Scaling Material Urban Commons

Project Logo
DOI of the original publication
URI
https://irf.fhnw.ch/handle/11654/32664
Project type
angewandte Forschung
Project start
01.09.2021
Project end
31.08.2024
Project status
abgeschlossen
Project contact
Bedö, Viktor
Project manager
Contributors
Description
Abstract
Scaling Material Urban Commons is a speculative city-making project investigating automated logistics for commoning material urban commons, such as rescued food. It postulates that some forms of material commons require different forms of beyond-hyperlocal scale commoning. The project critically investigates and prototypes technological and sociotechnical conditions for city-wide commoning of material urban commons, using a predictive-algorithm-based system emulator that orchestrates pickup and drop-off of rescued food in Basel and London. Introducing predictive technology shifts the site of commoning closer towards an algorithm-driven platform, which raises following key questions: What frictions emerge from changing scale in commoning? How to reconcile predictive technologies with local, idiosyncratic food cultures? How to engage in commoning with algorithmic agents in participatory settings? By addressing these questions, the project aims at creating imaginaries of commoning-based smart city alternatives.
Link
https://criticalmedialab.ch/projects/smuc/
Created during FHNW affiliation
Yes
Strategic action fields FHNW
School
Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst Basel FHNW
Institute
Institut Experimentelle Design- und Medienkulturen
Financed by
Schweizerischer Nationalfonds (SNF)
Project partner
Centre for Urban and Community Research, Goldsmiths, University of London
Contracting authority
SAP reference
Keywords
urban scales
commoning infrastructure
alternative smart city imaginaries
Subject (DDC)
700 - Künste und Unterhaltung
Publications
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Publication
IoT Cards for Predictive Food Rescue
(2023) Bedö, Viktor; Martins, Yann Patrick; Güngör, Ozan
The IoT Cards for Predictive Food Rescue explores specificities of commoning- and care-based data-driven infrastructure through the lens of prototyping cards. The cards were developed by an experimental design project investigating the predictive distribution of rescued food and the inherent friction between heterogenous situated cooking habits and city-wide infrastructure. The cards present themselves as a subversive extension pack for the IoT Service Kit, a third party open-source prototyping toolset for IoT service design.
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Publication
I Am a Nettle: Approaching More-than-Human Service Design
(MoTH Cities, 01/2022) Bedö, Viktor; Heitlinger, Sara
The workshop title ‘Data Interactions In The More-than-Human Smart City’ on the first reading suggests questions about sensor types, algorithms, interfaces, devices, apps, mobility solutions and what they afford to hedgehogs. I would argue that the workshop goes far beyond that in not only investigating knowledge embodied in design, but the frontiers of the knowable for designers’ bodies.
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Publication
Predictive Tech in Scaling Material Urban Commons
(26.03.2021) Bedö, Viktor; Choi, Jaz Hee-jeong
Scaling Material Urban Commons is a speculative city-making project investigating automated logistics for commoning material urban commons, such as rescued food. It postulates that some forms of material commons require different forms of beyond-hyperlocal scale commoning. The project critically investigates and prototypes technological and sociotechnical conditions for city-wide commoning of material urban commons, using a predictive-algorithm-based system emulator that orchestrates pickup and drop-off of rescued food in Basel and London. Introducing predictive technology shifts the site of commoning closer towards an algorithm- driven platform, which raises following key questions: What frictions emerge from changing scale in commoning? How to reconcile predictive technologies with local, idiosyncratic food cultures? How to engage in commoning with algorithmic agents in participatory settings? By addressing these questions, the project aims at creating imaginaries of commoning-based smart city alternatives.
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Publication
Three-Tier Garden: More-than-Human Choreographies in the Post-COVID City
(11.01.2023) Ampatzidou, Cristina; Ntourakos, Ektor; Bedö, Viktor
The Three-Tier Garden is a more-than-human design research project exploring shared urban gardens as places for healing and recovery from the traumatic ruptures caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. It builds on the rapidly growing interest among urban residents in engaging with natural environments, particularly during the period of restrictions. It explores design opportunities for individual and collective posttraumatic growth by strengthening the sense of belonging and grounding, primarily through what we call mutual choreographies: how gardens and gardeners shape each other’s lives through the temporal and socio-spatial infrastructures of the garden.