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Urban Modality
Last Update: 2017.10.23


"Urban modality" means the way our city exists captured in its entirety. As urban modality appears in the relationship between man and environment, we have to examine not only the city, but also human beings living there.



Study based on Walkthrough Experiment (doctoral thesis)

Summary
We first conducted a "Walkthrough Experiment:" while walking along 3 designated routes in Kyoto city, subjects of the experiment are asked to write down what they feel on the spot. They're also asked to evaluate the total route after walking. Various areas such as urbanized, residential, historical, and natural environments are included in the routes.
We then tried to describe urban modality based on the experiment. We found places where modality changes drastically, and called them "EDGEs;" continuous areas in which modality doesn't change as much were called "AREAs". Furthermore, we visualized the continuous change of modal evaluation, and showed what kind of expressions was often used to represent the modality. Such description should be one of the feature of my research. Another feature is that we analyzed free words insistently.
I came up with this idea while walking Shimanami Kaido, a beautiful path 90km long across the Seto Inland Sea. Walking in cities always gives me research ideas.

Presentation Materials in English
+ Abstract
+ Archive page of "Exhibition of Research" vol.1 (Japanese, but includes short movies)



100ninmap project

"100ninmap" (Hyaku-Nin-Map = 100 people map) is a project that many people send out their feelings by smartphone while walking around the city, and create "feeling maps" by summarizing them. Needless to say, this project is an extension of my doctoral research : from line to surface, and from analog to digital. At the same time, this project is conducted collaborating with researchers of informatics like Dr. Aramaki (natural language processing).



Presentation Materials
+ webpage of 100ninmap project (Japanese)



Walk & Write Method

I always walk around cities holding maps and a pen, and write down what I feel, think, remember etc. on the maps.


Boston, 2014