Hemispheric – Frost Institute for Data Science & Computing

Participatory Mapping Las Flores

Background

More than half the world’s population lives in cities. Nearly one billion people within this urban population live in informal communities that are generally undocumented, lacking land tenure, and containing non-durable or overcrowded housing among other challenging conditions (e.g., lack of security or access to improved water sources). Inhabitants of these communities also generally face increased exposure to environmental hazards resulting in a greater risk for adverse health effects (particularly children), as well as being in locations that are “highly vulnerable to natural disasters and are expected to experience the greatest impact of climate change”. By 2050 the United Nations estimates that 66% of the world population will be urban, with a large part of this new population joining (or creating new) informal communities (in conditions of poverty). Addressing these trends of unplanned urban expansion will be one of the principle challenges for sustainable development for the foreseeable future.

Project

Supported by funding from the National Geographic Society, with additional support from Fundación Tecnoglass and IDSC, the goal of this project was to facilitate participatory mapping in the informal community of Las Flores in Barranquilla, Colombia. The project tested novel geospatial technologies (drone imagery, computer vision techniques, and GIS systems) in conjunction with participatory mapping methods to advance the self-documentation of the community. The project produced tangible results such as digital and printed maps, photos and videos, high-resolution aerial imagery, databases/GIS systems, and urban design concepts. The project contributed to “smart” city initiatives that included the human element in technologically and data-driven solutions.

Current Status

Since October 2018, the team has:

Established an office within the community to house computers (GIS) and support a local community survey team;
Hired and trained eight local community members in GIS use and other methods needed to conduct a community and built environment survey of the ~2,500 dwellings in Las Flores;
Conducted a drone-based aerial survey and constructed a high-resolution scaled and orthorectified composite image of the community;
Conducted public workshops within the community to identify priorities; and
Conducted interviews to collect oral histories of the community.

The survey team is completing digitization of the image; and recording building footprints, approximate lot boundaries, location of green space and other features. The survey team is also entering the results of the community survey into the GIS (for each dwelling), which includes information on topics such as: security, connectivity to public services (e.g., electric, sewer), perception of environmental health risks (e.g., water, air), construction materials (e.g., roof, floor, etc.), and a number of other topics. The Miami team is helping to analyze these data to produce maps and other data products that will ultimately be published on a community website (currently being designed). Students and professors from the UM School of Architecture are also developing an urban-design project concept based on information collected during this project. This funded project ended in the Summer of 2019, at which time the team held a set of public meetings to present project results to the community, the local government, businesses, and local academic institutions.

About Las Flores

Las Flores is an informal settlement in Barranquilla, Colombia, at the mouth of the Magdalena River, and adjacent to the Ciénaga de Mallorquin (a lagoon on the Caribbean Sea). Established for at least 70 years, it was founded as a fishing community. It is largely built on landfill that has been more or less continually added to the Ciénaga de Mallorquin. Two-thirds surrounded by water, and otherwise adjacent to factories and other industrial areas, Las Flores is a residential island, separated by kilometers from other residential spaces of Barranquilla. Las Flores consists of approximately 2,500 dwellings (~10,000 people) with varying degrees of access to government and commercial services such as sanitation and power.

Zenciti, Yucatán, MEXICO

In March 2016, the University of Miami announced a hemispheric collaboration between its Center for Computational Science (CCS) and the Yucatán State Government’s Information Technologies Innovation Center known as “Heuristic“, located in the Yucatán Science and Technology Park (pictured below). Taking that collaboration a step further, the UM School of Architecture (SoA), its Responsive Architecture and Design Lab (RAD-UM Lab), and CCS will come together to design “Zenciti”, a smart city next to the science park.

“Instances where smart cities are designed and implemented from scratch are very rare.”

Said Rodolphe el-Khoury, Dean of UMSoA and Director of the RAD-UM Lab. “We are fortunate to have the opportunity to design a hyper-connected city where urban infrastructure, municipal services, and social activities are orchestrated into a vibrant and sustainable environment.”

Zenciti came about when a group of developers and leaders in the IT industry joined forces for an opportunity they saw in the growing knowledge economy of Yucatán, spurred by its strategic geographic location and various other social and economic circumstances, including Heurisitic, located just 30 minutes from downtown Merida.

Zenciti will bring into play, among other things, a hub for tech startups that should create a synergy with the science park and fuel development.

Dean el-Khoury and his team think of Zenciti as a startup city: “Just like startup firms create something innovative that is hard to accommodate within existing companies, a startup city prototypes—from the ground up—a new way of life, something that departs from existing cities and the lifestyles, transactions, governance, and culture they enable.”

Zenciti will occupy roughly 650 acres and will provide 6,000 jobs in the area, on top of the 4,000 that will be created within the science and technology park. The multidisciplinary team working on the smart city project includes the following:

Center for Computational Science

Nicholas Tsinoremas | Center Director
Chris Mader | Software Engineering
Joel Zysman | Advanced Computing

College of Engineering0

Wangda Zuo | Energy and Infrastructure
Landolf Rhode-Barbarigos | Responsive Structures

School of Architecture

Dean Rodolphe el-Khoury | PI/RAD-UM
Adib Cure | Architecture and Urban Design
Carie Penabad | Architecture and Urban Design
Juhong Park | Computation, Machine Learning, and Smart Systems
Mark Troen | Real Estate Development and Finance
Veruska Vasconez | Digital Media

Source: eVeritas 15 July 2016 http://everitas.univmiami.net/2016/07/15/um-to-design-smart-city-in-the-yucatan/

Santa Cruz del Islote

The weekend before Thanksgiving, UM School of Architecture Prof. Adib Cure was working with CCS’s Software Engineering program at Santa Cruz del Islote, off the coast of Cartagena, Colombia, continuing their research on documenting informal cities with drones and digital mapping technologies, as well as interviewing residents of the island known as “the most crowded island on earth.”

While there, Cure was invited to participate on a one-day conference in Bogota, sponsored by Foros Semana, the Colombian Ministry of Housing and others on November 23: “Politica Integral de Vivienda y construccion sostenible: retos y oportunidades” (Comprehensive housing policy and sustainable construction: Challenges and Opportunities). The conference focused on recent efforts of the national government of Colombia to offer more than 100,000 free homes and to invest 4.5 trillion pesos in drinking water projects, balancing that with sustainabilty concerns. Cure was one of the experts who commented on the government program in the second half of the conference. According to the conference website, “Adib Cure stressed the importance that Colombia envisions its cities of tomorrow in an international context, but with local execution, giving priority to the renovation and restoration over demolition.”

Cure also spoke about the work he, Carie Penabad, Chris Mader, and Amin Sarafraz of CCS have done on mapping informal cities, work produced in his Vernacularology studios over the past three years, which includes the study and documentation of vernacular typologies—the various types of buildings in local architectural traditions—and elements of culture that influence them. He also described Cure & Penabad’s most recent built work in Guatemala, which directly engages the topics of sustainability, as well as vernacular and contemporary building traditions.

SOURCE: UM School of Architecture News