I came across this one in a book on the Rush Library. Not that earth shattering, but something about the textual overlay caught my eye. Could be the use of text rather than colour and legend, or rather than icons to represent the use of the space. Well done.

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Atzinger Gästhaus — 12 December 2007 — 14:00
I happened across some notes I jotted down while enjoying some wonderful pork stew at this little restaurant.
Munich is rather wet this year. It is a bit of a dampener — literally. The thing about this place though is the wonderful bustle. There’s people out and about. Certainly at the times of day that I am. It’s not crazy crowded — that would bother me a tad — it’s what I would describe as comfortably kinetic and a very diverse crowd. I am in the university area of Schwabbing today and there is a very discernible undergrad aged presence, but not overwhelmingly so. There always seems to be a younger component about, but it tends to be younger than university age in the core. There seems to be less English spoken since I was last here. Not a bad thing, merely an observation. Am finding that I am struggling with German — this also more of a struggle than a decade ago. Strangely have been mistaken for French on a number of occassions — strange. Guess it’s why my research people thought I speak Chinese with a Korean accent ;-)
The architecture in the area is a strange dichotomy of kitschy-southern German Alpine — some more ornate with stucco or francy brick pediments and towers — opposing ultra-modern glass and steel brutality. The steel always dark with a bronzy patina. The food is all so rich. How do these people stay thin???

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Naru Shiode from the University at Buffalo gave a spellbinding presentation on spatial-temporal analysis at the Centre for Spatial Analysis (CSpA) on Friday. Shiode is trained as architect and urban planner and finds himself in the Geography department at Buffalo. He has been associated with projects such as Digital Egypt and the Virtual Ryoanji projects exploring ancient historical reconstruction as well as time-based recremorphing. His current project is the 3D Buffalo project which allows a user to interact via a chronoslider that triggers time points for each building within a multi-block area surrounding downtown Buffalo. This project is only in its early stages, but the potential for historical analysis is tremendously promising.

What Shiode and his co-PI are doing is exploring a similar spatial-temporal linkage that I have been doing my individual best to create create on a smaller scale for Guelph. Unlike my attempts to attach a 3D streetscape from Guelph to census, tax and business directories and ultimately to the inhabitants through their physical surroundings, Shiode is very much concerned with wedding CAD and GIS to focus on the aesthetics of the built environment. The result of his work is most impressive. The interface employs a chronologically structured slider which ties to buildings categorized by their period of existence so that as you slide, they are erected in realtime. The 3d mass models have had surfaces mapped from historical and contemporary photographs and are superimposed on aerial photos to provide streetscape.
Of note is that the use of aerial photography to establish buildings and to use as the underlying backdrop for the model itself. Shiode points out the challenge this poses with street reorientation over their period of study.
Shiode asks three prescient questions of his own current work:

1. How do we choose to visualize uncertain data? While he offers some answer to this, I think that it probably depends on the context of the analysis that we are trying to do and the level of inference that we feel comfortable to exercise;
2. How can we continue to make the data and the tools compatible? They’ve done a great job harmonizing GIS and CAD.
3. How do we harness the power of a dynamic 3D model?

Great questions that anyone playing in this arena inevitably faces.
Projects such as Rome Reborn1.0 (which I blogged on earlier this year) have focussed on similar aesthetic recreation of the visual. One of the future directions for Rome is to consider the audible end of the equation (I suppose smell might even be there someday). The absence of people in many of these models seems to be the biggest gap. We are studying them through their material artefact, yet don’t represent them as part of the model. The choice to include the human dimension depends on what the model is being constructed to explore or accomplish. Thus the third and most prescient question above.
The challenge in asking this question is that in many cases, it is only through construction that we discover some of the questions that can be asked or patterns that might be discovered. Questions leading to the development of the model often lead to begging the bigger questions to ask of the model. Spatial-temporal modeling simply presents existing data in a different way and allows for the viewer/participant to see patterns that aren’t otherwise apparent. 3D Buffalo looks like it will have tremendous potential for deeper understanding of early twentieth century urban development.

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From the realm of ‘too far fetched’ to be believed comes word that members of the UX, a shadowy underground organisation, have been cleared of charges in their daring, but clandestine operation to restore an antique clock at the Patheon in Paris. According to UrbanResources, the UnterGunther is “Swiss-French urban explorers team whose activity is to restore the invisible parts of the heritage in total clandestinity.” This latest caper involved a year long process to secretly repair a huge clock in the Pantheon which had fallen into disrepair. Not only did they carry out this task undetected over the space of a year, they built a lounge within the dome of the Pantheon, wired into electrical circuits and even installed a networked computer, all under the unsuspecting nose of Pantheon staff. When the UnterGunther cell finished their restoration, they made the decision to reveal their work to ensure the clock received ongoing care. The Guardian has a story in English on their acquittal.
The group were charged with tampering with a lock (their sometime means of ingress and egress) and the head of security for the Pantheon took retirement. Despite the fact that the group has demonstrated the clock to have been fully restored, the staff at the Pantheon have, for undisclosed reasons, chosen not to wind or cause the clock to operate. Apparently the group is already at work on their next operation. Encroyable!

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Speaking with Matt Leighninger this morning I was reminded of one of my best tips for those looking for offbeat sights in Paris — the military models at the Musée de l’Armée. The museum is a treasure. A grande promenade stretching from the Seine leads up to the building. The courtyards are filled with captured and antique canons…hundreds of them. The canons are often works of the craftsmen’s art. Inside the museum are amazing collections of all things military stretching from earliest times to the present. There are guided tours, expositions and of course Napoleon’s Tomb adjoins the museum proper in L’Eglise du dôme. The museum is enormous and can easily occupy the better part of a day for the day.
The treat for the offbeat traveler though is in the attic. An enormous salon stretches along the right wing of the museum on the fourth level. Although the salon is often not always accessible to the public, when it is, it is well worth the trek up a few flights of stairs. In a dimly lit, attic space you will find scale models of French military fortifications and eighteenth and nineteenth century frontier towns crafted to minute detail. The feeling of the space itself is rather special, but these works of art under glass are something you will not find in such profusion elsewhere.
The model are crafted right down to pedestrians and tiny little canon emplacements on fortifications. They are lit with to appreciate a particular time of day. You will find places such as Le Rochelle, or Mayence (Mainz today). There are exquisitely artistic renditions of Vauban’s cutting edge fortifications utilizing bombardment deflecting glacis or redoubts that capitalise of being able to lend covering fields of fire. Even if you are not fascinated by military engineering, what you will find are true works of art in a stunning third dimension.
Although hardly a side journey, and you are probably in the locale for this in the first place, Napoleon’s tomb is awe inspiring. Resting underneath the soaring dome of the church, in a sunken arena, the red granite catafalque is only at least ten times the normal sarcophagus! The surround includes friezes representing the many civil and social accomplishments attributed to the Empire and to Napoleon. The remains of the King of Rome are also contained here, returned by Hitler during the German occupation of Paris. You will find Jerome and Joseph’s tombs in adjoining spaces along with other notable military heroes and the aforementioned Vauban. The soaring spaces and the very striking lighting make a visit to the Hotel d’Invalides a memorable experience, but you’ll find a special treat waiting in the attic of the museum if your timing is right.

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Having just returned from one of my favourite cities in the world, I was fascinated to find a Paris Metro Virtual Experience. This media-rich site offers wonderful history of the Paris Metro and the opportunity to take a virtual tour with static images and rel-time soundtrack along a number of lines. Additionally, the author of the site has completed station by station architectural mosaics of particular lines. If you have ever had the opportunity to travel on the metro (arguably one of the most efficiently run systems in the world) this site may bring back some memories.
The wonderfully rich combination of media is an example of virtual tourism, well-done, without having an live motion video. It would be quite fun to put a camera in the front of one of the fully automated lead cars on Line 14.
This project was submitted as final term project at the University of Kent by Richard Whittaker in 2005. Great job!
On a separate note, a tourist I spied taking advantage of the new rental bike system in Paris had actually taped his video camera into the front basket of the bike and was obviously going to create a great bike’s perspective tour of Paris.

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There is a great discussion at Bricoleurbanism on the absence of people-scaled spaces in Toronto’s urban streetscape. The discussion takes as a starting point construction hoarding on two sides of the street near Bloor that inadvertently created a humane street scale not unlike that found elsewhere in the world. This contrast in city scale is evident even between Toronto and Montreal. The urban core in Montreal, despite the presence of modern high-rises, and not entirely due to semi-random occurrence of buildings from the past 300 years, has this more human scale. Why? Proportions. The article at Bricoleurbanism offers a brief look at examples in Toronto that have achieved this scale and ends with a call for attention to the dehumanizing scale of our modern city. The infrastructure that allows machines ready access to and from the core also dehumanizes the space and creates the need to actually move to and from the core. When spaces are achieved they are like pearls in the streetscape and there clearly is the intention at times to create these spaces. I include some photos from New Dundee square, the sculpture park between King and Adelaide and the pleasant walk near the Dominion marketplace on Front Street.

This need for humanizing our urban spaces isn’t a new message, but it certainly does reinforce one of the causes behind the familiar scene of streams of workers fleeing the inner city in Toronto on the Go Train every evening rather than lingering in a concrete jungle.

By the way, there is also a companion set of photos from the new Michael Lee-Chin crystal at the ROM, so that those of us unable to attend the public unveiling recently can vicariously appreciate the new space.

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Those clever folks at the IATH at the University of Virginia are receiving much deserved accolades for their truly breathtaking digital model of ancient Rome. Rome Reborn 1.0 (and accompanying website) are visually stunning and the mainstream media are covering this with great detail. Billed as the largest digital model of an historic city ever undertaken, it provides researchers with the opportunity to virtually walk the streets in real time and in many cases wander inside and look around. The model was constructed by hand and then digitized over the past decade. This is a massive undertaking and what, aside for the scale of the undertaking, makes this of great import is the attention to making this a fluid work in progress. Bernie Frischer’s speech, over ten years ago, introducing the project envisioned this fluidity and it is tribute to those involved that the goals have been preserved over the span of this enormous project. It has milestones, but does not have an endpoint. The project, like the digital model, is fluid. It reflects current appreciation and understanding, but will organically evolve as new information is introduced.
The creators of the project have just released the first digital fly-throughs of Rome Reborn as part of the unveiling. They have yet to determine how to make the model itself publicly ‘browsable.’ We are just scratching the surface in this exciting new field of visualisation. New uses for these tools are just being proposed and attempted. My own small experiments in constructing small scale 3D virtual streetscapes as an interface to exploring the lives of those that walked those streets are one tiny little aspect of this sphere of research. I use a rich spatial representation as a front end to manuscript census records and tax rolls. With Rome Reborn, inanimate objects push our technological capabilities. My appetite is whetted for the time that we can start remove the static temporal aspects that constrain these digital models to spatial representation, and begin to allow for the temporal exploration across time, not just a slice in time.
I have to say that after viewing the site in three browsers, the text on the site is abnormally tiny…just barely visible. As many of the IATH project they do love to use Flash to mediate the users interaction with their data. I have been accused of choosing too small a point size, but this is smaller by half again. However, the project is just so interesting that I persisted in squinting to read about it.
I love terms like ‘optimized the city model to run in real time.’ How digitally godlike can one presume to be? Too cool. Immediate perceptions of the project lead me to consider that next challenges for the immersive experience will be to for additional sensory aspects, such as audio to be added to the model. There was an interesting posting on H-Urban yesterday about just this facet — the concept of digitally modelling the sounds of a 19thC city. I sense that the baroque symphonic melodies that accompany the fly-throughs may not quite be temporally accurate ;-) I am also struck by the lack of Roman inhabitants. Frischer noted in 1996 that they did not want to create a ghost town, but I can’t see people anywhere and despite the magnificent architecture I am quite interested in the Romans themselves as well as the products of their endeavours; I want to appreciate the works of Biondo and the exploration of the runnings of ancient Rome.These little criticisms don’t distract from the enormous achievement that this model represents, and it is tribute to its success that it sparks the creativity in others to add to it and build upon such an accomplishment. It’s great because you get it and you want more.

Additionally:

• Digital Forum

  The reconstruction of the Roman Forum is an example of the smaller microprojects that Rome Reborn seeks to draw together as part of the larger reconstruction. This a very comprehensive site. I like the camera viewpoints in the timemap that combine the reconstruction with a modern view of the remains. The VR lets you adjust your view in either timeplane and see the results.

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Sorry for the drought of postings of late. Things get in the way.
There’s a unique concept hotel opening at Gatwick in July. Modeled on the compact sleeping spaces that I have always associated with Asia, they provide what they term ‘cabins.’ The Yotel provide upscale, high quality space designed around human dimensions. The standard or premium cabins offer 7 square metre spaces that pack in a comfy bed, a washroom and entertainment facilities. The cabins are fitted out in what appears to a light airy style and offer the ultimate in convenience.
I love this concept. Unless you are entertaining in a hotel room, there has always seemed to a lot of wasted space. Efficiency and luxury seem to be a potent combo. Cabins start at 25pounds/4 hours and make lots of sense. It will be interesting to see how successful these become.

Thanks to Peter Rukavina for pointing this one out.

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(if this image is just a pretty palace, click refresh to reload the animated gif and enjoy a quick look at the rebuilding of the schloss)

I am always both fascinated and charmed to see an older building lovingly restored and doubly so when its role is thoughtfully reconsidered and creatively re-purposed. The magnificent ducal place in Braunschweig has been carefully reconstructed and redeveloped as part of a shopping arcade in the city centre. The palace itself was torn down in 1960 following years of gradual disintegration and bomb damage during the WWII that left much of the city centre devastated. Although remnants of the old palace were used in the reconstruction begun in 2005, the bulk of the construction material is new. Despite this, the effect overall effect of the reconstruction is gorgeous, and tribute to the craftsmanship of those involved. There have been a number of critics that feel that such a building should only be used as museum or a public non-commercial space. I heartily disagree.

I have been fortunate enough to have stumbled across other fine examples of such re-purposing in my own travels. I was very struck by the grad in Lubljana, Slovenia, which features a theatre, a gallery, a number of wonderful cafes and a magnificent green space in the confines of the restored castle. More recently, visiting a splendid example of Moorish castle design in Silves, Portugal, I was disappointed to discover upon paying my entry fee that most of the castle was off limits as it was under reconstruction. The project here was similar. There is a huge open air theatre being reconstructed in the castle courtyard.
Projects such as this are bringing historical artifacts back to life and back into the local community. There are valid concerns that reconstruction can blatantly misrepresent the past, or that a priceless connection with the past is being lost through re-purposing. However, such projects call for sensitivity to the social role of the historical object. Feudalism aside (yeah, that’s a biggy, but bear with me) the castle was the centre of community. Bringing these spaces back into public use, even sometimes with an odious smell of commercialism, doesn’t necessarily abrogate their historical role. I am reminded immediatelly of Palais Royal in Paris, remembered as the residence of the Duc d’Orleans prior to the French Revolution. Commercial space was a permanent part of the palace, helping defray the cost of upkeep, and politically significant as one means by which the Duc maintained a connection to the common folk. The Palais featured public space that was utilized by the community.
The development of the Schloss-Arcaden in Braunschweig is $US270M project. Realistically as much as we claim to treasure our past, there’s no other way that such sums can be raised to accomplish these projects with such sensitivity. Being a frequent user of cafe spaces here in Canada, I can only marvel at the experience to be had in the wonderful balcony space in this new old castle — a Starbucks I understand, according to a German contact. OK, that fact raises some issues, but I won’t go there right now.

By the way, I used a series of webcam shots of the construction project to put together an animated view of the rebuilding process — warning…it is a tad large at 3.2Mb. I hope that little animation works for you and would love hear any feedback.

Update: The animated GIF got picked up by a couple German sites, which was quite cool. This got me thinking about different ways that the Schloss-Arcaden might be represented.

• A 3D SketchUp! Model of the Schloss
• A couple photoblog shots suggesting some intriguing spaces inside the schloss-arcaden
• Some great night shots
• A great video from the unveiling
• Some aerial construction shots to appreciate the scale of the project

Its interesting to see the range of media immediately available and shared about a project such as this. The world grows smaller still.

3D model of the Schloss-Arcaden uploaded by EMOTION to the Google 3D Warehouse.

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