DAT203 - Infrastructure

In every city, there is an infrastructure - London has one, Birmingham has one, Manchester has one, even our own Plymouth has one as well. However, the infrastructure of Plymouth isn't as well developed as other competing cities around the UK, in fact, pretty much every major city in developed Europe. In today's lecture, we was shown many examples of urban infrastructure, both in fiction and reality, of which we were then introduced to our assignment, a joint project with Plymouth City Council.

The reason for Plymouth's slow development dates back to after World War 2, when the city was bombed by the Nazi Luftwaffe. The city had more bombs dropped on it than Coventry, and as a result, most of the city had to be rebuilt from the ground up. in 1943, Sir Patrick Abercrombie drew up a plan for redeveloping the city, and was then enacted after World War 2, with 20,000 new houses built by the 1960s, and a new Civic high-rise completed during that same period. 

The city was designed with the automobile in mind, which has resulted in an American-influenced infrastructure and architecture, which was typical of many American cities at the time. In addition, it was also fitting for Plymouth, as it was a city that has historical links with the Plymouth in the United States, of which the Pilgrim Fathers discovered, but following a trend of pedestrianisation in the 1980s and the 1990s, the main roads going through the city centre's main shopping districts were paved over, and this has resulted in an important piece of infrastructure being severed or severely curtailed. 

In addition, the ills of the existing transport infrastructure were then felt in the 2000s and the 2010s as other comparable cities were then becoming fully developed, and with the recovery from the global financial crisis still underway, this has now come more important than ever, with the airport now closed and better railway links being needed to help boost growth in city commerce and to increase the speed of redevelopment.

General IDAT: Reboot, launch of the IBM Smarter Planet Lab in the Babbage building, stuff to do, and field trip

Yesterday was a historical event for everyone in IDAT as the old Macromedia lab (BGB213) is transformed into the IBM Smarter Planet Lab. The partnership has been so long in the making since the rebrand of the Digital Art & Technology (or as in their words, a 'reboot') course programme, which will become effective in the 2011-2012 academic year. The changes will make Digital Art & Technology future-proof so then fears of stuff becoming obsolete after 4 years can now be put to bed, finally (literally, finally!).

As for other stuff, I've been very busy, which mentions why I haven't done a blog update in weeks. I've been working on a 3D object, a manifesto, and also, I'm now currently working on projects that will last well into March, which includes a large-scale Monopoly game, a bumper video and an amateur movie.

The field trip has been announced to be taking place in the wonderful city of Bristol, to some applause and lament, although it has been a better compromise considering the times of austerity, which kind of narrowed our horizons, although maybe next year would be better in terms of scope. Still, Bristol is set to be a very good small pre-Easter trip whilst Easter will see the Yacht Club do their own Easter trip, mostly to make up for the loss of the Mediterranean trip, which was cancelled due to lack of numbers.

If nothing else, things are going very well, and hopefully, my 1st year would finish with something good to look forward to for next year...