Its here, the urbanTick book is out, published by Springer. It brings together the edited work from this blog as well as external experts introducing specific topics. Its a big collection of thoughts on temporal aspects of the city, including projects, research and theory.
Image by Springer / Book cover, Studies in Temporal Urbanism: The urbanTick Experiment.
This book is very much about what the name urbanTick literally says, about the ticking of the urban, the urban as we experience it everyday on the bus, in the park or between buildings. It is about the big orchestrated mass migration of commuters, the seasonal blossoms of the trees along the walkway and the frequency of the stamping rubbish-eater-trucks. It is also, not to forget, about climate, infrastructure, opening hours, term times, parking meters, time tables, growing shadows and moon light. But most of all it is about how all this is experienced by citizens on a daily basis and how they navigate within this complex structure of patterns. The content of this book is based on the content of the urbanTick blog. Blogging about this topic brought together a large collection of different aspects and thoughts. It is not at all a conclusive view, the opposite might be the case, it is an exploratory work in progress, while trying to capture as many facets of the topic as possible.
Image by urbanTick / Book Studies in Temporal Urbanism: The urbanTick Experiment. Some example spreads. Editor Fabian Neuhaus, published by Springer.
The publication Studies in Temporal Urbanism: The urbanTick Experiment is structured in seven chapters with each being introduced by an invited contribution in the form of an essay. The chapters are: Cycle Study as Basis of Adaptive Urbanism (con Jeff Ho); urbanMachine; Memory: Collective vs. Individual Narratives (con Zahra Azizi); timeSpace; Body, Space and Maps (con Sandra Abegglen); bodySpace; Urban Narratives of Time Images, or the Drift of Alienation (con Ana McMillin); urbanNarrative; Mental Maps: The Expression of Memories and Meanings (con Matthew Dance); Location Information; From UrbanTick to UrbanDiary; UrbanDiary; Footprints, a Regeneration Process (con Luis Suárez); Review. This is wrapped up with a Bibliography and a complete Index covering all chapters.
On the back cover Professor Mike Batty introduces the book in his words with:
That cities pulse and resonate like the human body is an old idea which until recently has remained just that. But in this pioneering book, Fabian Neuhaus shows how we can begin to make sense of the myriad of rhythms and processes that make up the city, by combining new technologies available on smart phones with our intuition expressed in mental maps to generate a new understanding of how cities function. This book stands in the vanguard of new work about temporal cycles that define the city and it is mandatory reading for all who profess to understand how cities work and for everyone who wants to discover how we, ourselves, make the city work. Michael Batty, Bartlett Professor of Planning, CASA, University College London
Its great to finally have it available as a printed version. A lot of thanks go to the contributors for the essays, but also to all the people who granted publication rights for the many illustrations in this publication. Of course thanks also go to a number of people who helped in one way or another with input for the blog or support for the publication.
The publication is available as printed version, as e-book or also accessible on the Springer website directly as pdf.
Neuhaus, F. ed., 2011. Studies in Temporal Urbanism: The urbanTick Experiment 1st ed., London: Springer.
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