About the project

This research project is designed to provide a shared space for researching, reflecting and writing up overlapping and complementary interests between urbanism and design.

The project is based on the increasing relevance of the urbanism perspective – in terms of theories about cities, urban cultures, and urban living – for understanding more general societal developments and processes. In a rapid urbanising world, most aspects of societal development and change are, in a much more pronounced than before, affected by what we call ‘the urban matrix’. Simply put the urban matrix refers to how urban cultures at large – the productivities and energies embodied in urban cultures and its corresponding socio-spatial assemblages – impact on the production and reproduction, and the patterns of distribution, use and appropriation, of a whole range of societal phenomenon.

The main goal of the research project will be to explore, identify, and delineate the constitutive aspects of the urban matrix and how it informs technological features, societal practices and cultural forms. The project is be centered on a jointly authored research book (co-authored by Jonny Aspen and Andrew Morrison). It will be laid out as a selection of empirical case studies that form the basis for further theoretical exploration and deliberation. We will especially focus on themes and topics that allow for in-depth exploration of the intersections between technological artefacts and cultural forms, such as new media technologies, urban mapping practices, and issues of urban representation and visualisation. The case study material will be theoretically grounded within perspectives on urban assemblage and cultural remediation.

The project is drawing from currently project work and finances (the research project YOUrban).