Here’s our weekly review rounding up the best stories and ideas in public space from cities around the world. This week we bring you citizen mapmaking, how our brains navigate the city, living graffiti, and Sweden’s bike superhighway.
- New Cartographers
- Gone is the unwieldy map, that static thing which resisted being folded up again and so would end up stuffed unceremoniously into the glove box from whence it came. In this mobile age, where we pin our locations to digital maps in the palms of our hands, a new cartography is springing up, one that is created by everyday people all the time. These new maps don’t consist of roads and streams and topography, but of things more ephemeral like first kisses and childhood memories. So, where are you right now? (via BMW Guggenheim Lab)
- How Our Brains Navigate the City
- A few weeks ago we published a story on experiencing the city through its street patterns, and now this fascinating Atlantic Cities article explores how our brains learn to navigate our cities. Do we orient ourselves using landmarks? Create our own mental maps? Or do our brains learn what the “official” map of the city looks like from constantly looking things up on Google? Do you plunk yourself in the mental map of your city like you would the little Google street view guy? (via Atlantic Cities)
- Living Graffiti
- Graffiti is a touchy subject. Is it vandalism or art? Is it an affront to property owners or a part of democratic expression? Would your opinion change if that graffiti was done not with spray paint but with, well, vegetation? Check out these artists who prune moss to create living graffiti. Yeah, you read that right. (via Take Part)
- A New Four-Lane Superhighway to be Built only for Bikes
- Oh Sweden. Land of ABBA, the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and…the bike superhighway? Plans are in the works to create a 12.5 mile four-lane bike superhighway along railroad tracks between Malmo and Lund. The superhighway will have no intersections. Road trip, anyone? (via Treehugger)
photo by electricnerve from Flickr (cc)
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