Besides being one of the most beautiful videos I have ever seen, this short time lapse piece on the changing and entirely fluid nature of cityscapes is revealing. A good projection at how cities themselves are organic constructs, fluid in their dependencies. The structures themselves are mediated by and mediate the motion through them, the people. Much more symbiotic than we used to believe. It is from Dominic Boudreault, a motion photographer, who spent a year capturing the cityscapes of Montreal, Quebec City, Toronto, Manhattan, and Chicago.
[vimeo 23237102]
Further, I think the video demonstrates instances of a pattern language, small crosssections of each of the cities reveal larger truths that can be applied interchangeably. Further patterns can be seen in the way that structures and the motion through them inform one another; lanes, streets, vertical and horizontal thoroughfares acting as syntax to connote meaning.
What I think this provides us in terms of educational or interactive design is the understanding that structures dictates activity (to some degree-although this has been well known for quite some time) and that design is impacted by motion. If we want to fully embrace the city as learning space, as a truly symbiotic interactive space, then we must consider it an active agent in the formation of our understanding of truth, in our constructions of knowledge. Technologically, we should be embedding the ability for structure to record interactions much the same as humans do. Sensors that trigger when structures are approached. The wind signalling a shift in the upper floors of a skyscraper. The elevator activating. A pedestrian sitting on a park bench. All can record interaction not just for environmental purposes (to regulate energy consumption) but to help visualize these seemingly sedentary objects as active agents in our construction of meaning.