CASA News http://www.whoseolympics.org/bartlett/casa/casa-news/rss The Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA) is one of the leading forces in the science of cities, generating new knowledge and insights for use in city planning, policy and design and drawing on the latest geospatial methods and ideas in computer-based visualisation and modelling. We are part of The Bartlett: UCL's global faculty of the built environment. admin 2011-08-10T10:38:33Z Thinking of applying for our MRes course? http://www.whoseolympics.org/bartlett/casa/news/2013-05-28-MRes-Places If you'd like to join CASA in September 2013 on our MRes Advanced Spatial Analysis and Visualisation course, make sure your completed application is submitted before the deadline of 2nd August 2013. The Bartlett: UCL's global faculty of the built environment. Sonja Curtis 2013-05-28T10:00:59Z UCL Pop-Up Shop features CASA products http://www.whoseolympics.org/bartlett/casa/news/2013-05-28-Launchbox UCL opened up their first "pop-up" shop, called Launchbox , on Friday 24th May in Box Park Shoreditch . Launchbox showcases the hottest new designs emerging from UCL's creative scene: from etchings, wallhangings and keyrings from artists at the Slade School of Fine Art to posters from UCL CASA, amongst others.  The Bartlett: UCL's global faculty of the built environment. Sonja Curtis 2013-05-28T13:17:33Z Life in the City is Essentially One Giant Math Problem http://www.whoseolympics.org/bartlett/casa/news/2013-05-01_math-problem Mike Batty here at UCL, Geoff West, Luis Bettencourt and Jose Lobo at the Santa Fe Institute, and Steve Koonin at the Center for Urban Science and Progress at NYU are quoted in Jo Adler’s article in May’s Smithsonian Magazine where he reports on the emerging field of quantitative urbanism. This is a nice, neat summary of the fact that as cities get bigger, they change qualitatively, regularly as some suggest for systems of cities in large continental land masses like America and with much more volatility in systems like Britain which we are studying here in CASA where primate cities or ‘dragon kings’ like London appear to dominate everything in sight. The article suggests somewhat apocryphally that “many aspects of modern cities can be reduced to mathematical formulas” but the point is that there are many emerging relationships in this science of cities that might be exploited in new ways when we intervene in the growth and structure of cities through planning. For the first time, we have a glimmer of an understanding of the limits to which we can intervene without destroying the very organism that we seek to change. Jo Adler focuses on the way agglomeration economies get greater, scale superlinearly as cities get bigger in that more and more interactions between more and more specialized people seem to interact. This leads to more than proportionate wealth and innovation but more than proportionate increases in crime and disease. Cities like many systems thus represent a tradeoff between more good and more bad as they grow. The Bartlett: UCL's global faculty of the built environment. Helen C Goodwin Martin Austwick 2013-04-30T17:42:53Z Something Else for The Weekend http://www.whoseolympics.org/bartlett/casa/news/2013-04-30_SEW CASA will be bringing its unique expertise, a series of workshops, and a range of exhibits to " Something Else for the Weekend " on Saturday May 11th, a reading-themed weekend of activities connecting members of the public with UCL research as part of the UCL Festival of Arts. We'll also be running a series of Cafe Scientifique-type events, where a short research talk will feed into a longer audience discussion around the techniques, applications, and any issues around these tools. Throughout the afternoon you'll see: 1pm: Martin DeJode on The Internet of Things and how giving physical objects a web presence is letting us tell stories about our shared experiences. 2pm: Flora Roumpani on virtual cities, and how we can create places we can visit from the mathematics of urban modelling. 3.15pm: Stephan Hugel and Martin Zaltz Austwick on walking the mystical routes of From Hell, Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell's fictionalisation of Jack the Ripper, and how modern technologies lets us capture the geographies of literature. 4.15pm: Ed Manley on mapping twitter languages and creating a cultural snapshot of London's diverse present. CASA's work will also be on show in the crime fiction mapping of Copenhagen, "Pigeon Sim" (allowing users to "fly" around virtual London) and "The London Data Table" (seeing realtime London data projected onto the city's outline). And last, but not least, PhD student Tom Oleron Evans will be talking about plagiarism at Bright Club: Reading at the Bloomsbury Theatre on Thursday May 9th - buy your tickets here . You can find out all about Something Else For The Weekend on their webpage , and if you're a prospective MRes or PhD student, it's a great chance to see just some of the diverse work that happens at CASA. The Bartlett: UCL's global faculty of the built environment. Martin Austwick 2013-04-30T17:42:53Z UCL Museums Dashboard launched http://www.whoseolympics.org/bartlett/casa/news/2013-04-29-MuseumsDashboard The UCL Museums Dashboard is an adaption of the CityDashboard website, which visualises near-live, rapidly updating and web-accessible data for eight UK cities. The data are displayed on a grid, with colour used to indicate state. By reusing modules and code from the existing website, a working prototype was able to be rapidly developed and launched. The Bartlett: UCL's global faculty of the built environment. Sonja Curtis 2013-05-29T13:59:36Z CASA at the U3A/UCL lecture day http://www.whoseolympics.org/bartlett/casa/news/2013-04-22-U3A Friday saw the first UCL/ U3A lecture day, hosted at UCL for U3A delegates. The University of the Third Age (U3A) is a volunteer-run organisation which promotes learning for retirees and people no longer working full-time, organising lectures, seminars and events. Last week featured UCL lecturers talking to U3A members in a Cafe Scientifique format. The "Cafe Sci" format flips the traditional lecture on its head, and starts with a short talk from the academic (20 minutes or less) followed by an hour of questions and discussion from the audience. In the morning CASA lecturer Martin Zaltz Austwick chaired sessions from Medical Physicist Clare Elwell (pictured above), whose fascinating talk on scanning infant brains in Gambia to understand the impacts of malnutrition led into discussions on culture, women's education and, of course, physics; in the afternoon, statistician Patrick Wolfe talked about the importance of networks in our world, and how mathematics might help us to understand some of the complex structures in our society. Parallel sessions by Sophie Scott on the neuroscience of speech and by Robert Harvey on the well-being and genetics ensured a varied mix of science was on offer. During the lunch break, CASA PhDs Pete Ferguson and Panos Mavros dropped in to talk about their research (on the structure of cities, and the neuroscience of place, respectively) with the delegates over a sandwich and a cup of coffee. Lizzy Baddeley and Gemma Moore of the UCL Public Engagement unit (ably assisted by host Steve Cross) were the ringleaders on the UCL side, and succeeded in creating an event where participants had unique access to researchers to chat to them, understand their ideas, put forward their own perspectives, and, in the cafe sci sessions, enter into larger discussions on the ideas and issues around the science being presented. We look forward to more in the future. The Bartlett: UCL's global faculty of the built environment. Martin Austwick 2013-04-22T10:21:53Z And the winner of the Sinesio Alves Junior prize at GISRUK 2013 is.... http://www.whoseolympics.org/bartlett/casa/news/2013-04-08-GISRUK2013 The CASA prize for the "Best Paper in Spatial Analysis" in memory of Sinesio Alves Junior at the GISRUK 2013 conference was awarded to Daniel Olner and his co-authors Alison Heppenstall and Gordon Mitchell - all from the University of Leeds. The Bartlett: UCL's global faculty of the built environment. Sonja Curtis 2013-04-08T15:59:40Z Who will win the Sinesio Alves Junior Prize at GISRUK 2013? http://www.whoseolympics.org/bartlett/casa/news/2013-03-11-SinesioAlvesJunior CASA is looking forward to reading the GISRUK 2013 papers so we can select a winner for our 'Best Paper in Spatial Analysis' award in memory of our much missed friend and colleague Sinesio Alves Junior.  The beautiful glass globe engraved award comes complete with a £100 Amazon gift voucher and has been presented at GISRUK for the past 3 years. The Bartlett: UCL's global faculty of the built environment. Sonja Curtis 2013-03-11T16:52:50Z CASA @ TEDx http://www.whoseolympics.org/bartlett/casa/news/2013-03-11-Tedex CASA researchers Steven Gray and Panos Mavros ran two well attended workshops at the TEDx LSE event on Saturday 9th March.  Over 40 people heard Steven present Big Data and Social Networks and Panos speaking about Cognitive Geography during the afternoon break. The Bartlett: UCL's global faculty of the built environment. Sonja Curtis 2013-03-11T15:51:56Z CASA-based art startup USEUM reaches first million http://www.whoseolympics.org/bartlett/casa/news/2013-03-06-useumlaunch USEUM , the latest innovation out of The Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA) and Digital Humanities at UCL, celebrated its official launch on Monday at UCL’s prestigious Wilkins Haldane Room with wine and a live piano & cello music performance. The Bartlett: UCL's global faculty of the built environment. Sonja Curtis 2013-03-08T15:10:13Z Smart Cities, Network Effects, and the Next Generation of Planning http://www.whoseolympics.org/bartlett/casa/news/2013-03-04-SmartCitiesInterview During Mike Batty's recent trip to the US he was interviewed by Matt Ball from the Informed Infrastructure website about Smart Cities, Network Effects and the Next Generation of Planning.  Read what Mike had to say in the full interview here. The Bartlett: UCL's global faculty of the built environment. Sonja Curtis 2013-03-06T14:46:47Z CASA part of Mayor's ‘Smart London’ board http://www.whoseolympics.org/bartlett/casa/news/2013-03-04-SmartCities The Mayor of London has announced a top line-up of experts including leading academics, businesses and entrepreneurs to develop a ‘Smart London’ vision that puts technological innovation at the heart of making the capital an even better place to live, work and invest. The Bartlett: UCL's global faculty of the built environment. Sonja Curtis 2013-03-04T13:15:23Z CASA's Sung Hyun Jang's scoops runner up research poster prize http://www.whoseolympics.org/bartlett/casa/news/2013-03-01-postercomp Sung Hyun Jang's 'Augmented Reality' poster (above) attracted a prize in the recent Graduate School Research Poster Competition.  The Bartlett: UCL's global faculty of the built environment. Sonja Curtis 2013-03-01T15:18:54Z Short Course: GIS for Health Sciences http://www.whoseolympics.org/bartlett/casa/news/2013-02-28-TalismanTraining TALISMAN, a CASA / Leeds collaborative node of the National Centre for Research Methods funded through the ESRC is running the following course at UCL in April: The Bartlett: UCL's global faculty of the built environment. Sonja Curtis 2013-02-28T16:27:22Z Meet us at The Bartlett Postgraduate Open Day - 27th March 2013 http://www.whoseolympics.org/bartlett/casa/news/2013-03-27-openday If you're interested in our MRes Advanced Spatial Analysis and Visualisation or want to find out more about studying for an MPhil/PhD at CASA, make a date to meet us at the Bartlett's first ever Postgraduate Open Day which is taking place on Wednesday 27th March 2013 between 1.30pm - 5.30pm . The Bartlett: UCL's global faculty of the built environment. Sonja Curtis 2013-02-26T10:54:22Z Another CASA PhD: Congratulations Fabian Neuhaus http://www.whoseolympics.org/bartlett/casa/news/2013-02-18-Fabian-PhD CASA's latest graduate, Fabian Neuhaus, successfully defended his PhD yesterday.  His thesis, entitled "Urban Rhythms: Habitus and Emergent Spatio-Temporal Dimensions of the City", was supervised by Professor Michael Batty (left) and Dr Andrew Hudson-Smith (right).  Fabian is pictured above (third left) along with internal examiner Professor Colin Fournier (second left) who flew in from Hong Kong for the viva.  External examiner, Dr Chris Speed from the Edinburgh College of Art, had to dash off to catch his train, so we didn't manage to snap him.  Great work Fabian - well done! The Bartlett: UCL's global faculty of the built environment. Sonja Curtis 2013-02-19T10:38:25Z CASA’s Prof Michael Batty awarded the “Nobel prize” of geography http://www.whoseolympics.org/bartlett/casa/news/vautrin-lud-michael-batty Chair of CASA and Fellow of the British Academy, Prof Michael Batty , has been awarded the prestigious Lauréat Prix International de Géographie Vautrin Lud , the highest award that can be gained in the field of geography. Named after the 16th century scholar credited with naming America, Valentin Lud, the prize is commonly referred to as the “Nobel prize of geography”, and is awarded each year at the International Geography Festival held in the French village of Saint-Dié-des-Vosges. Prof Batty was nominated for the prize by a jury made up of five geographers from across Europe, and finally named as the Laureate through a vote of over 200 prominent geographers from around the world. First awarded in 1991, previous recipients of the prize also include Prof Peter Hall of The Bartlett School of Planning. Speaking following the announcement of the award, Prof Batty said, “This was quite unexpected and I am both surprised and delighted to have received this award. Although I have a worked extensively in the geography of cities and for the first 10 years after I came to UCL, I was a member of the Geography Department as well as The Bartlett, I think this award reflects the fact that what we do in researching cities is inevitably an interdisciplinary enterprise and that this is recognized by geographers as well as architects and planners.   “I would not have even been nominated for this award had I not been able to create something like CASA over the last 18 years and that this award is as much for CASA, The Bartlett, and Geography here at UCL as it is for me.” Prof Batty, who was also awarded the Alonso Prize of the Regional Science Association for his book, Cities and Complexity in 2011, will receive the prize at the International Geography Festival in October. The Bartlett: UCL's global faculty of the built environment. Brigid C B Marriott 2013-02-18T10:00:33Z The 14th Annual Dangermond Lecture at UCSB http://www.whoseolympics.org/bartlett/casa/news/2013-02-07-dangermond-lecture-2013 Mike Batty presented the 14th lecture in the series endowed by Jack and Laura Dangermond, the President and Vice President and Founders of the world’s largest GIS software company ESRI, makers of ArcGIS. His lecture given at the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB), was focused on his work with city size distributions and their dynamics, and is posted on his blog www.complexcity.info . It included theoretical ideas using his idea of rank clocks and visualizations by Ollie O’Brien who devised the Rank Clock Visualiser and Martin Austwick who has written various related visualization using Processing. The Bartlett: UCL's global faculty of the built environment. Helen C Goodwin Sonja Curtis 2012-12-14T16:46:40Z Dr Hannah Fry wins Provost's Public Engager of the Year award http://www.whoseolympics.org/bartlett/casa/news/2013-02-01-hannah-fry-award CASA'S Dr Hannah Fry (Lecturer in the Mathematics of Cities) was named the winner of this year's Provost's Public Engager of the Year award on Wednesday 30th January. The awards are now in their fourth year, and are designed to recognise the work that UCL's staff and students are doing to open up at the university - creating two way conversations with the public. This is especially pleasing as it's the second year CASA has won (Steven Gray received the award last year). The competition was notably strong as its a cross UCL award - Hannah was nominated for her broad portfolio of public engagement activities -  including schools outreach, public lecturing, cafe scientifique, stand up, broadcasting, podcasting and charity work - which sit at the core of her practice as an academic. The board recognised Hannah's commitment to engaging people in the abstract beauty of mathematics and its utility in our complex world, making communicating research and the ideas of her field central to her academic career. They also noted her eye for evaluation and efforts in continually developing and improving her approach, based on ongoing learning. The Bartlett: UCL's global faculty of the built environment. Helen C Goodwin Sonja Curtis 2012-12-14T16:46:40Z Social Physics in the Big City http://www.whoseolympics.org/bartlett/casa/news/2012-12-14-socialphysics Martin Austwick's recent Lunch Hour Lecture "Social Physics in the Big City" received a great review from Clare Ryan in the new UCL Events Blog . The Bartlett: UCL's global faculty of the built environment. Sonja Curtis 2012-12-14T16:46:40Z London: City Life Captured in a Digital Portrait http://www.whoseolympics.org/bartlett/casa/news/2012-12-14-artwork Data collected from CASA's Steven Gray was used to create this Digital City Portrait by artist Brendan Dawes.  The Bartlett: UCL's global faculty of the built environment. Sonja Curtis 2012-12-14T16:26:07Z CASA Image Wins UCL Research Images Competition http://www.whoseolympics.org/bartlett/casa/news/2012-12-13-poster An image depicting London's multilingual Tweets produced by James Cheshire (UCL CASA) and Ed Manley (UCL CEGE) has been picked from over 350 entries to win UCL's prestigious "Research Images as Art" competition. The Bartlett: UCL's global faculty of the built environment. Sonja Curtis 2012-12-14T16:13:22Z Employment Location in Cities and Regions http://www.whoseolympics.org/bartlett/casa/news/2012-12-07-employment-location-in-cities-and-regions CASA's Professor Sir Alan Wilson is co-editor of a newly published book, 'Employment Locations in Cities and Regions: Models and Applications', published by Springer. The focus of this book is the modelling of the location of economic activities, measured in terms of employment, in land-use and transportation systems. These measures are key inputs to models at intra-urban scales of the flows of persons and goods for both urban and transport planning. The models described here are either components of comprehensive models or specialist studies. At the more coarse levels of aggregation that are usually used in comprehensive models, firms and organizations are aggregated into sectors. The Bartlett: UCL's global faculty of the built environment. Helen C Goodwin Sonja Curtis 2012-07-11T13:49:31Z "A Framework for Geodesign" by Carl Steinitz http://www.whoseolympics.org/bartlett/casa/news/2012-12-03-carl-steinitz Tomorrow evening Professor Carl Steinitz will be launching his new book here at CASA.  A Framework for Geodesign: Changing Geography by Design, published by ESRI Press, presents the key concepts, history, and methodology of geodesign.  Carl is the Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor of Landscape Architecture and Planning, Emeritus, at Harvard University Graduate School of Design and also Visiting Professor at CASA. He has devoted much of his academic and professional career to improving methods to analyze large land areas and make design decisions about conservation and development. His applied research and teaching focus on highly valued landscapes that are undergoing substantial pressures for change. The Bartlett: UCL's global faculty of the built environment. Sonja Curtis 2012-12-03T10:18:57Z CASA Working Paper from 1998 amongst Top 50 Downloads for 2011 http://www.whoseolympics.org/bartlett/casa/news/2012-11-29-top-download The UCL Discovery download statistics for 2011 show that CASA Working Paper number 3 is amongst the top 50 most downloaded publications for the year.  The Bartlett: UCL's global faculty of the built environment. Sonja Curtis 2012-11-29T16:46:36Z