1. Planning and Design Practice
in the Virtual Space
Ileana Apostol
Panayotis Antoniadis
Tridib Banerjee
XXIII AESOP Congress
Liverpool July 16, 2009
Université Pierre & Marie Curie, Paris
University of Southern California, Los Angeles
2. The Virtual Space
• the underlying communication network
the Internet: access fee or public (e.g. WiFi city
coverage, Athens Wireless, Seattle Wireless Net)
• the digital information exchanged between the
nodes of the network
public and private rights over its content
• the computer software that defines the rules for
using and transforming this information
some public and/or open source (e.g. Drupal), but
most of the social software of the currently
successful online communities is privately owned
(e.g. Yahoo, Google, Facebook)
3. Why the Virtual Space?
• its complex uses substitute, supplement or are
entwined w/ social life in physical environments
• there is the opportunity to bring to reality spatial
values like users’ control over the space, building
strong communities, future flexibility, choice,
diversity, preferred lifestyle (Lynch 1981)
users may influence cyberspace development
from “one to many” to “many to many” (Shirky)
• software design impacts users behaviour & the
dynamics in online social
networking/communities
under debate: the Internet neutrality and its
regulation (e.g. Odlyzko, Crowcroft etc)
• besides increasing the quality of cyberspace,
the social software could promote place-based
communities in the physical space
6. From Facebook to
Face-block Communities
The tradition in planning theory and practice
Methodological frameworks that assist us in
spatial perception, experience and conception
7. What Type of (Virtual) Space?
• relational social space that exists only insofar as it
contains and represents relationships
phenomenological view on space: meaning and
human experiences like emotion, desire, volition,
imagination, thought, action etc…
• cannot be conceived in separation from time
dynamic changes within social networking,
synchronic/asynchronic exchanges, past records,
collective memory
• the representational spaces of the network
society are the object of spatial knowledge (rf.
Lefebvre ‘91)
spaces directly experienced through their
associated images and systems of signs and non-
verbal systems (including artistic representations)
10. Planning Contribution in Cyberspace
• Knowledge:
1. Places
2. Communities
• Practice:
1. User interface
2. E-places
3. New forms of social organization
11. Planning Knowledge for Cyberspace
1. Places
• users’ behaviour in cyberspace suggests a sense
of belonging and identity that
achieves a “form” through self-representation;
through the images and language employed;
through frequent system operations and
process reiterations
• they appropriate space and transform it into
places, namely e-places
early place vocabulary: chat room, electronic
frontier, information superhighway, city of bits
• places (Arefi & Triantafillou ‘05)
a set of visual attributes (image);
product (information content);
process;
meaning
12. Identity of Spatial User
The tradition in planning theory and practice
Methodological frameworks that assist us in
spatial perception, experience and conception
14. Identity of Spatial User
The tradition in planning theory and practice
Methodological frameworks that assist us in
spatial perception, experience and conception
15. Planning Practice in Cyberspace
1. User Interface
• the user interface mediates the spatial
experience, and works as a cross-section
through the software components and
communicates its functionality
• the social software mediates the online social
exchanges
Planners can integrate various choices for
interface details with their effects on social
exchanges, and recommend those in
accordance with the particular
representational spaces
17. Planning Practice in Cyberspace
2. E-places
• the methods of practice in the physical space
could be transferred between the two environments
for social life like, for ex. Kevin Lynch’s methods:
Taxonomy of Images
• paths: space navigation (rhythms)
• edges: space separation, division
• nodes: space of gathering
• landmarks: identifiable (unique) signs
• districts: space unification (groups)
Sketch (Cognitive) Mapping
• representations of space
22. Representational Spaces
Nodes and Districts
The tradition in planning theory and practice
Methodological frameworks that assist us in
spatial perception, experience and conception
23. Representational Spaces
Nodes and Districts
The tradition in planning theory and practice
Methodological frameworks that assist us in
spatial perception, experience and conception
24. Planning Knowledge for Cyberspace
2. Communities
• online communities shaped out by members of
social networks
based on common interest (e.g. Flickr, MySpace,
Facebook)
users begin to define their particularized space,
beyond the control of software designers (i.e
Friendster)
• hybrid (place-based online) communities that
overlay spatial neighborhoods
common locus of activities and interest;
provide the necessary links between physical
space and their online space and activities,
facilitate recording and building an archive of
collective memory, short- and long-term feedback;
challenge: building common interest, shared
values, community identity
28. Quality of Places (E-places)
A good place is one which, in some way appropriate to
the person and her culture, makes her aware of her
community, her past, the web of life, and the universe of
time and space in which those are contained […]
sensible, identifiable places are convenient pegs on
which to hang personal memories, feelings, and values.
Place identity is closely linked to personal identity. “I am
here” supports “I am”. Intense familiarity will create a
sense of place” (Lynch 1981 p.142 &132).
29. Planning Practice in Cyberspace
3. New Forms of Social Organization
• the cyberspace capabilities allow to easily
transform and even reset community rules, and
members roles and identities
Planners could promote community values that
lead to conviviality, vitality and ecology,
instead of online addiction and commercial
objectives
Planners could mediate the public and the
private, and build trust between the community
and the entity holding their information, owning
the software or the communication network
(e.g. municipality)
Planners may provide guidelines for easily
customizable and self-configured software
30. No matter how hard we’d try,
we cannot escape reality :o)
bekathwia@flickr
31. Planning and Design Practice in Cyberspace
Summary
• the emergence of e-places and of thriving online
communities bring up a new challenge for planners:
Their contribution to cyberspace development:
User Interface Design
Evaluating the Quality of E-places by means of
Lynch’s Taxonomy of Images
Breaking the Ice for Community Engagement:
Sketch (Cognitive) Mapping
Supporting Hybrid Community Building and
Bridging the Physical with the Virtual Space
through Social Software Design
