CAN CITIES BE BUILT LIKE WIKIPEDIA?
Wikitopia Project is an interdisciplinary research project led by computer scientist Yuichiro Takeuchi, with the goal of realizing technologically-enhanced future cities that are continuously edited and improved by citizens like the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. Working with a global network of collaborators, the project engages in a variety of initiatives including basic research and product/service development.
Who are are in charge of building our cities? Governments, corporations, professionals such as architects and urban planners — while there may be a number of possible responses, in any case the power to design and build cities does not appear to be equally distributed among citizens (i.e., the actual "users" of cities), but instead seems to be consolidated in the hands of select institutions and individuals. This is in contrast to the digital world, where we can find many examples — Linux and Wikipedia, to name two — of large, complex, and reliable systems being created by "everyone", or groups of distributed, willing volunteers. And such democratically-created systems possess a number of beneficial attributes, such as the capacity for quick, incremental changes, increased reliability stemming from transparency, and the ability to reflect the needs of diverse populations.
Our project aims to bring such democratic modes of production to urban design, giving rise to a new form of urbanism (i.e., Wikitopia) where cities are designed and created through active, spontaneous participations of citizens themselves.
Although this vision of Wikitopia may strike some as fantastical, DIY-style, citizen-led urban design is in fact a well-established practice with precedents existing worldwide. While such activities often have beginnings as illegal endeavors, recently they are increasingly receiving official sanction; for example, a number of cities have introduced "parklet programs" that allow citizen groups to convert roadside parking spaces into small pedestrian parks. In more and more regions around the world, citizens are taking up the task of improving their neighborhoods into their own hands, in increasingly creative ways and under full approval from local municipalities.
Using cutting-edge technologies, the project aims to further accelerate such participatory urban practices — we seek to drastically increase the speed, scope, and scale of citizen-led urban interventions, making democratically-created spaces and amenities an everyday sight in our future cities.
The majority of our efforts are directed at creating novel technologies that facilitate citizen-led urbanism. We are interested in developing a wide range of technologies, with special focus on those belonging to the four categories shown below. For technologies that have reached a certain level of maturity, we actively pursue opportunities to deploy them in the real world. An example of this is our "dédédé" platform, which is now open to everyone — please give it a try!
DIY-Style Urban Design
Support spontaneous, DIY-style urban design by citizens (e.g., tactical urbanism) through new design tools and fabrication technologies
Dynamic, Adaptive Environments
Make urban environments dynamically adapt and respond to citizens' needs using new interactive technologies and intelligent robotics
Sharing Visions of Future Cities
Allow citizens to easily visualize and share their visions of future cities through augmented/virtual reality and other new media technologies
Planning and Decision Making
Facilitate planning and collective decision making using new participatory platforms, communication tools, urban simulation software, etc.
In addition to basic research and technology development, we regularly hold events such as the Wikitopia International Competition, and engage in outreach efforts such as publishing essays and pamphlets for a general audience.
The project is based at the Wikitopia Institute headquarters ("Wikitopi-AN") in Kyoto, Japan.
There are several ways to get involved in the project. If you are an undergraduate or graduate student in the Kansai area, you can join us by working as a research assistant at Sony Computer Science Laboratories Inc. (Sony CSL), so please consider applying there. If you are a member of a company or a research institution and interested in joint research, please feel free to contact us by e-mail. We also occasionally hold events open to the public, such as seminars or workshops.