The Smart Citizens Lab helps people to explore tools and applications to map the world around us. Along with citizens, scientists, and designers, we deal with themes ranging from air quality to the conditions of bathing water to noise pollution.
The fast uptake of FabLabs and Maker Spaces is creating new opportunities for citizen-driven innovation in domains ranging from open hardware to digital fabrication, community informatics, and participatory sensing. In the past five years, the broad availability of open hardware tools, the creation of online data sharing platforms, and the easy access to maker spaces have fostered the design of low cost and open source sensors that communities can appropriate to engage in environmental action. By collectively measuring and making sense of environmental phenomena citizens can become aware of how their lifestyle affects the ecosystem and be inspired to adopt more sustainable behaviours and demand collective action.
In the Smart Citizens Lab we help people to explore tools and applications to map the world around us. Along with citizens, scientists, and designers, we deal with themes ranging from air quality to the conditions of bathing water to noise pollution. By facilitating collective action, the city will turn into a more healthy, social and beautiful place to live & work.
The Amsterdam Smart Citizens Lab was initiated by Waag Society and Amsterdam Smart City. Waag Society runs the Amsterdam Smart Citizen Lab in cooperation with the City of Amsterdam (CTO), HvA, RIVM, SenseMakers, Alterra, AMS, Amsterdam Economic Board, Fablab Amsterdam and Waag's Open Wetlab. This initiative is internationally supported by Fablab Barcelona, Microgiants, FutureEverything, the EU Joint Research Center and Dundee University, amongst others.
The Amsterdam Smart Citizens Lab continues to run and will refine its methodology in the EU project Making Sense (separate entry). It is open to new entrants from all walks of lives, and institutions to uptake and sustain its solutions.
The Amsterdam Smart Citizens Lab has had successful editions in 2014. 2015 an 2016, and stood at the start of the international project Making Sense. Key to its success are its use and development of open, fair and inclusive technologies; its wide and deep, lasting collaborations, and it's large group of participants and supporters.
A previous post made it clear that a 15-minute city ideally consists of a 5-minute walking zone, a 15-minute walking zone, also a 5-minute cycling zone and a the 15-minute cycling zone. These three types of neighbourhoods and districts should be developed in conjunction, with employment accessibility also playing an important role.
In the plans for 15-minute cities in many places around the world, these types of zones intertwine, and often it is not even clear which type of zone is meant. In Paris too, I miss clear choices in this regard.
The city of Melbourne aims to give a local lifestyle a dominant place among all residents. Therefore, everyone should live within at most 10 minutes' walking distance to and from all daily amenities. For this reason, it is referred to as a 20-minute city, whereas in most examples of a 15-minute city, such as Paris, it is only about <strong>the round trip</strong>. The policy in Melbourne has received strong support from the health sector, which highlights the negative effects of traffic and air pollution.
In Vancouver, there is talk of a 5-minute city. The idea is for neighbourhoods to become more distinct parts of the city. Each neighbourhood should have several locally owned shops as well as public facilities such as parks, schools, community centres, childcare and libraries. High on the agenda is the push for greater diversity of residents and housing types. Especially in inner-city neighbourhoods, this is accompanied by high densities and high-rise buildings. Confronting this idea with reality yields a pattern of about 120 such geographical units (see map above).
Many other cities picked up the idea of the 15-minute city. Among them: Barcelona, London, Milan, Ottawa, Detroit and Portland. The organisation of world cities C40 (now consisting of 96 cities) elevated the idea to the main policy goal in the post-Covid period.
All these cities advocate a reversal of mainstream urbanisation policies. In recent decades, many billions have been invested in building roads with the aim of improving accessibility. This means increasing the distance you can travel in a given time. As a result, facilities were scaled up and concentrated in increasingly distant places. This in turn led to increased congestion that negated improvements in accessibility. The response was further expansion of the road network. This phenomenon is known as the 'mobility trap' or the Marchetti constant.
Instead of increasing accessibility, the 15-minute city aims to expand the number of urban functions you can access within a certain amount of time. This includes employment opportunities. The possibility of working from home has reduced the relevance of the distance between home and workplace. In contrast, the importance of a pleasant living environment has increased. A modified version of the 15-minute city, the 'walkable city' then throws high hopes. That, among other things, is the subject of my next post.
🌍✨ Join Us in Making a Difference! ✨🌍
We're excited to launch a groundbreaking project aimed at transforming e-waste into educational opportunities! 🚀📚 As part of our commitment to sustainability and digital literacy, we're collecting smartphones, laptops, and other electronics to support vibrant educational workshops in Rwanda.
Why join us? By participating, you'll:
We're looking for individuals and organizations to donate devices, share expertise, or sponsor our efforts. Every contribution makes a real difference, and together, we can create a more sustainable and inclusive future. 🌟
Let's reshape the future, one device at a time. Join us in this exciting journey and be credited in our upcoming documentary that highlights the collective efforts of our incredible partners from Germany, Latvia, and the Netherlands. 🎥🌍
CONTACT US THROUGH EMAIL - madaralace1999@gmail.com
Get ready for an exciting experience at the 7th Annual Placemaking Week Europe (PWE) in Rotterdam, Netherlands, from September 24-27, 2024! 🚀
Join us as we co-create an unforgettable programme! Do you have a game-changing project, research, or workshop to share? We want to hear from you!
This year’s festival revolves around four compelling themes:
1. Creating Place & Making It Last
2. Climate Adaptation: Together Towards Change
3. Living with Water: The Flow of the City
4. Local Power & The Battle for Space
Submit your proposals by May 19, 2024, and shape the future of urban spaces with us! Don’t miss out on this opportunity to make a difference! Join us in Rotterdam and let’s build better cities, one idea at a time! ✨
You can find all the open call info and application instructions here.
More information about PWE'24 on our official website.
Hi Andy ,
Thanks for your message. We have quite some experience in low cost air quality monitoring. We recently did a pilot called Urban AirQ (https://waag.org/en/project/urban-airq) where we tested our own sensor kit. (measuring NO2, PM, Humidity, Temperature) https://www.fablabs.io/projects/bora-sensor-kit
We also connected the Bora sensor to the smartcitizen.me platform, but at this point they're not online anymore, since the pilot is finished. In the project Making Sense we are capturing all of our learnings (hardware, software, community engagement) and will present results after the summer. Feel free to contact me at gijs [at] waag [dot] org
My best, Gijs
Low cost AQ monitoring
I am interested in low cost Air Quality monitoring options, and was interested to see Amsterdam uses the Smart Citizen platform and equipment (link below), however I am unable to get any response via their website and everything seems to have gone "off air". Does anybody know what is the status or alternative options.
https://smartcitizen.me
Many thanks
Andy
@samlloyd Sam... Am I the only one interested here in how Amsterdam would like to tackle the most critical issue earth citizens are responsible for? Keep me posted!
Beste Gijs,
Thanks for your reply. My interest was peaked by the "mapping" technology. Really like using the crowd.
Now that I have read a bit more, I am of the opinion that this is more about collecting data than developing or using mapping tools. Still cool just not sure my need to map public spaces falls within the scoop of the project.
Warmest regards,
Jim
Hi Sam,
My apologies for this late reply. You can always send me an email and ask me anything on the project! My mail adres is gijs [at] waag [dot] org
best, Gijs
Hi Jim Bowes,
My apologies for this late reply. You can find more information about the Smart Citizens Lab here: http://waag.org/en/lab/amsterdam-smart-citizens-lab or download our publication on how to engage with citizens in starting a bottom-up citizens science projects in environmental sensing. http://waag.org/en/news/amsterdam-smart-citizens-lab-publication
If you have any more question let me know through gijs [at] waag [dot] org
best, Gijs
I'm a postgraduate student researching the ways Amsterdam is adapting to climate change. Would it be possible to speak to someone involved in this project to discuss further the unique perspective you may have on this subject?
How can I learn more about this program?
I am working on a project to help cities communicate with their citizens using natural-media (low tech outdoor communication). Mapping solutions will be an important part of how we operate. Natural-media allows for high targeted messages. However, cities demand control over where messages are placed and what those messages will be. I have used Google maps for years but it has limitation r should I say they are great maps with locations but that is just one part of what could be.