關於 [InVisibleCities 在看得見的城市]

唸建築的時候想探索都市，唸都市的時候想探索社會，發現自己對政治、經濟、科學都感興趣，在設計產業學習的同時深感商業思維的必要性、在公司體制裡看到媒體營銷的決定性、在網路世代目睹各種傳統思維的顛覆...。我常常跟朋友說，不知道是巧合還是因果，在美國唸書的日子成了我的 "開智" 時期，對很多事情都好奇，跳出一個圈子之後發現原來有這麼多圈子，原來多數人都只在自己舒適圈裡打轉，原來在圈子和圈子間隱藏了各種可能性...。回顧當初對 "跨領域" 的疾呼、短暫的轉行、待哪裡都不舒爽的間歇性叛逆，其實都在追求一件事：更全面的理解當下。現在，一樣的探索慾望，用"城市"這個載體來實踐和包裝。

Invisible Cities 看不見的城市，這本書我知道很久了，只是一直沒好好閱讀。時不時在建築和都市這個領域，你會聽到人們提起它，或用來比喻城市看不到卻真實存在的情感、記憶、印象、行為...。在幾個城市long stay過，我彷彿能逐漸理出人對城市那些抽象且複雜的情感，一些跨文化、跨地域，卻因人性而相通的行為和記憶，加上新工具的興起，我們有機會對複雜的行為與流動做有效率的再現。我相信城市是我們最寶貴的原始資料庫，裏頭能找到各種答案、線索與靈感；城市同時也是最大的畫布，它渴望而且迫切需要我們的想像力奔放，大膽實驗與創新。所以過去我們束手無策、無法褻玩的看不見的城市，現在可以也必須被看見。從Invisible Cities 到 In Visible Cities，不光是看不見的得以被看見，更強調 "In" — "在" 我們身處的城市，從最熟悉但其實陌生的城市開始，在居住者、過客、觀察者身份中不斷切換，重新認識與闡述我們的城市。

這是一個宏遠的計畫，宏遠到我不確定我配得上它。所以我希望號招一樣想探索城市的夥伴們加入。我們不光是重新了解與呈現城市，還要對城市提出對策。我希望這是一場壯遊的開始，是一場開放與互相激勵的旅程，是跨越不同城市，既全球也在地、理性也感性、宏觀且細緻的探險。

City's Next Steps--Urban Intervention Without Urban Mindset

[Urban Intervention Without Urban Mindset]

In many of the new innovations, we see destruction accompanied, and the society stumbled adopting them. The popular Chinese taxi-hailing smartphone app: Didi Dache (滴滴打车), for example, reshaped the behavior of people traveling in the city throughout China. User can requests a cab anytime anywhere in the city, and wait for nearby taxi drivers to “grab” the order. One can even add extra tips to attract drivers while in unfavorable conditions such as peak hour or distant pick-up spot. However, just because it’s that convenient, the drivers became reluctant to pick up people who were not using the app or people didn't pay extra, and the service squeezed out customers who aren't fluent in mandarin (you have to recognize Chinese characters to use the app or voice-message to drivers in Mandarin). It caused uneven service distribution, and became so troublesome that the government needed to forbid using the tipping service during peak time in workdays and holidays.

This made I recall Dan Hill’s recent essay: Urban Parasites, Data-Driven Urbanism, and the Case of Architecture [X] and his comment on such notion as “city as public good” was absent in the thinking of many disruptive social innovations. He elaborated cases like Kickstarter and Uber, for the former dictates which project, may it be an urban project (e.g.: the Plus Pool in New York)  is to be built; and the latter tried to dodge from local union, taxation, and legal regulations every markets they entered. The pure business thinking behind most of the innovations we nowadays encountered often stands in the way of our pursuing for a better and fairer public realm. Such outcomes result from the lack of proper urban mindsets definitely worth of our attention, not to mention those already impacted our infrastructure system, streetscape, and urban environments.

City’s Next Steps- Intro

[Intro]

City, where the most dense innovation, creativity, variation, and remix take place, with tons of whys of its failures and succeeds, is always the greatest pleasure for urban planners and designers. I always find this profession particularly fascinating because of this huge excitement one can discover along the way of practice. It's indeed a long journey, and perhaps never come to a point where one can claims himself/ herself to be an expert even with entire life committed to the profession. That's how I see myself fitting in this field of practice as a human living in, exploring within, and happened to involve in the making of the city. However, when the exploration becomes repetition, discoveries become the standards, this profession starts to lose its magic.

Needless to say that the world now is rapidly changing, and our lives are continuously reshaped by both tangible and intangible inventions. Mobile devices changed our ways of communication and fetching information, electric cars revolutionized the power supply chain and streetscape,  the sharing economics right ahead of us is going to change entire merchant ecosystem, and there’s just too many to elaborate. As everyday city users, we definitely had noticed these changing of our urban lives, but do we consider ourselves capable enough to tackle with these changes, and incorporate them into our larger spectrum of practice? While all other creative professions are flooding into the cities trying to play around with the complex, urban designers and planners, however, seem remained conservative to, if not ignoring, the fact that the built cities are the great canvas waiting for more creativities.