Goals of the Project



"The city is a discourse and this discourse is truly a language: the city speaks to its inhabitants, we speak to our city, the city where we are, simply by living in it, by wandering through it, by looking at it. Still the problem is to bring an expression like 'the language of the city' out of the purely metaphorical stage."
--Roland Barthes,
Semiology and the Urban


The city can be conceived as true text, as an inscription of man in space. We must learn to think about the city in the same terms as the conciousness perceiving it, which means discovering the image of the city among the readers of the city.


Space is dynamic and full of meaning, not inert and empty. Space is inherently social. It is defined by relationships and activities that operate through it. In turn, space helps determine the relationships and activities that unfold within it. It's more than a simple container of "things."


We must transform the readable into the memorable and find the meanings embedded in space. Experienceing beyond the factual and into the personal, allowing users to apply their own 'accent' and sense history to their cities. Slowing down the perceived space and time to access the network of memories under the surface and therefore accessing the complex social and material conditions of the urban terrain.


The system proposed is one that would allow users to experience not only their city, or a city, in a new way but also the community, the neighborhood, and the hopes and aspirations of the people within the space.