‘Attachment’ as agency in off-site and on-site indicators of phenomena in geospatial urban analysis tools

Abstract

“Attachment” is a term used by social media philosopher Bruno Latour to describe the use of data to understand the “thingly” quality that connects a system to its place over time (Latour 2008). Using data to connect people and place in urban design, this paper describes an approach to create custom urban analysis tools to gather geospatially specific data off-site and on-site. Unlike traditional planning software such as ArcGIS this approach uses open urban design scale software, plugins and custom scripts to individually formulate and understand new relationships and new datasets of ephemeral phenomena gathered on-site and off-site. This integration of human design and simulation intelligence increases agency in urban design and planning. These tools for agency empower and connect not only government agencies but also business owners and everyday city inhabitants. Project tools for the post-industrial “22@” district in Barcelona and comparative studies in Granada, Spain and Portland, Oregon are used to demonstrate these ideas.