After doing a round of introductions, Caroline gave an explanation to the rhythm concept and how the City Rhythm research as well as the initial case studies of DRSR have approached it. Additional to this, Pinar presented 2 of the case studies that were carried out in the last year (on trash and tourism). This part of the meeting was concluded with few ideas by Caroline on how our research consortium can explore the bridge between data and experiential level of analysis in the city.
About the Rhythm Concept:
- Rhythm is a very old phenomenon, already Aristotle wrote about it. The national Dutch philosopher Marli Huijer formulated the definition that we have been using since the past 5 years; “rhythm is variation in repetition in a given structure”.
- If you have too much variation it is chaos, and if you have too little it is repetition. As people we are rhythm based (our bodies and organs), also nature is rhythm based, the cosmos, atoms, from the smallest to the biggest structures we can perceive…
- Astronomers do Fourier analysis in the stars where they try to identify rhythm. Because once rhythm is identified, they assume there is life. So, rhythm is a quality of life itself.
- Looking at variation is something we are not used to. We look for patterns (for example in computer science) and work with patterns, while mechanic structures are something that we as humans easily get tired from.
- We need rhythm, while in cities we lost the knowledge of rhythm. We are defined by systems that have no sense for rhythm nor adapt to our rhythms. With 70 % of human kind living in cities, this is something we need to understand much better.
- In the previous City Rhythm research, we defined a methodology for rhythm (published in Edinburg University Press) where we approached it from a discourse perspective. The book discusses spheres and flows when they talk about rhythm, also reintroducing Castell’s space of place and space of flows, suggesting that power balance shifts as the connection to place is lost. In this book they try to understand rhythm but don’t approach it from the data perspective. While I think it’s fundamental that we do that.
How did we start working on rhythm?
The YUTPA Framework
- “Integrating rhythm was part of the YUTPA framework. YUTPA is the acronym for “being with You in the Unity of Time, Place and Action”. These 4 aspects shift due to the information technology; before, without sharing time, place, action and relation it wasn’t possible to be in contact with someone. Only in 2 decades we have a new question; where are you?
- During Caroline’s dissertation, it was explored what the configuration of you / here / now / do, is. The framework was developed to allow the distinction between I am with you in relation or not. When you are in relation, you respond differently to people and vice versa.
- The conclusion of the research was that between these 4 dimensions, trust emerges; trust between one person or another, or one process and another.
Results of the research in Escamp
- With this framework, another research was carried out in Escamp, The Hague on social safety. Different types of analyses were made (surveys, architectural, social…). The conclusion here was that for social safety in the neighbourhood, the most important factor was “integrating rhythm”.
- Because of this result, Caroline started to work with rhythm. It’s interesting because when you meet someone at the same time and same place (taking the dog out for a walk, meeting at a shop…), you create the affordance to create a relation and trust is possible to emerge. So, rhythm is fundamental in a social structure; the first requirement is to share a rhythm for trust to emerge.
City Rhythm research:
Research context:
- City Rhythm research, worked with 6 cities, 60 students, 10 professors, 3 universities and we did 9 case studies out of which 7 were successful. Working at the 6 cities with civil servants, we had questions about activities and questions about environments.
- What we found in the end was that questions on activities were very good to approach from the rhythm perspective, while the questions that were more based on environment this perspective didn’t add something new to the equation.
- Rhythm methodology: we focus on a problem and we take several steps to approach it from the rhythm perspective. By bringing spatial and temporal analysis together, you make a rhythm analysis.
Case Studies in Rotterdam and in Amsterdam Zuidoost:
- In the case of the question in Rotterdam, which was about the elderly, the methodology allowed to understand that there was a mismatch between the rhythm of the elderly and the streets in their neighbourhoods; the traffic lights of the streets were too short for them to cross the street.
- This is also the city borough where the DRSR research is positioned. It is a very multi-ethnic neighbourhood, with high differences of rich and poor. Here there are a lot of young single mothers and the municipality has created many services for them, but the services are not being used.
- To understand this, we made a spatial analysis of the neighbourhood and the rhythms of the municipality and the services, and in the end it came out that it was hard for the young women to go to places with their child but also because the rhythms of the services were not adapted to their rhythms.
City Rhythm Data Model:
- We also then had a data dimension to this. A cluster analysis was made with the Hidden Markov Model, out of which these visualisations emerged. It gives the impression that there are base rhythms in the neighbourhoods of these cities. When we went to the similar base rhythms of different cities, we noticed also similar spheres.
- We said that the base rhythms can be a certain state in the neighbourhood and certain clusters go through certain changes in the neighbourhood. A beat is a moment of transition. And a street rhythm is the result of multiple transitions in a neighbourhood.
DRSR
DRSR Exploration:
- In the planning of the new research, we discussed with the stakeholders to do 4 short case studies and then a big case study.
- The main question we aim to answer is: How do rhythms in specific neighbourhoods contribute to social resilience? Here we explore how to identify rhythm in neighbourhoods and in large datasets, and how to understand rhythm as a factor for social safety, for well being and for social resilience.
- We have been doing exploratory case studies to look at this phenomenon, in order to let new concepts regarding rhythm to emerge by working on specific issues.
- Until now, we have been trying to identify a dynamic in a context to find out about a phenomenon. The challenge with working with data is also about how to relate the data to more experiential concepts of living together.
Case study on trash:
- A comparative analysis about a building with clean surroundings and another with dirty. Identified social and spatial patterns in the daily life and in the cleaning practice, then noticed how these were connected to each other and also shaped each other.
- It was suggested that these properties are combined to create rhythm zones. In total 5 rhythm zones identified. The main hypothesis was that as rhythm zones correspond to each other, they create different experiences of trash.
Case study on tourism:
- Exploration as part of the Venice biennale Values for Survival Exploratorium. Collaborated with researchers from Glasgow and Venice and created a framework that would enable the 3 cities to be compared to each other.
- Focused on 4 notions for organising temporality (scheduling, synchronising, pausing and stretching). By visualizing rhythms, we wanted to reveal the suitable time frames and areas for proposing these notions in the 3 cities.
- Not only tourists but 8 types of visitors were taken into account. Daily, weekly and yearly rhythms were visualized. Finally, these different rhythm analyses ended up in defining space-time transitions.
Concluding remarks from Caroline
The concepts we have been visiting:
- Terroir (grape farming concept), integrates geology, geography and climate to be able to define rhythm in a context
- Municipalities and nation states: they work with statistical models but don’t explore the dynamics with which we are connected to each other.
- Medical geography: from Meade, unifies population, environment and culture.
- Capabilities approach: how the UN food and development program works. They look at whether the context provides the people to have the capacity to survive.
- The YUTPA Framework by Caroline which is about how you can develop trust.
Our ambitions and position:
- The ambition would be to be able to develop a new model that would enable to go from data to experiential knowledge and back to data.
- Rhythm is fundamental to life, it is foundational to presence, to well-being and survival.
- My big question, inspired by Covid19 and the accelaration of climate change is: can we reconnect, in the urban context, ecological and social rhythms in personal, communal, organisation, business and societal life? And if so, how?
Questions/Discussion
Alexei:
- Regarding the mapping of the various types of rhythms, it’s my understanding is that you first conceptualise a rhythm pattern and then you map it. How do you deal with the actual type of rhythm with which this place is characterised? One way is by simplifying this and by putting this on a map and the other way is how you see the rhythm patterns in each particular place.
- For example, there is a great deal of temporal/social segregation that one diaspora can use in a particular area (for example, only in the morning or in the evening) without crossing. How can we see this? How do you think this stratification or segregation of time use in the city could affect the whole way of life? It seems like we see more and more time stratification and segregation in the city.
Caroline:
- From a management perspective, time segregation can be handy. But in a recent research we saw that many people want vital neighbourhoods which means young and old together. Big shops, small shops, altogether. From a management perspective segregation can be easy but it also diminishes social resilience. Many people demand the complexity around them. But people also need to be fit for this. If you see only your rhythm then you become less fit. But you can’t have too much complexity.
- If we translate in rhythm terms, the question could become "How much variation do we need? When does it become mechanical and people become disengaged?”.