RETHINKING TECHNOLOGY

Rethinking Technology

Rethinking Technology

Contemporary planning theory evolves towards planning through communication and debate (Healey, 1997). The changes in real urban environment are preceeded by creation of the coherent vision of what is planned. Therefore, the city representation in the citizens' minds plays an essential role in reshaping real space. The image depends, largely, on real city appearance and on information absorbed from different sources. It is also influenced by visions of designed transformation published in media. As Lynch (1960, p.120) says: 'In the development of an image, education will be quite as important as the reshaping of what is seen. Indeed, they together form a circular, or hopefully a spiral, process: visual education impelling the citizen to act upon his visual world, and this action causing him to see even more acutely. A highly developed art of urban design is linked to the creation of a critical and attentive audience. If art and audience grow together, then our cities will be a source of daily enjoyment to millions of their inhabitants.' The perception process is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. The role of vision and city models in perception process

Among the authors who deal with issues of city representation and city spaces are Edward Hall, Kevin Lynch, Choay Françoise, Aleksander Wallis, Bogdan Jalowiecki, Claude Levi-Strauss, and Umberto Eco. This paper addresses the role of modern information technology in the creation of the city vision.

City models - kinds and ways of use

The aim in building city models is to understand and to represent the processes which take place in the city and to support discussion (Guhathakurta, 2002). Models may show current events, the ones which took place in the past or will take place in the future. Models which address the future include elements of visions. The basis for physical planning is a database concerning the city. 3D models, which are easy to read, assist non-professional addressees in understanding complex planning issues. There are various methods of creating them, as well as numerous applications.

The Internet is used as a communication tool in a group decision-making process. The methods were developed in local networks and successfully transferred into global network. The bases for project are real world models and GIS databases (Jankowski and Nyerges, 2001). Geographic Information Systems - georelational databases - is the tabular data set related to geometric objects representing real world objects. Systems are used to gather, store, analyse and represent data. The GIS systems require high level of proficiency of users and thus they are not the most suitable form for planning with public participation. The real participation may take place in more interactive systems, where there is no predefined hierarchy of users, such as chat rooms and internet forums. The other form of communication are virtual worlds. The avatars of users play their roles in virtual scenes. They may communicate, walk and visit virtual world (Evans and Hudson-Smith, 2001). There are also trials to enable avatars to move items in virtual worlds, for example, to construct common ...