Author: Matthew Cook
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Excavating smart city knowledge politics
Since its inception over a decade ago, the smart discourse and its promoters have been incredibly successful to the extent that now many cities identify themselves as smart cities. While there is no single definition of a smart city, in broad terms such developments are based on digital infrastructures comprising sensors and data hubs which […]
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Governing cities of multiple intelligences
No longer artefacts of science fiction, artificially intelligences (AIs) are becoming increasingly embedded in our towns and cities. Urban AI can now be found in transport systems such as in robots for grocery delivery and connected autonomous vehicles more generally, as well as in city governance, planning and design practices in the form of so-called […]
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Governing sustainable urban innovation: navigating the generic and specific.
In many UK towns and cities the search for responses to climate change is framed by extant urban fabrics and thus favour incumbent technologies and actors associated with these. For example, road networks which favour motorised vehicles have almost inevitably directed sustainable transport innovation toward electric vehicles produced by established vehicle manufacturers. Indeed, rendering transport […]
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Exploring a quantified commute
Like many people I hope to return to my office this autumn for a few days a week. While I am looking forward to catching up with long standing colleagues I haven’t seen for sometime and meeting some of my students in person for the first time, my desire for sociality is tempered by a […]
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Redesigning major infrastructure projects for a post Covid19 world
As lockdown measures ease many people are wondering what will life be like post Covid19. Will there be a new normal in which society operates in profoundly different ways with less travel for example, more online meetings and working at home. Or will it be a little like when we take a holiday, we return […]
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Designing Urban Atmospheres
In everyday speech, people may say that a restaurant has a very romantic atmosphere. Likewise, the atmosphere of a shopping centre may be said to be vibrant. It may be difficult so explain exactly what such an atmosphere is or how it is cultivated but we can be certain that a design expert of some […]
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Architectural Innovation in Energy Systems
Electricity systems underpin much of everyday life in the city. As urban populations expand, become more affluent and carbon reduction targets ramp up it is likely that such systems will need to change considerably over the coming years. Here many commenters argue that wholesale transitions to low carbon robust electricity systems are needed. However, as […]
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The challenges of smart city mobilities
Smart urbanisation is one of the main approaches for cities around the world to realise their social, environmental and economic goals. Applying the latest ‘smart IT ‘to augment transport, energy, communication and other urban systems and services that underpin everyday life in cities is seen increasingly as necessary and desirable. However, research shows that there […]
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Smart Cities in the Making
Many cities across the world are being reconfigured by digital technologies and reframed as ‘smart cities’. However, cities are far from passive contexts in which digital technologies are simply implemented. How smart reworks the social in cities and specifically how it maintains and generates social difference is a key matter of concern. However, social difference […]
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Citizenship in the smart city
The suite of smart city standards recently published by the British Standards Institute attempts to legitimise smart city developments by placing citizens at the centre of them. Working with Simon Joss and Youri Dayot from the University of Westminster, I analysed the standards to try to figure out how citizenship might evolve in the smart […]