This paper presents a frame for rethinking how we make cities by exploring the notion of writing ... more This paper presents a frame for rethinking how we make cities by exploring the notion of writing beyond a literary act.To contextualize our approach and its application, we draw upon our recent Collaborative Urbanismpractice in the Scottish city of Glasgow, UK, to explore the ongoing dialogue between practice and theory in relation to city making. A significant challenge that this emerging practice seeks to address is the need for an effective and authentic method for communities and professionals to come together to co-create new public realm. To understand the perspective our practice is based on, we define two key terms. We employ the term authorshipin its broader definition to describe the state of creating or causing effect, specifically the sense of ownership and activation resulting from engaging directly with urban space. By the term inscriptive practice, we are referring to the action of a spatial practice that leads to authorship, i.e. we use collective walking as a means ...
INTRODUCTION In an era of rapid transformation and global uncertainties it is evident we need to ... more INTRODUCTION In an era of rapid transformation and global uncertainties it is evident we need to forge new pathways for the design, delivery and sustainability of future cities. In this paper, we propose a novel approach that aims to tackle such issues through our speculative design for a ‘responsive megastructure’, based on principles highlighted from our ongoing future visioning and prototyping research. We discuss the important role developing visions for future cities plays in seeking to address global challenges alongside how the development of a novel vision reveals and reframes key challenges in our prototyping research. By doing so, we define what a responsive megastructure might be and how it could be designed and fabricated to maximise its performative capacities and capabilities. The paper is structured into five sections. First, we provide a brief survey of past visions of megastructures to identify relevant key characteristics. Second, we then provide a definition of th...
The paper highlights gender inequality within the context of the European parliament using a wick... more The paper highlights gender inequality within the context of the European parliament using a wicked problems approach. Gender parity in parliament engages with issues of ethics, human rights and democracy, such issues benefit from raising awareness and instigating discussion techniques. Our study proposes the application of games and the use of game mechanics, dynamics and rhetorics as a medium to initiate engagement and understanding towards gender parity in parliament. Specific focus is given to the justification of the game’s type, design and development as an appropriate tool for addressing gender inequality issues. This is presented through the empirical analysis of prototypes and engaging with current research (gamification, gameful design, procedural rhetoric). Utilising games as a medium to induce an emotional response within an artificial environment enables the user to engage with feelings of unfairness and frustration. We suggest an indirect method that enables a user-cen...
This little book tells you about research that we did as part of the Liveable Cities project, loo... more This little book tells you about research that we did as part of the Liveable Cities project, looking at sharing in cities. Through a series of conversations with researchers and workshops with citizens of Lancaster and Birmingham in 2015, we conclude that: • Cities are important hubs for sharing and they always have been • Sharing is more than just giving something to someone to use- there are a lot of factors to think about when trying to understand what sharing is! • A way of classifying sharing in cities can help make sense of all the examples of sharing and allow for easy comparisons between examples • The presence of physical and digital hubs and bridges and the need to promote sharing in different ways are incredibly important to sharing in cities • There are a multitude of resources about sharing that can be useful if you want to find out more information on the topic • Well-designed and fun exercises can get people mapping their examples of sharing in cities This book therefo...
Conference Proceedings of the Academy for Design Innovation Management, 2019
UK government statistics maintain that only 18 per cent of creative industries firms engage in in... more UK government statistics maintain that only 18 per cent of creative industries firms engage in international trade. The UK’s Industrial Strategy: Creative Industries Sector Deal aims to increase UK creative industry exports by 50% within 5 years, arguing there is a “great deal of untapped potential in the sector.” It also identifies small company size as a barrier to creative industry exports. Our research, however, challenges these assumptions. At least one creative industries hub is already deeply entwined in global trade. In Liverpool’s creative and digital hub Baltic Creative, 69 per cent of tenants export. Furthermore, these exporters are highly dependent on their overseas income. Over one-third of exporters earn more than 50 per cent of their annual income from exports. Our research also finds that small company size was not a deterrent to international trade. Rather company owners report concerns about access to global markets after Brexit, which had already resulted in signi...
Paul Cureton, Nick Dunn, ‘Utopian Archaeologies: Utopian Archaeologies’, paper presented at the 1... more Paul Cureton, Nick Dunn, ‘Utopian Archaeologies: Utopian Archaeologies’, paper presented at the 16th International Conference of the Utopian Studies Society, Newcastle, UK, 1-4 July, 2015.
The implementation of energy- efficient artificial lighting has been accom- panied by a compellin... more The implementation of energy- efficient artificial lighting has been accom- panied by a compelling narrative of savings in economic terms. However, this obscures significant costs to the environment, humans and non-humans. It has also led to higher levels of brightness at night. Integral to this process is the loss of nocturnal atmospheres and ambiances as access to darkness becomes further limited. We need new ways to address this ongoing extinction of experience of the nocturnal commons. Design can provide a valuable role in its ability to explore alter- natives, to speculate on new sensitizations that enable nocturnal urban ambiances to be reimagined. This paper proposes an emerging field of 'Dark Design' as advocacy for change of existing beliefs concerning artificial lighting and darkness.
Urbanization continues to provide habitat for more and more of the planet’s human population. Acc... more Urbanization continues to provide habitat for more and more of the planet’s human population. Accompanying this process are the energy, transport, and service infrastructures that support urban life. Enmeshed in these networks is artificial illumination and its unintended consequences. Light pollution, for instance, accounts for a growing global carbon footprint, yet more efficient artificial lighting methods using LEDs have resulted in increasingly higher levels of brightness at night. This is altering natural cycles of light and dark, directly impacting on the circadian rhythms of our bodies and having disastrous effects upon other species and their ecosystems. This issue of critical importance has been referred to by some scientists as a hidden global challenge but the public awareness and understanding of it is negligible. Where is design in addressing such poor performance? The growing problem of how we perceive darkness and the attempts to manage it, typically through artificial illumination, requires new design strategies to create viable alternatives to current pathways. How can we advocate for the “nocturnal commons” when the majority of society does not even know what is disappearing or understand the implications? This article proposes the concept of “Dark Design” to set out a new framework for advocacy and creativity to raise awareness of these complex issues and address them. By bringing together a diverse range of approaches, “Dark Design” seeks to establish a field for emerging principles and practices to design with darkness rather than against it. In doing so, it calls for the important and urgent need for design to commit, act and engage others in the future of our planet, its people, and non-human species.
The ubiquity of ‘smartness’ in contemporary discourse suggests an advancement of some kind, albei... more The ubiquity of ‘smartness’ in contemporary discourse suggests an advancement of some kind, albeit predicated on various technologies. Smart cities offer an optimistic view on what can be achieved by using data to address and improve the operation of various urban management systems (Ratti and Claudel, 2016; Townsend, 2013). While some of the ambitions and goals behind smart cities are positive and beneficial for collective life, the over-reliance on software that features in their concept has led to their visions largely being promoted by major ICT corporations interested in the deployment of technical solutions for city development and management. Rose (2017) has observed that such visions present a pleasurable albeit smooth and untethered view, and it is here that we may detect some problematic issues. Despite their apparent diversity, the vision of most smart cities is one of conspicuously bland, generic, ahistorical, apolitical spaces whose identity is characterized by information technologies that could be applied anywhere. Issues of mobility are intrinsic to many visions for future cities, often illustrated by walkable, green-orientated depictions that promote wellbeing and active travel, efficiency and light, sci-fi-style renderings to communicate degrees of ‘smartness’ through integrated transport infrastructure and information communication technologies. Indeed, a considerable number of speculations for future cities seek to demonstrate a world free from grime, pollution and debris. These seemingly frictionless, clean futures are utopian wherein technology is often portrayed as providing the capability toward such seamlessness and cleanliness. Yet the future is unlikely to unfold in this way. Instead, the reality of patchwork infrastructures, piecemeal development, brittle and hackable urban systems, and the incoherence and inefficiency that typifies the vibrancy of cities suggest very different futures for collective life. This chapter examines what visions for smart cities promote as a means of examining the latent alternatives they hide or discredit.
Dark Matters explores the city at night as a place and time within which escape from the confines... more Dark Matters explores the city at night as a place and time within which escape from the confines of the daytime is possible. More specifically, it is a state of being. There is a long history of nightwalking, often integral to shady worlds of miscreants, shift workers and transgressors. Yet the night offers much to be enjoyed beyond vice. Night by definition contrasts day, summoning notions of darkness and fear. But another night exists out there. Liberation and exhilaration in the urban landscape is increasingly rare when so much of our attention and actions are controlled. Rather than consider darkness as negative, opposed to illumination and enlightenment, this book explores the rich potential of the dark for our senses. The question may no longer be about what spaces we wish to engage with but when we do?
Designing Future Cities for Wellbeing draws on original research that brings together dimensions ... more Designing Future Cities for Wellbeing draws on original research that brings together dimensions of cities we know have a bearing on our health and wellbeing – including transportation, housing, energy, and foodways – and illustrates the role of design in delivering cities in the future that can enhance our health and wellbeing. It aims to demonstrate that cities are a complex interplay of these various dimensions that both shape and are shaped by existing and emerging city structures, governance, design, and planning. Explaining how to consider these interconnecting dimensions in the way in which professionals and citizens think about and design the city for future generations’ health and wellbeing, therefore, is key. The chapters draw on UK case and research examples and make comparison to international cities and examples.
Over the last two decades, the government has recognised the ‘problem’ of the north, and broad na... more Over the last two decades, the government has recognised the ‘problem’ of the north, and broad narratives and plans such as the Northern Powerhouse and The Northern Way have been put forward to deal with deficits and inequalities in infrastructure, economy and health outcomes etc., only to fade away, as governments and ministers change. Political agendas rise and fall, but what can we do when these fail and problems remain? Recent research suggests that the Northern region has strong, individual cities, but that collectively, they do not compare to similar regions in Europe, and overall, the productivity gap in the North is 11% below the national average. In the North of England, a person’s chances of dying earlier than those who live in the South are higher. Home ownership is also becoming increasingly problematic in the North, with lower wages and higher levels of unemployment. Numerous neighbourhoods in the North witness some of the highest levels of social deprivation in England...
This paper presents a series of design experiments that seek to move beyond today’s computer-aide... more This paper presents a series of design experiments that seek to move beyond today’s computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacture (CAD/CAM) technologies and investigates alternative material practices based on programmable self-assembly. When using CAD software, 3D designs can be rendered extremely flexible and adaptable such that changes to an objects size, colour, transparency, topology, or geometry can be made quickly and easily. However, once digital designs are converted into physical objects via typical CAM technologies, this capability for adaptation usually dissolves as objects are typically fabricated using inert materials and no consideration of a material’s computational abilities. The series of design experiments discussed in this paper help to rethink and re-imagine the possibilities of design and making with adaptive fabrication processes. The design experiments explore mineral accretion and generative paint recipes. Mineral accretion is predominantly controlled...
Visualisations of future cities usually depict coherent scenarios that rarely express the complex... more Visualisations of future cities usually depict coherent scenarios that rarely express the complexity of urban life. Our research explores ways to articulate conflicts and diversities, rather than mitigate them, when reflecting on possible futures for urban life. We define Visual Conversations on Urban Futures as visualisations of future scenarios that utilise visual methods to generate, facilitate, and represent dialogues of multiple voices imagining possible futures for life in the city. This paper will introduce our research on this topic and reflect on a number of significant examples to draft a description of methods and processes of Visual Conversations on Urban Futures. It will then present three design experiments in which we adopted this approach in the context of interdisciplinary academic research on possible scenarios for urban futures. Finally, as this is an ongoing research project, we will suggest a number of open questions and possibilities for further practical and t...
This paper presents a frame for rethinking how we make cities by exploring the notion of writing ... more This paper presents a frame for rethinking how we make cities by exploring the notion of writing beyond a literary act.To contextualize our approach and its application, we draw upon our recent Collaborative Urbanismpractice in the Scottish city of Glasgow, UK, to explore the ongoing dialogue between practice and theory in relation to city making. A significant challenge that this emerging practice seeks to address is the need for an effective and authentic method for communities and professionals to come together to co-create new public realm. To understand the perspective our practice is based on, we define two key terms. We employ the term authorshipin its broader definition to describe the state of creating or causing effect, specifically the sense of ownership and activation resulting from engaging directly with urban space. By the term inscriptive practice, we are referring to the action of a spatial practice that leads to authorship, i.e. we use collective walking as a means ...
INTRODUCTION In an era of rapid transformation and global uncertainties it is evident we need to ... more INTRODUCTION In an era of rapid transformation and global uncertainties it is evident we need to forge new pathways for the design, delivery and sustainability of future cities. In this paper, we propose a novel approach that aims to tackle such issues through our speculative design for a ‘responsive megastructure’, based on principles highlighted from our ongoing future visioning and prototyping research. We discuss the important role developing visions for future cities plays in seeking to address global challenges alongside how the development of a novel vision reveals and reframes key challenges in our prototyping research. By doing so, we define what a responsive megastructure might be and how it could be designed and fabricated to maximise its performative capacities and capabilities. The paper is structured into five sections. First, we provide a brief survey of past visions of megastructures to identify relevant key characteristics. Second, we then provide a definition of th...
The paper highlights gender inequality within the context of the European parliament using a wick... more The paper highlights gender inequality within the context of the European parliament using a wicked problems approach. Gender parity in parliament engages with issues of ethics, human rights and democracy, such issues benefit from raising awareness and instigating discussion techniques. Our study proposes the application of games and the use of game mechanics, dynamics and rhetorics as a medium to initiate engagement and understanding towards gender parity in parliament. Specific focus is given to the justification of the game’s type, design and development as an appropriate tool for addressing gender inequality issues. This is presented through the empirical analysis of prototypes and engaging with current research (gamification, gameful design, procedural rhetoric). Utilising games as a medium to induce an emotional response within an artificial environment enables the user to engage with feelings of unfairness and frustration. We suggest an indirect method that enables a user-cen...
This little book tells you about research that we did as part of the Liveable Cities project, loo... more This little book tells you about research that we did as part of the Liveable Cities project, looking at sharing in cities. Through a series of conversations with researchers and workshops with citizens of Lancaster and Birmingham in 2015, we conclude that: • Cities are important hubs for sharing and they always have been • Sharing is more than just giving something to someone to use- there are a lot of factors to think about when trying to understand what sharing is! • A way of classifying sharing in cities can help make sense of all the examples of sharing and allow for easy comparisons between examples • The presence of physical and digital hubs and bridges and the need to promote sharing in different ways are incredibly important to sharing in cities • There are a multitude of resources about sharing that can be useful if you want to find out more information on the topic • Well-designed and fun exercises can get people mapping their examples of sharing in cities This book therefo...
Conference Proceedings of the Academy for Design Innovation Management, 2019
UK government statistics maintain that only 18 per cent of creative industries firms engage in in... more UK government statistics maintain that only 18 per cent of creative industries firms engage in international trade. The UK’s Industrial Strategy: Creative Industries Sector Deal aims to increase UK creative industry exports by 50% within 5 years, arguing there is a “great deal of untapped potential in the sector.” It also identifies small company size as a barrier to creative industry exports. Our research, however, challenges these assumptions. At least one creative industries hub is already deeply entwined in global trade. In Liverpool’s creative and digital hub Baltic Creative, 69 per cent of tenants export. Furthermore, these exporters are highly dependent on their overseas income. Over one-third of exporters earn more than 50 per cent of their annual income from exports. Our research also finds that small company size was not a deterrent to international trade. Rather company owners report concerns about access to global markets after Brexit, which had already resulted in signi...
Paul Cureton, Nick Dunn, ‘Utopian Archaeologies: Utopian Archaeologies’, paper presented at the 1... more Paul Cureton, Nick Dunn, ‘Utopian Archaeologies: Utopian Archaeologies’, paper presented at the 16th International Conference of the Utopian Studies Society, Newcastle, UK, 1-4 July, 2015.
The implementation of energy- efficient artificial lighting has been accom- panied by a compellin... more The implementation of energy- efficient artificial lighting has been accom- panied by a compelling narrative of savings in economic terms. However, this obscures significant costs to the environment, humans and non-humans. It has also led to higher levels of brightness at night. Integral to this process is the loss of nocturnal atmospheres and ambiances as access to darkness becomes further limited. We need new ways to address this ongoing extinction of experience of the nocturnal commons. Design can provide a valuable role in its ability to explore alter- natives, to speculate on new sensitizations that enable nocturnal urban ambiances to be reimagined. This paper proposes an emerging field of 'Dark Design' as advocacy for change of existing beliefs concerning artificial lighting and darkness.
Urbanization continues to provide habitat for more and more of the planet’s human population. Acc... more Urbanization continues to provide habitat for more and more of the planet’s human population. Accompanying this process are the energy, transport, and service infrastructures that support urban life. Enmeshed in these networks is artificial illumination and its unintended consequences. Light pollution, for instance, accounts for a growing global carbon footprint, yet more efficient artificial lighting methods using LEDs have resulted in increasingly higher levels of brightness at night. This is altering natural cycles of light and dark, directly impacting on the circadian rhythms of our bodies and having disastrous effects upon other species and their ecosystems. This issue of critical importance has been referred to by some scientists as a hidden global challenge but the public awareness and understanding of it is negligible. Where is design in addressing such poor performance? The growing problem of how we perceive darkness and the attempts to manage it, typically through artificial illumination, requires new design strategies to create viable alternatives to current pathways. How can we advocate for the “nocturnal commons” when the majority of society does not even know what is disappearing or understand the implications? This article proposes the concept of “Dark Design” to set out a new framework for advocacy and creativity to raise awareness of these complex issues and address them. By bringing together a diverse range of approaches, “Dark Design” seeks to establish a field for emerging principles and practices to design with darkness rather than against it. In doing so, it calls for the important and urgent need for design to commit, act and engage others in the future of our planet, its people, and non-human species.
The ubiquity of ‘smartness’ in contemporary discourse suggests an advancement of some kind, albei... more The ubiquity of ‘smartness’ in contemporary discourse suggests an advancement of some kind, albeit predicated on various technologies. Smart cities offer an optimistic view on what can be achieved by using data to address and improve the operation of various urban management systems (Ratti and Claudel, 2016; Townsend, 2013). While some of the ambitions and goals behind smart cities are positive and beneficial for collective life, the over-reliance on software that features in their concept has led to their visions largely being promoted by major ICT corporations interested in the deployment of technical solutions for city development and management. Rose (2017) has observed that such visions present a pleasurable albeit smooth and untethered view, and it is here that we may detect some problematic issues. Despite their apparent diversity, the vision of most smart cities is one of conspicuously bland, generic, ahistorical, apolitical spaces whose identity is characterized by information technologies that could be applied anywhere. Issues of mobility are intrinsic to many visions for future cities, often illustrated by walkable, green-orientated depictions that promote wellbeing and active travel, efficiency and light, sci-fi-style renderings to communicate degrees of ‘smartness’ through integrated transport infrastructure and information communication technologies. Indeed, a considerable number of speculations for future cities seek to demonstrate a world free from grime, pollution and debris. These seemingly frictionless, clean futures are utopian wherein technology is often portrayed as providing the capability toward such seamlessness and cleanliness. Yet the future is unlikely to unfold in this way. Instead, the reality of patchwork infrastructures, piecemeal development, brittle and hackable urban systems, and the incoherence and inefficiency that typifies the vibrancy of cities suggest very different futures for collective life. This chapter examines what visions for smart cities promote as a means of examining the latent alternatives they hide or discredit.
Dark Matters explores the city at night as a place and time within which escape from the confines... more Dark Matters explores the city at night as a place and time within which escape from the confines of the daytime is possible. More specifically, it is a state of being. There is a long history of nightwalking, often integral to shady worlds of miscreants, shift workers and transgressors. Yet the night offers much to be enjoyed beyond vice. Night by definition contrasts day, summoning notions of darkness and fear. But another night exists out there. Liberation and exhilaration in the urban landscape is increasingly rare when so much of our attention and actions are controlled. Rather than consider darkness as negative, opposed to illumination and enlightenment, this book explores the rich potential of the dark for our senses. The question may no longer be about what spaces we wish to engage with but when we do?
Designing Future Cities for Wellbeing draws on original research that brings together dimensions ... more Designing Future Cities for Wellbeing draws on original research that brings together dimensions of cities we know have a bearing on our health and wellbeing – including transportation, housing, energy, and foodways – and illustrates the role of design in delivering cities in the future that can enhance our health and wellbeing. It aims to demonstrate that cities are a complex interplay of these various dimensions that both shape and are shaped by existing and emerging city structures, governance, design, and planning. Explaining how to consider these interconnecting dimensions in the way in which professionals and citizens think about and design the city for future generations’ health and wellbeing, therefore, is key. The chapters draw on UK case and research examples and make comparison to international cities and examples.
Over the last two decades, the government has recognised the ‘problem’ of the north, and broad na... more Over the last two decades, the government has recognised the ‘problem’ of the north, and broad narratives and plans such as the Northern Powerhouse and The Northern Way have been put forward to deal with deficits and inequalities in infrastructure, economy and health outcomes etc., only to fade away, as governments and ministers change. Political agendas rise and fall, but what can we do when these fail and problems remain? Recent research suggests that the Northern region has strong, individual cities, but that collectively, they do not compare to similar regions in Europe, and overall, the productivity gap in the North is 11% below the national average. In the North of England, a person’s chances of dying earlier than those who live in the South are higher. Home ownership is also becoming increasingly problematic in the North, with lower wages and higher levels of unemployment. Numerous neighbourhoods in the North witness some of the highest levels of social deprivation in England...
This paper presents a series of design experiments that seek to move beyond today’s computer-aide... more This paper presents a series of design experiments that seek to move beyond today’s computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacture (CAD/CAM) technologies and investigates alternative material practices based on programmable self-assembly. When using CAD software, 3D designs can be rendered extremely flexible and adaptable such that changes to an objects size, colour, transparency, topology, or geometry can be made quickly and easily. However, once digital designs are converted into physical objects via typical CAM technologies, this capability for adaptation usually dissolves as objects are typically fabricated using inert materials and no consideration of a material’s computational abilities. The series of design experiments discussed in this paper help to rethink and re-imagine the possibilities of design and making with adaptive fabrication processes. The design experiments explore mineral accretion and generative paint recipes. Mineral accretion is predominantly controlled...
Visualisations of future cities usually depict coherent scenarios that rarely express the complex... more Visualisations of future cities usually depict coherent scenarios that rarely express the complexity of urban life. Our research explores ways to articulate conflicts and diversities, rather than mitigate them, when reflecting on possible futures for urban life. We define Visual Conversations on Urban Futures as visualisations of future scenarios that utilise visual methods to generate, facilitate, and represent dialogues of multiple voices imagining possible futures for life in the city. This paper will introduce our research on this topic and reflect on a number of significant examples to draft a description of methods and processes of Visual Conversations on Urban Futures. It will then present three design experiments in which we adopted this approach in the context of interdisciplinary academic research on possible scenarios for urban futures. Finally, as this is an ongoing research project, we will suggest a number of open questions and possibilities for further practical and t...
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Papers by Nick Dunn