K. INTERFACE DESIGN choice & discussion - colouring-cities/manual GitHub Wiki

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9.2.1 Introduction Colouring London has been built, in its first iteration, to incorporate four core interface functions: 'View Maps', ‘Add/Edit Maps’, ‘Download Data’ and ‘Showcase’. Each is briefly described below, with initial page briefs produced by the author and Louis Jobst, in 2017, for technical feasibility checking by Tom Russell, and as pre construction consultation images are shown in Appendix 9.
All are four functions are active except Showcase, which is now planned for release in 2022. 9.2.2 Dashboard The 2021 current iteration of Colouring London’s current dashboard is shown in Figures 9.3 and 9.4. In Figure 9.3 the map window is shown with the Menu open. Figure 9.3 Colouring London dashboard 2021 with menu open

In Figure 9.4 the dashboard is shown with the ‘View Maps’ option selected to reveal the 4 x 3 interactive colour category grid, shown in detail in Figure 9.5. The grid provides the access to point to building attribute data categories and map visualisations. It also provides a fun but legible graphic which doubles as the icon used within the Colour London and Colouring Cities logos (see Chapter 2) to increase coherence in, and memorability of branding.

Figure 9.4 Colouring London dashboard 2021 with interactive category grid open

Figure 9.5 Colouring London dashboard 2021 with interactive category grid open 9.3 Content structure and data subcategories 9.3.1 Category structuring Data structuring was the most complex aspect of interface design and significant work on this, as shown in previous chapters, was undertaken within the literature review. The category grid was designed to contain twelve main data categories providing data on a) the current composition of London’s stock and the physical characteristics of each of its building, on b) the operation, performance and quality, and on c) historical dynamic behaviour, and actual building lifespans data for each London site. Each main category provides an access point to data and visualisations for each OS MasterMap polygon/footprint, relating to: its address, OSMM IDs and coordinates, under ‘Location’; its current use. including mixed use, under ‘Current Use’; its typology, under ‘Type’; its age and building history, under ‘Age’; its dimensions and scale, under ‘Size’; its construction methods and materials, under ‘Construction’; its plot, street network and green context, under ‘Streetscape’; those involved in its design and construction, under ‘Team’; planning context, including protection, and information on likely change to its/planning status, under ‘Planning; actual and potential sustainable performance, under ‘Sustainability’; the dynamic behaviour of the site from its original greenfield state, under ‘Dynamics’; and finally, how well users thinks it works for the locality and city and whether it is in public/community ownership, under ‘Community’. All categories apart from ‘Team’ and ‘Streetscape’ are live as of September 2021. Overall, the grid is designed to contain over fifty subcategories of attribute data. The majority of subcategories were identified as being necessary during the literature review with this confirmed during the informal consultation process which tool place throughout the study period, and which is ongoing. The fact that these, without exception involved face-to-face meetings with relevant stakeholders to which a knowledge exchange platform on the sustainable of stocks was known from Building Exploratory work and the literature review to be relevant (see Appendix 2) e.g representing, housing, planning, energy, conservation/heritage, academic and local government departments working in the aforementioned areas, and community planning/residents’ groups, and schools. This initial stage of consultation, primarily, looked not to identify relevance, which was already known, but to assess whether the proposed platform interface design and content was appealing enough for them to become engaged in its collaborative development and maintenance.

Although at first glance the grid might appear simplistic or rigid, over the past two years it has proven to be highly flexible, allowing categories to be easily moved and merged and new subcategories of data to be quickly and easily accommodated as and when required. Category names and order were also adjusted many times during the consultation process, with subcategories of interest and relevance added and moved. The design anticipates continuous micro-adjustments over time to enable the most logical possible structuring of data to be achieved in the future, through trial and error and as learning from stakeholders is continuously absorbed. The data category grid is also designed with the potential to be nested within other grids representing broader data infrastructure categories. In the next stage of the project further work is planned to use the grid to further explore its value in aiding understanding of underlying relationship between the built environment’s component parts the potential for inherent order and logic in the system’s structure to be revealed through 2D graphic representation (see also Appendix 9). In Figure 9.6, alterations to main data categories since 2017 can be seen through comparison with 2017 pre-construction designs. These were influenced both through consultation and partner feedback as well as author testing. The most significant have been that: the ‘Design/Build’ section has been renamed ‘Team’; the ‘Street Front’ section has been expanded and renamed ‘Streetscape’; the Greenery section has been merged with ‘Streetscape’; the ‘Protection’ section has been expanded and renamed ‘Planning’; the ‘Demolitions’ section has been expanded and renamed ‘Dynamics; the ‘Like me?’ section has been expanded and renamed ‘Community’, and a new section ‘Sustainability’ has been added. Consultation meetings were however not recorded and, though all consultees are credited on the platform, it is not possible to clearly identify the recommendations which led to all feature changes. Methods of better recording and crediting contributor design input through the platform’s feedback system, as well as through GitHub are currently being looked at. Not all subcategories have been released. This is largely as a result of the significant cost of lack of enough software engineering time for implementation. The amount of engineering time required to select, design, build, consult on and release data subcategories was initially significantly underestimated by the author.

Figure 9.10 Colouring London main categories- pre construction design 2017. Author and Louis Jobst.

An unexpected degree of agreement on relevant data types for inclusion was noted during consultation, including from CCRP international partners. This indicated that a limited number of data subcategories could potentially be identified to support resilience and sustainability within stocks in any country, provided that accommodation for local variations could be made. This approach also addressed Morphet and Morphet’s highlighting of the need to collect the bare minimum of data necessary to both support NUA goals and maximise effectiveness and efficiency.

9.3.2 Single function categories In the data category grid, shown in Figure 9.11, the initial seven categories represent single function data types describing specific building and street attributes. Location is placed first as it is on this data type that all other spatial attribute data rely. Next comes Current Use, current land use being the most commonly used data type. Type follows, as it provides data on original use and adjacency and, when combined with footprints, offers insights into 3D form. Age completes the four datasets that provide basic information on the stock and its

3D form. Size and Construction follow, these being used to allow the 3D skeleton of the stock to be fleshed out further and dimensions to be added. Streetscape, which provides plot and street network context, concludes this first group and is able to inform 3D procedural city generation. 9.3.4 Multifunction categories The remaining five categories in Figure 9.11, as outlined in black, operate in a different way. Each provides attribute data but also has one or more additional functions used to help promote sustainability goals. The ‘Team’ category, for example, collects data on developers (including builder-owners), builders and architects, both for core build and for major extensions, as well as data on building awards and certificates of excellence. This also introduces a mechanism to drive up standards and incentivise developers to increase re-use and to use more sustainable approaches, allowing quality of buildings to be more easily tracked over time and space. Contractor performance, for example, can be compared with environmental and socio-economic performance indicators, including with energy data (held within Sustainability) or operational feedback (held within Community). The Team category is also designed to provide another incentive for historians to engage in the platform as a whole, allowing them to, collectively, upload data on builders’ names (most extant buildings in London date from before World War II and were speculatively built). The ‘Sustainability’ category, which was developed in close collaboration with UCL Energy Institute, provides data on retrofit and energy ratings. The category also looks, in the longer term, to stimulate discussion on lifespan and life extension through the proposed introduction of ‘repairability’ and ‘adaptability’ metrics and ratings, as well as ‘typology life expectancy’ indicators. Data on lifespans and adaptability collected within the platform will be important to this process and will be cross referenced. A diversity rating for street blocks, relating to age, land use, and form, is also proposed for the Streetscape section. The ‘Planning’ category is designed to provide direct links for each building to regulatory information on current planning applications, proposed demolition and statutory protections; and historical planning data. Proposals for a live-streamed traffic light system showing planning status is proposed for 2022. This category is also where current demolitions will be tracked once permission from OS to access Change Only Updates on an ongoing basis is agreed. The ‘Dynamics’ category is the most complex and unique of the twelve categories which has been developed in collaboration with Maciej Ziarkowski in discussion with the Survey of London and Historic England. The first of five proposed stages relating to collection of data on the metabolism of the stock, building survival, and building lifespans has recently been released and is shown in Figure 9.12. This allows historians to add data on estimated construction and demolition dates of all buildings previously constructed on a building’s site, as well as enabling weblinks to sources of historical data to be added. Lifespans are automatically calculated once both types of data are entered, with uncertainty measures also included. Users are requested to state whether the recorded demolished building was completely contained within the present-day plot boundary, and if not then to suggest approximately how much of it would have been contained in this boundary, earlier buildings possibly spanning multiple contemporary plots (https://colouringlondon.org/edit/dynamics/). Through this process, a picture can gradually be built up of the life expectancy of specific typologies and age cohorts to begin to identify resilient and weak typologies and to anticipate urban areas vulnerable to demolition. Where typology data are also added (this being facilitated in the future) findings can then be used to automatically update the ‘life expectancy’ subcategory, under ‘Sustainability’. This and other proposed stages involving integration of raster maps and vectorised historical footprints are tabulated in Table 9.1. Table 9.1 Proposed ‘Dynamics’ category development stages Stage Description Status Stage 1 Construction of lifespan tool Built Stage 2 Testing of lifespan by historic environment community, through a call out via local networks. Capture of feedback via dedicated discussion thread https://discuss.colouring.london/t/dynamics-category-discussion/. Testing about to begin. Stage 3 Layering of NLS 1890s 1:1056 OS raster maps of London https://maps.nls.uk/os/london-1890s/info.html beneath the current OSMM layer. Users be asked to mark up matching and non-matching buildings to enable percentage survival to be calculated and extent of resource wastage to be assessed. If successfully tested, the method will be repeated using other open historical maps. To do Stage 4 Work with the Turing Computer Vision for Digital Heritage SIG https://livingwithmachines.ac.uk/computer-vision-for-digital-heritage/ to generate open vectorised footprints, initially from the 1890s edition, and later for other editions for use in analysis and open release. Finally, the Community category provides statistical data on community views on the quality and effectiveness of buildings to help optimise the operation and quality of local stocks and the generation of more sustainable local planning strategies. It also demonstrates the scale of knowledge on stocks held at community level. The ‘Like me?’ feature was originally introduced as a method of engaging citizens of all ages and abilities, and to introduce an additional element of fun, influenced by the work of Panos Mavros. It was also designed as a tool to help community planning groups highlight well-functioning buildings under threat of demolition (with a demolition threat tool also planned for the Planning category). Colouring London screenshots of ‘likes’ can be used by community planning groups to provide statistical evidence to local planning authorities of community interest in a building’s retention and reuse. Data on commonly ‘liked’ typologies can then then be analysed against physical attributes, location and performance. More detailed responses to the ‘Like me?’ category are not sought at present. A dislike button was not included owing to its potential to encourage cyberbullying and the author’s view that it would counteract efforts to build trust and a constructive, safe community space. The Community section is also identified as being value track the loss and gain over time of buildings considered to be local ‘assets’ (be these pubs, places of workshop or dedicated community facilities) and in capturing data on assets held in public/community ownership. (From consultation and the literature review, land ownership data was found to be high controversial, with many arguments regarding privacy circulating around this, but also essential for in sustainability research. The solution currently being tested is to focus interest types of community/public ownership, and public ownership-where data are already in the public domain, and require collation, rather than on privately owned assets (that make up the bulk of stock in London) for which information is grouped and anonymised by simply including as an ‘or private’ option. 9.5 Data Visualisation (‘View Maps’) The primary core function, ‘View Maps’, allows Colouring London’s data to be visualised without the user needing to sign in, in order to maximise ease-of-access to data. One map visualisation per category was initially presented though recent technical work by Maciekj Ziarkowski means that code to allow multiple maps to be selected using the map key (see ‘Community’) are now also available on GitHub. Tools on the map visualisation page include zoom and pan features, dark and light background options, and a search-by-postcode tool (search by address is currently not possible owing to UK address restrictions), as shown in Figure 9.13. It is proposed that in future all previous editions of OSMM (from the early 2000s) are layered within the platform and that these, as well as historical maps (and animations and simulations of change), may all be accessible through the interface. Once a category on the category grid is clicked, an ‘Info’ button appears in the category band below the grid, as shown circled in red for the ‘Location’ category in Figure 9.13 and at the link https://www.pages.colouring. london/location, Figure 9.14. Information pages are written and updated by the author to provide a brief introduction to why data are being collected, to offer tips on data sources, and to provide a place to inform users of the opening up of specific datasets (such as OSMM). The pages explain to users why their contributions relating to this attribute are so important to the research puzzle, and in this way aim to encourage sustained contributions. Information pages are currently managed by the author through Wix but which are currently being integrated into the main platform. Context data including historical maps, infrastructure network, geology maps, and data on areas at risk from climate change etc. i.e. data layers commonly found on local authority GIS platforms are also now proposed for inclusion.

9.6 Adding and editing data Under the ‘Add/Edit’ tool, front-end collaborative development and maintenance through the process of crowdsourcing is able to take place (back-end collaborative maintenance takes place on the GitHub site) and where the quality of data can be improved through ‘expert’ input. ‘Expert’ will in future need to defined more explicitly, it has been found, as ‘anyone with expert knowledge of any aspect of a building of buildings e.g. based on professional skills, on academic/government –led/historical research, and/or on expert knowledge of the quality and workability of buildings and local areas based on user experience’.
Here, users can add new data and enrich, replace, adjust or verify existing data. To begin editing, a user first enters the postcode of the London area of interest, clicks on a category within the category grid, and selects a building footprint of interest. (If the user is not already signed in, they will be automatically redirected to the editing ‘Sign-up’ page where acceptance of platform protocols must first be confirmed.) Subcategories for the main grid category will then appear in the left-hand column and can then be edited. In some cases, entries will not save until the user enters sources or other associated fields that are considered to be essential. Subcategories still under development are greyed out but included to provide a comprehensive view of what is planned. The light-background option is set as the default on the editing page. In Figure 9.15, the ‘Current Use’ section is shown to illustrate the editing process. When editing this category, the user simply selects one or more options from NLUD classes in the dropdown menu in the ‘Current Land Use’ subcategory, depending on whether the building is single use or mixed use. Once the class is chosen, the building will colour instantly when the data entry is saved (with automatic saving currently being introduced). This live colouring feature helps groups of users editing collaboratively in real-time to see what areas others are working on and filling in. If attributes are known to be identical on adjacent or nearby buildings, the copy-and-paste tool can be used. This allows for the acceleration of data input. This tool is also designed to attract historic environment specialists who are used to working to a high level of accuracy and who might be willing to colour in or verify relatively large areas where these cannot be autogenerated. The copy-and-paste tool is based on the ArcGIS ‘calculate tool’ used by the author in Camden/Westminster sample collection. However, whereas in ArcGIS the tool is designed to facilitate large-scale data selection and alteration, in Colouring London, to prevent malicious behaviour, the tool only allows users to click across buildings one by one.