Social knitting.

The value of the historical monuments and buildings it is related to the ability of linking several demographics into a time and place and space. The major value of the historical place is the ability to talk about it, to discuss its past present and future important aspect.

Tourism, story telling. People want to hear stories, people want to tell sotries, people want to be a part of the story, they want to be a par of the hisstory.

Mirror neurons make it possible for us to imagine, to experince the story, the movies, the documentary, to go through what others have gone through, without having to physically be there.

Story telling. How do we make stories, how do we produce stories. We innovate, we do something that others have not done. It does not matter how small or large it is, if it has an innvative aspect and it is fun, then it becomes interesting and publishable.

From a cell into a life4m, is a great play on words, it is something that can grasp someone's imagination. The cells that are being developed at the studio have the potential of becoming life4m's.

A sculptor's cell and a green house cell + a yoga cell + a business cell, a cinema cell and a an office cell. how many of these can we squeeze into one of these cells? Do we want to get the roskoph involved? or do we want to push the wood idea.

Does everything happen in the middle and than we add things to the one side or the other side. How do the ends work? what is the detail? what are the materials? how do we make it waterproof? do we just add rubber? make it green?

Can we find out what exactly we can do with the gardens? in terms of party wall aspect, in terms of the liveable cell aspect, in terms of making sure that there is no problem with anything, including the Lawyer's side.

What do we sell? and how do we sell it? what do we design and how do we design it?

Brain Body Space – Space Body Brain

20/10/2009 – 22’31’’

A brain wave – we cracked something, or had we?

The value of the replaceable element, if it would become replaceable, the question is would the meaning related to this element, continue to be just as dear to us as what it had been, when it was known that it could not be replaced, that there was no possibility of replication, that that was it, you loose it and it is gone forever.

An example we take is the photo which we had taken 15 twenty years ago, in relation to the printed photo we would have taken with a digital camera and which it lives digitally, therefore it can be replicated a many time as we wanted it to. The obvious answer that comes to my mind is that the dearer and more emotional one is the photo that cannot be replicated or it is much harder to do so.

Would we feel the same about our parents our lovers our children our dogs, would we loose sensitivity and or emotion and or love in relation to them, if we there was a possibility to replicate them?

This is a different argument thought. We were discussing.....
If we could change our bodies as easier as we could change the digital pictures, would we loose respect for it, would we care less for it?

Establishing a relationships, there is this folklore saying, I have had this hammer for the pst 10 years, I have changed it's head 7 times, and I have changed it's handle 12 times.

The underlying aspect is the emotional attachment. When you evaluate it, is it disposable, is it changeable, is it replaceable. If the emotion is related in creating our relationships with our bodies and the outside world. How do you kill the emotion? and does living here and now make any sense? does it make any sense without then and after . Be here now, it does not make sense, if we get rid of the past and future. WHY? well the be here now is related to being there for someone or something as suppose to not being there for someone or something, now this only makes sense if thre is past and future, otherwise you would be here now all the time. And is this not the same thing? the importance of being here now is due to the time factor, if we are to remove the time factor, the very essence of be here now would have no real meaning or at least it would not have the meaning as we understand it now.

We make a judgement about our feelings, we make lots of judgments, we do not analyse a lot of parameters, we look at it from the level we understand it, and we then work to making it better, adding this taking that out, maybe we should not be doing it, maybe we should appreciate the before and after in order to appreciate the here and know, as this is how we are wired to do so. This is within our bodies and mind's abilities to do so. How do we make sense of here and now without past and future. Well we anchor our thoughts of here and now to the past and future. The here and now only makes sense to past and future, or the emotional aspect of it anyway. If we get rid of past and future then we have removed the emotional aspect, and if we have removed the emotional aspect then we have removed the very meaning of what we understand humans to be. We do try and take out the emotional aspect on ou everyday business life, as this emotional aspect perhaps keeps us stagnant and does not allow us to move forward in terms of developmet. But then the question is what is development, by perpetuating ourselves to the future, we are in a way killing the very essence or aspect of the future. We are therefore a killing the very aspect of time, if things can be replicated at a digital speed, if we can make things at a digital speed, then what meaning is left to time. Time has no meaning, time seizes to exist.
My second question is the feeling of freedom. How this feeling does comes about? Is it related to our ability to dream about the future, is it about the feeling that there is something out there waiting for us to find out, there are opportunities out there. But if we have killed time, then we have killed the future, if we have killed the future, then have we killed the sense of freedom the sense of achievement, the sense of working towards something the sense of goals the sense of finishing something on time.
Our essence of life is linked to the aspect of time, if we kill the time then have we killed the very meaning of liefe? What is life if the context of timelessness?
It is interesting to think that by killing this one parameter everytihing changes. It is interesting to note that according to the discussions we have carried out in these previous pages.

So let’s just stop for a moment and try and highlight important aspect in ou lives and what they mean to us.

Time?
Future?
Past?
Emotion?
Freedom?
Relationship?

TIME TIME TIME TIME TIME TIME TIME TIME is of the essence at the centre of how we live our life’s, at the epicentre of how we make sense of the world. Is the digitisation killing the time and is this in return killing the human in us. The question is what makes us humans? What are the charachteristics that define us as humans?
So, is there time? Or have we invented it? Has the aspect of where we happen to have evolved created the sense of time in order for us to make sense and order of the world we leave in. Is time just another aspect we had to invent as we have invented religion as we have invented other social structures in order to make sense and order.

Time time time time time is on my side, yeas it is, time time time time time is on my side oh yes it is.....

Now the question is, are these the important characteristics of our brains functioning? Brain has to make sense of its surroundings in order to minimize energy consumtion in order to maintain a healthy balance in order to existi. Is brain continuously trying to negotiate that very fine line of existence, as the bubble does. It is most efficient up to a point and than it bburst, or rather it seases existing.
SO yes, I think I am now surer then ever that the time element is the making of our brains, and the social acceptance of time is an outcome of the sum total of all the other human brains that have accepted the explanation of time. It cost, energy wise a lot more to fight it then to accept it, it is therefore acceptable. But as we move forward as we undertand more and more as we try to squeeze more meanings into this social accepted understanding there comes a point when our theories fail, when our theories and beliefs fail to explain how and why are things happening the way they are. These point are the points of bifurcation of a total paradigm shift, sonce up until that point the social know how could be explained unders those existing terms, and past that point the social know how was larger and more complex than the theories up to that point made sense in relation to it. So when they stop making sens then we shift to new theories.
Perfect example is the brain and the outer body experience. We are so engrained in our bodies that we can only make sense to the world in relation to our bodies. Now try and remove the consciousness from our bodies and you will see what happens, our consciousness shifts, our brains start making new relations to the world, they start making new meanings, as why has appeared true, no longer does. What has appeared true was the base through which that brain used that body to navigate and make sense to that context or that worlds, t now no longer does, why? Well, because now there is this new body related to this conscious brain, there is this new environment related to this conscious brain, the brain has found out that it is no longer safe in making sense the way it did until now, as it has found out that actually what the brain thought made sense, it actually does not, under these new findings and these new conditions. So what is SENSE in relation to the brain and consciousness, well I would guess that sense are the walls. The house the place where we feel safe. And unless we make sense of things we do not feel safe and if we do not feel safe we fear for our existence and if we fear for our existence and we look to make sense to the world in order to exist then we either try and make our home by making sense to the world or we ask for a refuge by following other peoples definition of sense. We try and adapt that sense; we seek refuge to that sense. This is the sense as a religion, when we cn not make sense of something we start believing in something out there that we can not make sense of. This is a pure example of how we/our brains invent sense or stability in order to minimise energy in order ot feel safe and secure in order to persevere.

So, we have discussed various interesting aspects of how we make sense of the worlds, we have related sense to stability to the house to the place where we are comfortable in.
If we understand the workings of the brain, we ought to start thinking in a more direct way in relation to our house, our roads/streets, our towns, our cities our countries and our world. How do we translate this notion of making sense to the notion of making sense within our house, our familieis, our roads, our cities.
Do we push ahead and kill the time, and what fundamental impact will this have in how we make our cities? Are we developing that way wehre this is happening.
So the question is, do we truly understand how the new technologies are having an impact in how we make sense of our world and how we interact with it today. DO we trully understand what are these key aspect? What are these key components through which, or based on which, we interact in our daily lifes. Can we simplify them? Can we find out the core elements? and based on these core elements, and by understanding where the technology is going, can we then make prediction about the future events? Will it have the same meaning? If the meaning of these key words through which we make sense of the world today and every day shifts, do our futures shift? Undoubtedly they do.....

Can we try and identify major shifts in history that had a major impact on how we lived our lives?
The invention of the internet? The computer? Electric light? ……

Can we trace how our brains have changed, shifted or transformed the relationship to our bodies. CAn we change the culttural shift, which it is very much related to the economical shift, whcih is very much related to traditional shift. We move from one pace to another, and we try and keep on the same values as we did to where we came from. We soon find out that it does not work, we assimilate and move on. We do tend to find out people that do not assimilate quite easy, they do not move on, they stagnate. Why does this happen? WI would get back again to the very essence of the path of least resistance. They do not move on because up to that point that they do it is somehow easier for them stick to it, it is because that is what they know that is what they have learned that is what they are comfortable with and they do not know what the effects would be of changing gear, changing sides, they are in a way afraid of the unknown because the ties that link them to the known are probably still very strong. A lot stronger than just letting go.

We see these happenings with the ALbanian Diaspora in America. We see this these happenig with the Albanian dispora in Switzerland and Germany. Why does it happen, why has happened a ot less in London. It is a lot to do with the environment, with the context. Does the context accomodate this change? does it allow for a transformation and fusion? or is it a closed system, it protectss itself from the new and unknown. I beleve that this is the difference between the socially closed systems and socially opened systems. What are the density numbers we need to reach before the barriers of networking and negotiation are broken down to the level where interaction is allowed. Is there a specific number of people? Is there a correlation of this type of close knot community nd seggregation? what needs to happen within these communities in order to open uo and allow the new to enter. Allow for turbulances and see them as positive, rather then as a negative.

So the question is?

What is the relationship betweeen the cities density, it's mix of social background and race before it changes behaviour?

What do you gain from opening up?

..and what do you loose from opening up?

see the social knitting at the city level and how does history effects the interaction and relationship?

I have no idea why these last couple of days I can not fall asleep that easy. I have a feeling it is to do with the point that my PArt 3 stuff is lacking behind. I have not had a chance to engage with it in a meaningfull way for the past several weeks now.

Noveber the 1st is fast approaching. It is time to take some serious decisions, apply some serious deadlines and follow them up. Make sure they do happen. As I am typing my thoughts I am getting a sense of uplift related to my ability to express my thoughts in a written format. It somehow appears that my ability has improved. ALl of the sudden I have become better at it. Perhaps I have always had it in there, the problem was that I did not allow myself to engage with it due to the insecurity, which dates way back from my childhood.

I remember not long time ago I took an IQ test and scored 144. I was told I could be a writer based on what I was being tested against. So here I am 12'43'' no sleep in sight, and I continue to write........well I guess I stopped.....

Social Context is an important context for carrying out my research. The process and methodologies that I will be using would involve various groups of people, in terms of their background, cultural, traditional, geographical, political, economical etc. For this reason, it is important for me to engage with those groups that according to my risk analyses appear to be of a lower risk and more prone to be successful. I will take few examples in order to illustrate my point. 1) When trying to understand human behaviour, their requirements, their ideas about what community good, and or public good is, their actions, etc you start getting different representations of what they mean, based on geographical location, historical background, culture, tradition, demographics etc. same place gains several meanings depending on the above parameters. It is ideal therefore to engage with larger areas and variety of regions and parts of the world to try and understand what the essential human requirements are, the ones that are not related to all the upper levels of consciousness. Research proposal tries to understand the underlying principles of human subconscious behaviour. So the research will be predominantly focused on the subconscious rather than the conscious behaviour. To understand the subconscious behaviour, I will propose to carry out series of surveys and try and understand the conscious behaviour, and or conscious answers as to what spaces and places people describe as Public good or beneficial to the public. Places that are welcoming for everyone, places that do not segregate. The importance of the subconscious feeling is extremely important, because we as designers may think that we have designed a 'Public Good' space/place, but people of various backgrounds may not feel that those places are welcoming for them. It is therefore important to identify what are the causes for such feelings.

You may have noticed moving through various areas, or streets or places and squares within cities or towns, that there is that inherent feel good or not so good factor. Can we identify those characteristics that create these feelings, can we evaluate them, can we quantify them? what are they? is there a set of repeated patterns that are predominant throughout, in all parts of the world, are there any universal aspects that can provide us with the insight of humans and their feeling and thoughts as they move through places and spaces.

I will be looking at paths of least resistance and what that means in a social behaviour context. I will be looking at feedback loops as tools for change, behavioural change,. Feedback loop as the mirroring aspect, create awareness of our beliefs and behaviours, of what we say we do and what we actually do.

Another aspect of the Social context is the personal one, the relationship of oneself to the immediate context, i.e. to friends and family, their health and wellbeing, their needs and wants. Am I in that time fray in that space frame where my research is regarded as positive, beneficial and welcoming, or is it looked as a negative and impinging on the immediate relationships and understandings. It was pointed out to me that this context perhaps should be called the family context rather than the social context.

Going back to the original social context. I realise that carrying out extensive research on Human social behaviour and human behaviour in general would require extensive amount of time. This will only happen if it correlates with a particular project which my office may acquire during the time of my research. In that instance I will strategically aim to combine the two in order to create a synergetic approach where each would benefit the other. Failing this the process and the methodology would change to fit with the created realities, whereby I would focus on critical literature review and base my research on this aspect whereby extracting important data which may have the possibility of being translated into a programmatic code, whereby would work with my research assistant to create Computational tools and generate information in a digital/virtual model which would than be analysed in relation to the real physical environment. A description of this sort of methodology or process is the Intervisibility tools, which is able to identify in digital model , areas of high visibility with high usage potential, and areas of low visibility with low usage potential. The findings would then be checked against the real configuration and usage of the physical space.

Professional Context.

My research is closely intertwined with my professional life. My everyday job is running a company which employs around 70 people, and delivers services and products for 15 – 20 clients at the same time. I have been working on management systems and structures to try and extract myself from various second level tasks which are not very strategic for the company and try and focus myself on the strategic aspects of the running of the company. I have managed to set these structures and systems in place up to a point, but they still require a constant monitoring and presence from my behalf. I have considered stepping up the managements structures and creating a board of directors who are able to make decisions as a board without ultimately requiring my own presence.

Various strategic involvement in acquiring new jobs and shifting the company on new directions are now an ongoing event. I have been setting up various meetings and travelling to various parts of the world, looking at the oppurtunities for large scale urban planning developments and looking into how best to create teams who are able to produce a substantial proposals to the governmental bodies and or investors in order to engage in such projects.

There is a major discussion around the worlds about creating or generating affordable housing, creating generating sustainable communities, but very little effort to actually get the processes moving. In UK, CABE is one of the organisations which is a leader in carrying out research and producing various document guidance for designers on this areas. I will be focusing on researching, understanding and reviewing the research, analyses and methodologies that have been carried out by this body, following that

So to go back to the time element, my professional context is closely intertwined and it effects me on daily basis. I would evaluate the processes and potentially revise the methodolgy based on the success or trajectory that the company takes. I am therefore prone to amendments and changes, this is what I would call a dynamic take on my research processes and methodologies. There are, however, parameters which can be regarded as static, such as my focus on ‘Public’ good and what that means, how it can be defined, how it’s meaning fluctuates, how it may be coded and what tools are produced based on findings, what are they able to reveal and how can they be utilised in generating, and/or evaluating current or new Urban conditions?

Today is the first day

Hello world,

Today is my first day of blogging. I am feeling quite rustic in my writing ability, but I guess I have to break the ice sometimes and it seems that today is the day.

Today has been my first day in having a go at producing a pecha kucha presentation. It is not as easy as one thinks, when you hear about it's structure. 20 images presented for 20 seconds each, an easy task i thought, but here I am now, getting away from it and started blogging.

Am not sure if this is what am I supposed to be doing, i.e. writing whatever comes to my mind at this point in time, now, without thinking much about its meaning, content or structure.

Talking about structured writing, I have just recently learned a scaffolding technique. Most people probably learn this at their secondary school, but here is I, always running away from having to write, so yesterday was the day when my confidence in writing did get quite a boost and as a consequence I have now started this blog.

My writing, no matter how terrible I think it is, it is no longer to be kept secret or kept away from the public eye, it is now open and out there for everyone to see and comment on, for everyone to judge.

I guess today is that day, when everything becomes public. I will keep on writing, now and forever. It is an art form, an ability that I envy in others. It is something that i totally get fascinated by. It is something that I wanted to do for a very very long time. And here it is.........don't run away please :)....

The decision of just going for it has not been that easy. You always get that feeling at the back of your mind, which says: what will they think of it? would it be terrible, or could it be good enough. Whichever way it is, I decided that it has to improve as I am not happy with it, my writing is not good enough, it has to improve in a major way, structurally, syntactically, phonetically, poetically, etc etc....so bare with me as I use ''so'' over and over again, bare with me as I use ''I'', over and over again, bare with me as I repeat myself over and over again ''over and over again'', but be there with me and support me as I evolve in this process of transporting my thoughts from my brain to a written word.

And who knows, perhaps soon enough I may be able to help others in writing.

I must say writing, my writing, never reads as well as it sounds when it is inside my brain, somehow the sense and the deep and thoughtful meaning somehow evaporates through the process of transporting my thoughts into a written word.

I would like to hear from everyone that could give me one single/simple advice on this matter, but do not say carry-on writing, as, as you can see I have already discovered that one. So yes, I will keep on writing and I will keep on repeating myself every time I get a block, every time I can not think of anything to write about, I will repeat myself, as I am doing right now.

So here we go, it was nice to be a part of a group yesterday and to hear that writing is an art form, or a sport, or a scientific undertaking that has to be worked on. It does not just flow, it does not just appear beautifully in front of you, for you to enjoy it. It is a skill that has to be learned, and yes, some people find it easier and the others more difficult, but you will never know until you try and you will never find out where you are at it until you do it. So if you are like me then i would say 'Just do it''.

I guess it is the same sort of thing as running the marathon. I did not think I could do it, but i did it. With every extra step I took my confidence grew. But then I overdid it and killed my knees so my confidence shrank right back.

So before I go today, my very first day, I have to leave myself an anchor, and to remind myself and everyone that this blog is supposed to be about Generative Computing in Urbanism and Architecture and not about my ability to write...bare with me as I get into it...until later ....