binary. That said, I was pleasantly surprised to stumble across the web site for LOHA: Lorcan O'Herlihy Architects this past weekend.

The LOHA site mimics the structure and appearance of the Periodic Table of Elements and proposes a classification system for pertinent information associated with architectural practice. As illustrated in the screen capture above, the interface for the site is essentially the project archives and entries are categorized into news, project types, firm recognition and publications—all the information you'd expect a firm to provide. What makes this site interesting is the fact that you have access to everything at once with a "viewer" for displaying related photo-content. The site champions information and access to it rather than photography and this is a welcome change considering the all-too-familiar strategy of tacking a sickly UI onto a glorified slideshow. The empty cells that currently separate clusters of nodes will allow for a fair amount of future expansion, so it looks like this site has a lifespan of several years before a redesign.

Given the idiosyncratic nature of this interface, it is accompanied by a mini-legend which explains the nomenclature used in tagging each cell. Each cell features an abbreviation of the project name, the year completed, the square footage and colour coded tags which denote project type (residential, commercial, etc.) and other information (i.e. if the project has been published or received any awards). When you scroll over the various cells you get an interesting reading of the connectivity within the work and information archived across the site - it is really quite a pleasure to explore this archive! Kudos to the sayFINN design agency for this work.

Some tangentially related links: this project immediately made me remember the Periodic Table of Visualization Methods and Catalogtree's site is another great example of an interface that champions an indexical approach and visual identity.