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A letter from the future [Short Essay] #AntonellaRadicchi

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Put in time capsule on 30 October 2001

To be opened 30 October 2021

Dear Mayer,

Tell me it isn't so!

First, congratulations on your venerability. I credit all the cycling you used to do – before you were driven off the roads by the fearsome traffic and took to your rowing machine.

Secondly, I must express my regret that your ninetieth birthday party will not be an occasion where one can "press the flesh". Raising a glass to your 3-D laser hologram will just not be the same. But with all your now-ancient friends dispersed to the four corners, it is certainly better than nothing.

Thirdly, at the time of writing, only qualified optimists such as me, would have believed that so many of your friends would still be alive to attend your virtual birthday party – let alone in robust good health, owing to spectacular advances in the biosciences.

Fourthly, and now we get to the main point of this letter, I describe myself as a "qualified optimist" because the "progress" in science and technology that I can imagine at the time of writing will, by the time you read this, have created a world that I won't much like. I promise to be delighted if my pessimism proves ill-founded. But my method of forecasting is the common one; you pick trends that are running strong and project them into the future, unless and until you see something that might impede them.

So much was promised. Telephones, fax machines, video conferencing, email and the Internet were to be our salvation. They would de-materialise the global economy. They would transform it into an information economy that would tread more lightly on the Earth. Electronic mobility would substitute for physical mobility. Red-eye flights to business meetings would be replaced by a saunter into the virtual meeting room. Most of us would compute to work rather than commute to work. Urban rush-hour traffic jams would melt away. We would be better informed, and democratically empowered by the Internet's ability to register our views by means of online voting. We would be liberated to spend more quality time with our families and neighbours. Year by year we would become richer, more convivial and kinder to the planet. Moore's Law stipulated that these trends would be exponential; the power of computers – the key drivers of all this progress – would continue to double every eighteen months for as far as the eye could see.

Caverns of loneliness

This is the vision that was promoted by government and industry with generous quantities of both money and exhortation. Even at the time it was obvious to some (including you and I) that the exhorters were either deluded or (more often) cynically deluding.

The historic evidence was clear. While electronic mobility could on occasion substitute for physical mobility it was overwhelmingly a stimulus to it. Just as with the telegraph and the telephone before them, email and the Internet provided people who were physically remote from each other with new reasons to meet, and facilitated their doing so. The eyes of the increasing numbers of business travellers will have become even redder as they are expected to travel with their computers – downloading messages and updating their spreadsheets as they go – and attending endless time-zone-spanning virtual meetings – all computers now coming with tiny built-in cameras as standard.

The urban rush-hour traffic jams will indeed have disappeared, to be replaced by pervasive all-day congestion. With the exception of a few small islands of urban café society – focused on Starbucks – the search for somewhere to park, and liberation from the morning commute to work will have encouraged the dispersal of further millions to exurbia, and their settlement at densities unserviceable by public transport – let alone feet or bicycles.

Better informed our world will not be. As we roam wider, we spread ourselves thinner. The greater the geographical extent of our "known world" the lower the level of resolution at which we can know it. As the volume of information overwhelms the human capacity to make sense of it, people are compelled to adopt ever cruder filters. On contentious issues – genetic engineering and global warming are current examples – information overload combines with crude but highly selective filters to polarise global public opinion; people abstract from the Internet only what they want to know.

And convivial it will not be. Hypermobile societies are anonymous societies, and anonymity breeds crime, fear and paranoia. The biggest losers will be children. You will recall our study of children's independence over thirty years ago, in which we discovered that hardly any children were being allowed out of the house anymore unless chaperoned by an adult; and the answers we got when we asked parents why they were denying their children the freedoms that they (the parents) had enjoyed as children: fear of traffic and fear of strangers.

By 2021 there will be many more strangers. The Stranger Danger campaigns run in schools were a late 20th century symptom of the social stress caused by hypermobility. Neighbourhood Watch was another; "neighbours" who did not know each other put stickers in their windows and pretended to look out for each other. By the time you read this such schemes will have been abandoned as the ineffectual shams that they were, and replaced by CCTV cameras capable of recognising faces, backed up by data bases storing personal information about every thing from DNA to body odour and, for those who can afford them, private security services and gated communities. The ultimate gated community at the time of writing offers a foretaste: it is the ResidenSea, an ocean-going cruise liner under construction in Norway, with one hundred and ten residential apartments (at $2 million – $5 million each), combining high security, the ultimate in video conferencing and satellite communications, and the financial advantages of living off-shore.

The death of distance

The Government's Crime Prevention Panel acknowledges the existence of trends that are fostering crime: easier access, reduced geographical barriers, increased size of the rewards and increased anonymity. It characterises the crime problem as a technological arms race and proposes fighting high-tech with higher-tech. And in the threat they spot an opportunity: the "potential for the UK to excel in world-leading technology and solutions". Annex 1 lists some of the exciting possibilities. They include: genetics, biometics, biomimetics, sensors technology, magnetic materials, smart materials, encryption, propinquity tagging, nanotechnology, wearable technologies, intelligent alarms.

The report does acknowledge, in passing, the existence of the problem of "social exclusion" – those outside the gates of the gated community – and proffers a technological solution: "new technology can reduce crime and fear of crime by being universally available across society, strengthening communities and reducing social exclusion". But this "solution' is oblivious to the nature of arms races; universal accessibility to the technological weapons about which the Panel enthuses would make them available to the enemy as well.

Their method for anticipating the future, like mine, projects ongoing trends indefinitely in the absence of perceptible impediments. I would be intrigued to know how many of the Crime Prevention Panel have read Orwell's 1984, or Huxley's Brave New World. Their future is Orwellian with a brave new high-tech gloss. Can I see any impediments to its realisation in a hypermobile world? None!

What drives the forecasters' models of increasing mobility? Economic growth. Are there any governments anywhere resisting economic growth? No. Is their Orwellian future democratically resistible? No. Participation rates in democracy are decreasing. Increasing mobility increases the scale of problems that need governing – moving the locus of political power from Town Hall, to Whitehall, to Brussels and ultimately to completely unaccountable organisations like the World Bank and the IMF. As effective accountability decreases, so does the incentive to vote. The electronic referenda proffered by the proponents of cyber-democracy will routinely leave people frustrated by the simplistic propositions on which they are invited to vote, and disenfranchise large resentful minorities. Nowhere in the genre of science fiction in which distance has been conquered by science and technology can one find a plausible example of effective democracy. The scale of the problems that need governing precludes it.

While writing this letter I took a break to listen to a BBC programme on "virtual tourism": without touching fragile environments it will simulate not only the view, but also the noises, smells and even the weather of remote parts of the world which will be spared an invasion by real tourists. I confess, Mayer, that like your virtual birthday party, I find the idea less than completely satisfying.

Perhaps I will log on to your birthday party twenty years from now to discover that your arguments have prevailed – that everywhere governments are esteeming the local above the national and global – that walking and cycling have been granted priority over every other form of transport. But, as I write, the tide appears to be running strongly in the opposite direction. I hope you will be able to convince me it isn't so.

I hope to come and see you soon – in the flesh. Be prepared. I will need a drink.

Very best wishes,

Your young friend, still imbued with your irrational belief in the efficacy of rational argument,

John Adams

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Put in time capsule on 30 October 2001 To be opened 30 October 2021 Dear Mayer, Tell me it isn't so! First, congratulations on your venerability. I credit all the cycling you used to do - before you were driven off the roads by the fearsome traffic and took to your rowing machine.

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UK Digital Planning Reform #AntonellaRadicchi

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The digital planning reform team in DLUHC have been working over the last couple of years to investigate how digital and data could improve on what we have now: saving time and money for both end-users and planning authorities, and better connecting the public to the issues and decisions made on the…

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UK PropTech Engagement Fund #AntonellaRadicchi

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About the PropTech Engagement Fund

The Planning for the Future White Paper set out a vision to increase the use of digital engagement within the planning process, to make the planning system more accountable and democratic by offering alternative routes to engage alongside traditional forms of engagement.

In August 2021, MHCLG launched the PropTech Engagement Fund to support the widespread adoption of digital citizen engagement tools and services within the planning process. The council-led funded projects will enable us to better understand the barriers to be overcome to allow local authorities to adopt these tools at scale. Read the fund launch blog post to find out more.

Scope

The PropTech Engagement Fund has begun with engagement around the plan-making process and development management, two key areas of consultation where digital can help broaden the range of voices and views being heard. We recognise there is an emerging market offering digital citizen engagement tools and services; our approach is to foster and steer these existing market offerings and accelerate adoption.

Each of the funded LPAs will procure and test a digital engagement tool or service to address one of the four themes:

Theme 1: Plan-making process: Regulation 18

Theme 2: Plan-making process: Regulation 19

Theme 3: Development management: Planning Publicity

Theme 4: Development management: Managing & analysing responses

Geographical scope

We aim to test local authorities spread across a range of locations and representative of different contexts in England, including Urban, Rural, Two-tier, Unitary and Joint Plan areas.

Documents and links

PropTech Engagement Fund: Expression of Interest guidance (Word version)
PropTech Engagement Fund: application template (Word version)

These files may not be suitable for users of assistive technology. To request an accessible format, please email DigitalPlanningTeam@communities.gov.uk.

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PropTech Engagement Fund | Local Digital

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The Planning for the Future White Paper set out a vision to increase the use of digital engagement within the planning process, to make the planning system more accountable and democratic by offering alternative routes to engage alongside traditional forms of engagement.

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Barcelona Digital City #AntonellaRadicchi

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Stolen Focus [Book] #AntonellaRadicchi

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THE TIMES NO. 1 BESTSELLER
A SPECTATOR AND FINANCIAL TIMES BEST BOOK OF 2022
A WATERSTONES NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE MONTH

'If you read just one book about how the modern world is driving us crazy, read this one' TELEGRAPH'This book is exactly what the world needs right now' OPRAH WINFREY'A beautifully researched and argued exploration of the breakdown of humankind's ability to pay attention' STEPHEN FRY'A really important book . . . Everyone should read it' PHILIPPA PERRY

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Is your ability to focus and pay attention in free fall?
You are not alone. The average office worker now focuses on any one task for just three minutes. But it's not your fault. Your attention didn't collapse. It has been stolen.

Internationally bestselling author Johann Hari shows twelve deep factors harming our focus. Once we understand them, together, we can take back our minds.

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THE TIMES NO. 1 BESTSELLER A SPECTATOR AND FINANCIAL TIMES BEST BOOK OF 2022 A WATERSTONES NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE MONTH 'If you read just one book about how the modern world is driving us crazy, read this one' TELEGRAPH 'This book is exactly what the world needs right now' OPRAH WINFREY' A beautifully researched and argued exploration of the breakdown of humankind's ability to pay attention ' STEPHEN FRY' A really important book .

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The Bristol Approach to Citizen Sensing #AntonellaRadicchi

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Sensors that collect data are increasingly embedded into our lives - in our mobile phones, streets and buildings, cars and powerlines, even in our kettles and clothes. Too often in this swelling flow of connectivity and information people and places are treated as passive sources of data. What information is being collected? By whom and for what purpose?

Citizen Sensing is about empowering people and places to understand and use smart tech and data from sensors to tackle the issues they care about, connect with other people who can help, and take positive, practical action.

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What is Citizen Sensing? Can you imagine a city that gave you the information you needed? That you'd helped to design? A city where sensing technology really helped us to make more 'sense' of things? Find out how you can do citizen sensing 'the Bristol way'.

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Minority Report #AntonellaRadicchi

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Minority Report is a 2002 American science fiction action film directed by Steven Spielberg and loosely based on the 1956 short story " The Minority Report" by Philip K. Dick. It is set primarily in Washington, D.C., and Northern Virginia in the year 2054, where PreCrime, a specialized police department, apprehends criminals based on foreknowledge provided by psychics called " precogs". The cast includes Tom Cruise as Chief of PreCrime John Anderton, Colin Farrell as Department of Justice agent Danny Witwer, Samantha Morton as the senior precog Agatha, and Max von Sydow as Anderton's superior Lamar Burgess.

The film combines elements of tech noir, whodunit, thriller and science fiction genres, as well as a traditional chase film, as the main protagonist is accused of a crime he has not committed and becomes a fugitive. Spielberg has characterized the story as "fifty percent character and fifty percent very complicated storytelling with layers and layers of murder mystery and plot". The film's central theme is the question of free will versus determinism. It examines whether free will can exist if the future is set and known in advance. Other themes include the role of preventive government in protecting its citizenry, the role of media in a future state where technological advancements make its presence nearly boundless, the potential legality of an infallible prosecutor, and Spielberg's repeated theme of broken families.

The film was first optioned in 1992, as a sequel to another Dick adaptation, Total Recall, and started its development in 1997, after a script by Jon Cohen reached Spielberg and Cruise. Production suffered many delays due to Cruise's Mission: Impossible 2 and Spielberg's running over schedule, eventually starting in March 2001. During pre-production, Spielberg consulted numerous scientists in an attempt to present a more plausible future world than that seen in other science fiction films, and some of the technology designs in the film have proven prescient.

Minority Report was one of the best-reviewed films of 2002 and was nominated for several awards. It received an Academy Award nomination for Best Sound Editing, and eleven Saturn Award nominations, including Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, and Saturn Award for Best Music, winning Best Science Fiction Film, Best Direction, Best Writing, and Best Supporting Actress. The film earned over $358 million worldwide against an overall budget of $142 million (including advertising). Over four million DVDs were sold in its first few months of home release.

In April 2054, Washington, DC's prototype PreCrime police department stops murderers before they act, reducing the murder rate to zero percent. Murders are predicted using specialized mutated humans, called "Precogs", who "previsualize" crimes by receiving visions of the future. Would-be murderers are imprisoned in a benevolent virtual reality. The federal government is on the verge of adopting the controversial program nationwide.

Since the disappearance of his son Sean, PreCrime Captain John Anderton ( Tom Cruise) has separated from his wife Lara ( Kathryn Morris) and became a drug addict. While United States Department of Justice agent Danny Witwer ( Colin Farrell) is auditing the program, the Precogs generate a new prediction, stating Anderton will murder a man he does not know named Leo Crow in 36 hours. Anderton flees the area as Witwer begins a manhunt. Anderton seeks the advice of Dr. Iris Hineman ( Lois Smith), the creator of PreCrime technology. She reveals that sometimes one of the Precogs, usually Agatha ( Samantha Morton), has a different vision than the other two; a "minority report" of a possible alternate future. This has been kept a secret as it would damage the system's credibility. Anderton resolves to recover the minority report to prove his innocence.

Anderton goes to a black market doctor for a risky eye transplant to avoid the citywide optical recognition system. He returns to PreCrime and kidnaps Agatha, shutting down the system, as the Precogs operate as a group mind. Anderton takes Agatha to a hacker to extract the minority report of Leo Crow ( Mike Binder), but none exists; instead, Agatha shows him an image of the murder of Ann Lively ( Jessica Harper), a woman who was drowned by a hooded figure five years prior.

Anderton and Agatha go to Crow's hotel room as the 36-hour time nears, finding numerous photos of children, including one of Sean. Crow arrives and Anderton prepares to kill him, accusing him of being a serial child killer. Agatha talks Anderton out of shooting Crow - barely - by telling him that he has the ability to choose his future now that he is aware of it. Crow, however, begs to be killed, having been hired by an unknown entity to plant the photos and be killed in exchange for his family's financial well-being. Crow grabs Anderton's gun and pulls the trigger, killing himself as Agatha watches in horror. Anderton and Agatha flee to Lara's house outside the city for refuge. There they learn Lively was Agatha's drug-addicted mother who sold her to PreCrime. Lively had sobered up and attempted to reclaim Agatha, but was murdered. Anderton realizes he is being targeted for knowing about Lively's existence and her connection to Agatha.

Witwer, studying Crow's death, suspects Anderton is being framed. He examines the footage of Lively's murder and finds there were two attempts on her life, the first having been stopped by PreCrime but the second, occurring seconds later, having succeeded. Witwer reports this to the director and founder of PreCrime, Lamar Burgess ( Max von Sydow), but Burgess responds by killing Witwer using Anderton's gun. With the Precogs still offline, the murder is undetected.

Lara had earlier called Burgess, revealing that Anderton is with her. Anderton is captured, accused of both murders, and imprisoned after being fitted with the brain device that puts him into a dreamlike sleep. Agatha is reconnected to the PreCrime system. While attempting to comfort Lara, Burgess accidentally reveals himself as Lively's murderer. Lara frees Anderton, who then exposes Burgess at a PreCrime celebratory banquet by playing the full video of Agatha's vision of Burgess killing Lively. A new report is generated at PreCrime, indicating that Burgess will kill Anderton. In a confrontation with Anderton, Burgess admits that PreCrime could not function without Agatha; he killed Lively following an actual attempt on her life that he had arranged, knowing that the murder would appear as an echo within PreCrime and be ignored. Anderton points out the dilemma Burgess now faces: he can kill Anderton and validate PreCrime at the cost of his own life, or he can spare Anderton and allow the program to be discredited and shut down. The flaw in the system, Anderton notes, is that people can change their future once they become aware of it. Burgess commits suicide.

Afterwards, the PreCrime system is shut down. All the prisoners are pardoned and released, although many remain under police surveillance for years. Anderton and Lara reconcile and prepare for the birth of a new child, and the Precogs are sent away to an undisclosed location to live their lives in peace.

Cameron Diaz, Cameron Crowe, and Paul Thomas Anderson make uncredited cameo appearances as subway passengers.

Dick's story was first optioned by producer and writer Gary Goldman in 1992. He created the initial script for the film with Ron Shusett and Robert Goethals (uncredited). It was supposed to be a sequel to the 1990 Dick adaptation Total Recall, which starred Arnold Schwarzenegger. Novelist Jon Cohen was hired in 1997 to adapt the story for a potential film version that would have been directed by Dutch filmmaker Jan de Bont. Meanwhile, Cruise and Spielberg, who met and became friends on the set of Cruise's film Risky Business in 1983, had been looking to collaborate for ten years. Spielberg was set to direct Cruise in , but left to make Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Cruise read Cohen's script, and passed it onto Spielberg, who felt it needed some work. Spielberg was not directly involved in the writing of the script, though he was allowed to decide whether the picture's screenplay was ready to be filmed. When Cohen submitted an acceptable revision, he called Cruise and said, "Yeah, I'll do this version of the script." In that version, Witwer creates a false disk which shows Anderton killing him. When Anderton sees the clip, his belief in the infallibility of the precogs' visions convinces him it is true, therefore the precogs have a vision of him killing Witwer. At the end, Anderton shoots Witwer and one of the brother precogs finishes him off, because Witwer had slain his twin. Spielberg was attracted to the story because as both a mystery and a movie set 50 years in the future, it allowed him to do "a blending of genres" which intrigued him.

In 1998, the pair joined Minority Report and announced the production as a joint venture of Spielberg's DreamWorks and Amblin Entertainment, 20th Century Fox, Cruise's Cruise/Wagner Productions, and De Bont's production company, Blue Tulip. Spielberg however stated that despite being credited, De Bont never became involved with the film. Cruise and Spielberg, at the latter's insistence, reportedly agreed to each take 15% of the gross instead of any money up front to try to keep the film's budget under $100 million. Spielberg said he had done the same with name actors in the past to great success: " Tom Hanks took no cash for Saving Private Ryan but he made a lot of money on his profit participation." He made this agreement a prerequisite:

I haven't worked with many movie stars-80 per cent of my films don't have movie stars-and I've told them if they want to work with me I want them to gamble along with me. I haven't taken a salary in 18 years for a movie, so if my film makes no money I get no money. They should be prepared to do the same.

Production was delayed for several years. The original plan was to begin filming after Cruise's Mission: Impossible 2 was finished, but that film ran over schedule, which also allowed Spielberg time to bring in screenwriter Scott Frank to rework Cohen's screenplay. John August did an uncredited draft to polish the script, and Frank Darabont was also invited to rewrite, but was by then busy with The Majestic. The film closely follows Scott Frank's final script (completed May 16, 2001), and contains much of Cohen's third draft (May 24, 1997). Frank removed the character of Senator Malcolm from Cohen's screenplay, and inserted Burgess, who became the "bad guy". He also rewrote Witwer from a villain to a "good guy", as he was in the short story. In contrast to Spielberg's next science fiction picture, War of the Worlds, which he called "100 percent character" driven, Spielberg said the story for Minority Report became "50 percent character and 50 percent very complicated storytelling with layers and layers of murder mystery and plot." According to film scholar Warren Buckland, Cohen and Frank apparently did not see the Goldman and Schusett screenplay, but instead worked on their own adaptation. Goldman and Schusett, however, claimed the pair used a lot of material from their script, so the issue went through the Writer's Guild arbitration process. They won a partial victory; they were not given writing credits, but were listed as executive producers. The film was delayed again so Spielberg could finish after the death of his friend Stanley Kubrick. When Spielberg originally signed on to direct, he planned to have an entirely different supporting cast. He offered the role of Witwer to Matt Damon, Iris Hineman to Meryl Streep, Burgess to Ian McKellen, Agatha to Cate Blanchett, and Lara to Jenna Elfman. Streep declined the role, Damon opted out, and the other roles were recast due to the delays. Spielberg also offered the role of Witwer to Javier Bardem, who turned it down.

After , Spielberg started to consult experts, and put more scientific research into his science fiction films. In 1999, he invited fifteen experts convened by Peter Schwartz and Stewart Brand to a hotel in Santa Monica for a three-day "think tank". He wanted to consult with the group to create a plausible "future reality" for the year 2054 as opposed to a more traditional "science fiction" setting. Dubbed the "think tank summit", the experts included architect Peter Calthorpe, author Douglas Coupland, urbanist and journalist Joel Garreau, computer scientist Neil Gershenfeld, biomedical researcher Shaun Jones, computer scientist Jaron Lanier, and former Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) architecture dean William J. Mitchell. Production designer Alex McDowell kept what was nicknamed the "2054 bible", an 80-page guide created in preproduction which listed all the aspects of the future world: architectural, socio-economic, political, and technological. While the discussions did not change key elements in the film, they were influential in the creation of some of the more utopian aspects, though John Underkoffler, the science and technology advisor for the film, described it as "much grayer and more ambiguous" than what was envisioned in 1999. Underkoffler, who designed most of Anderton's interface after Spielberg told him to make it "like conducting an orchestra", said "it would be hard to identify anything [in the movie] that had no grounding in reality." McDowell teamed up with architect Greg Lynn to work on some of the technical aspects of the production design. Lynn praised his work, saying that a "lot of those things Alex cooked up for Minority Report, like the 3-D screens, have become real."

Spielberg described his ideas for the film's technology to Roger Ebert before the movie's release:

I wanted all the toys to come true someday. I want there to be a transportation system that doesn't emit toxins into the atmosphere. And the newspaper that updates itself ... The Internet is watching us now. If they want to. They can see what sites you visit. In the future, television will be watching us, and customizing itself to what it knows about us. The thrilling thing is, that will make us feel we're part of the medium. The scary thing is, we'll lose our right to privacy. An ad will appear in the air around us, talking directly to us.

Minority Report was the first film to have an entirely digital production design. Termed "previz", as an abbreviation of previsualization (a term borrowed from the film's narrative), production designer Alex McDowell said the system allowed them to use Photoshop in place of painters, and employ 3D animation programs ( Maya and XSI) to create a simulated set, which could be filled with digital actors then used to block out shots in advance. The technology also allowed the tie-in video game and special effects companies to cull data from the previous system before the film was finished, which they used to establish parameters for their visuals. When Spielberg quickly became a fan, McDowell said "It became pretty clear that [he] wouldn't read an illustration as a finished piece, but if you did it in Photoshop and created a photorealistic environment he focused differently on it." Filming took place from March 22 to July 18, 2001, in Washington, D.C., Virginia, and Los Angeles. Film locations included the Ronald Reagan Building (as PreCrime headquarters) and Georgetown. The skyline of Rosslyn, Virginia is visible when Anderton flies across the Potomac River. A quick shot of Indian Field Creek, which crosses the Colonial Parkway in Yorktown, Virginia, is seen as John takes Agatha to his wife's house. During production, Spielberg made regular appearances on a video-only webcam based in the craft services truck, both alone and with Tom Cruise; together they conferred publicly with Ron Howard and Russell Crowe via a similar webcam on the set of "A Beautiful Mind" in New York.

The location of the small, uncharted island in the last shot of the film is Butter Island off North Haven, Maine in the Penobscot Bay.

Although it takes place in an imagined future world of advanced technology, Minority Report attempts to embody a more "realistic" depiction of the future. Spielberg decided that to be more credible, the setting had to keep both elements of the present and ones which specialists expected would be forthcoming. Thus Washington, D.C. as depicted in the movie keeps well-known buildings such as the Capitol and the Washington Monument, as well as a section of modern buildings on the other side of the Potomac River. Production designer Alex McDowell was hired based on his work in and his storyboards for a film version of Fahrenheit 451 which would have starred Mel Gibson. McDowell studied modern architecture, and his sets contain many curves, circular shapes, and reflective materials. Costume designer Deborah L. Scott decided to make the clothes worn by the characters as simple as possible, so as not to make the depiction of the future seem dated.

The stunt crew was the same one used in Cruise's Mission: Impossible 2, and was responsible for complex action scenes. These included the auto factory chase scene, filmed in a real facility using props such as a welding robot, and the fight between Anderton and the jetpack-clad officers, filmed in an alley set built on the Warner Bros. studio lot. Industrial Light & Magic did most of the special effects, while PDI/DreamWorks was responsible for the Spyder robots. The company Pixel Liberation Front did previsualization animatics. The holographic projections and the prison facility were filmed by several roving cameras which surrounded the actors, and the scene where Anderton gets off his car and runs along the Maglev vehicles was filmed on stationary props, which were later replaced by computer-generated vehicles.

The Philip K. Dick story only gives you a springboard that really doesn't have a second or third act. Most of the movie is not in the Philip K. Dick story - to the chagrin of the Philip K. Dick fans, I'm sure.

Like most film adaptations of Dick's works, many aspects of his story were changed in their transition to film, such as the addition of Lamar Burgess and the change in setting from New York City to Washington, D.C., Baltimore, and Northern Virginia. The character of John Anderton was changed from a balding and out-of-shape old man to an athletic officer in his 40s to fit its portrayer and the film's action scenes. The film adds two stories of tragic families; Anderton's, and that of the three pre-cogs. In the short story, Anderton is married with no children, while in the film, he is the divorced father of a kidnapped son, who is most likely deceased. Although it is implied, but unclear in the film whether Agatha is related to the twin pre-cogs, her family was shattered when Burgess murdered her mother, Anne Lively. The precogs were intellectually disabled and deformed individuals in the story, but in the film, they are the genetically mutated offspring of drug addicts. Anderton's future murder and the reasons for the conspiracy were changed from a general who wants to discredit PreCrime to regain some military funding, to a man who murdered a precog's mother to preserve PreCrime. The subsequent murders and plot developed from this change. The film's ending also differs from the short story's. In Dick's story, Anderton prevents the closure of the PreCrime division, however, in the movie Anderton successfully brings about the end of the organization. Other aspects were updated to include current technology. For instance in the story, Anderton uses a punch card machine to interpret the precogs' visions; in the movie, he uses a virtual reality interface.

The main theme of Minority Report is the classic philosophical debate of free will versus determinism. Other themes explored by the film include involuntary commitment, the nature of political and legal systems in a high technology-advanced society, the rights of privacy in a media-dominated world, and the nature of self-perception. The film also continues to follow Spielberg's tradition of depicting broken families, which he has said is motivated by his parents' divorce when he was a child.

The score was composed and conducted by John Williams and orchestrated by John Neufeld, with vocals by Deborah Dietrich. Williams normally enters Spielberg productions at an early stage, well before the movie starts shooting. For Minority Report however, his entry was delayed due to his work on Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones, and he joined the film when it was nearly completed, leaving him scant production time. The soundtrack takes inspiration from Bernard Herrmann's work. Williams decided not to focus on the science fiction elements, and made a score suitable for film noir. He included traditional noir elements such as a female singer in the Anne Lively scenes, but the "sentimental scenes", which Williams considered unusual for that genre, led to soothing themes for Anderton's ex-wife Lara and son Sean. The track "Sean's Theme" is described as the only one "instantly recognizable as one of Williams'" by music critic Andrew Granade. Spielberg typified it as "a black and white score" and said, "I think Johnny Williams does a really nice bit of homage to Benny Herrmann."

In an interview which appeared in The New York Times, Williams said that the choices for many of the pieces of classical music were made by the studio. He also said that while he did not know why certain pieces were chosen, Franz Schubert's Symphony No. 8 (commonly known as the Unfinished Symphony), which features prominently in the film, was most likely included because Anderton was a big fan of classical music in the script. Some of the other choices, such as Gideon's playing of " Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" by Bach on an organ in the subterranean prison, were also in the screenplay, and he figured that "They are some writer's conception of what this character might have listened to." Williams did choose the minuet from a Haydn string quartet ( Op. 64, No. 1) which plays on the radio in the scene where Dr. Hineman is gardening in her greenhouse. He said he picked the piece because "It seemed to me to be the kind of thing a woman like this would play on the radio." James R. Oestreich in The New York Times characterized the score as "evocative" and said it was "thoroughly modern" while also being "interlaced with striking snippets of masterworks", including the "lopsided waltz" from the second movement of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6, known as the Pathétique.

In 2019, a 2-disc limited "expanded edition" was released through La-La-Land Records featuring the full score as heard in the film, along with several alternate and unused tracks as bonus material.

The most commonly criticized element of the film is its ending. The film has a more traditional "happy ending" which contradicts the tone of the rest of the picture. This has led to speculation that this ending is the product of John's imagination, caused by hallucinations from his forced coma after he is incarcerated. As one observer mused, "The conclusion of Minority Report strikes me as a joke Spielberg played on his detractors-an act of perfectly measured deviltry."

One critic theorized, "Rather than end this -ian sci-fi dystopia with the equivalent of that film's shot of its lobotomized hero, which puts the lie to the immediately previous scene of his imagined liberation, Spielberg tries to pass off exactly the same ending but without the rimshot, just to see if the audience is paying attention." Film scholars Nigel Morris and Jason P. Vest point to a line in the film as possible evidence of this. After Anderton is captured, Gideon tells him that, "It's actually kind of a rush. They say you have visions. That your life flashes before your eyes. That all your dreams come true." While Vest considers the blissful dream ending a possibility, he questions why Anderton did not imagine his son as having returned.

Buckland expressed disappointment in the ending, but blamed Frank. He felt that given the water theme, and closely tied together tragic parent-child theme, Anderton should have ended the film by taking Agatha in his care if Spielberg wanted a happy ending. Especially since "Anderton kidnaps Agatha from the precog pool just as his son was kidnapped from a swimming pool" and because Anderton could act as a "substitute parent for Agatha, and Agatha ... a substitute child for Anderton." This opportunity is missed however, when the precogs are sent to the remote island, and Anderton reunites with his wife; an ending which Buckland finds more "forced" than the "more authentic" path he feels he noticed.

Minority Report is a futuristic film which portrays elements of a both dystopian and utopian future. The movie renders a much more detailed view of its future world than the book, and contains new technologies not in Dick's story. From a stylistic standpoint, Minority Report resembles Spielberg's previous film A.I., but also incorporates elements of film noir. Spielberg said that he "wanted to give the movie a noir feel. So I threw myself a film festival. Asphalt Jungle. . The Maltese Falcon." The picture was deliberately overlit, and the negative was bleach-bypassed during post-production. The scene in which Anderton is dreaming about his son's kidnapping at the pool is the only one shot in "normal" color. Bleach-bypassing gave the film a distinctive look; it desaturated the film's colors, to the point that it nearly resembles a black-and-white movie, yet the blacks and shadows have a high contrast like a film noir picture. The color was reduced by "about 40%" to achieve the "washed-out" appearance. Elvis Mitchell, formerly of The New York Times, commented that "The picture looks as if it were shot on chrome, caught on the fleeing bumper of a late '70s car."

Cinematographer Janusz Kamiński shot the movie with high-speed film in Super 35 format to increase the overall grain, which Spielberg preferred to the then-emerging digital video format. The movie's camera work is very mobile, alternating between handheld and Steadicam shots, which are "exaggerated by the use of wide angle lenses and the occasional low camera angle" to increase the perception of movement according to film scholar Warren Buckland. Kamiński said that he never used a lens longer than 27mm, and alternated between 17, 21, and 27mm lenses, as Spielberg liked to "keep the actors as close to the camera as possible". He also said, "We staged a lot of scenes in wide shots that have a lot of things happening with the frame." The duo also used several long takes to focus on the emotions of the actors, rather than employing numerous cuts. Spielberg eschewed the typical " shot reverse shot" cinematography technique used when filming characters' interactions in favor of the long takes, which were shot by a mobile, probing camera. McDowell relied on colorless chrome and glass objects of curved and circular shapes in his set designs, which, aided by the "low-key contrastive lighting", populated the film with shadows, creating a "futuristic film noir atmosphere".

Buckland describes the film's 14 minute opening sequence as the "most abstract and complex of any Spielberg film." The first scene is a distorted precog vision of a murder, presented out of context. The pace of the film is sped up, slowed, and even reversed, and the movie "jumps about in time and space" by intercutting the images in no discernible order. When it ends, it becomes clear that the scene was presented through Agatha's eyes, and that this is how previsions appear to her. Fellow scholar Nigel Morris called this scene a "trailer", because it foreshadows the plot and establishes the type of "tone, generic expectations, and enigmas" that will be used in the film. The visions of the pre-cogs are presented in a fragmented series of clips using a "squishy lens" device, which distorts the images, blurring their edges and creating ripples across them. They were created by a two-man production team, hired by Spielberg, who chose the "layered, dreamlike imagery" based on some comments from cognitive psychologists the pair consulted. In the opening's next scene, Anderton is "scrubbing the images", by standing like a composer (as Spielberg terms it), and manipulating them, while Jad assists him. Next the family involved in the murder in Agatha's vision is shown interacting, which establishes that the opening scene was a prevision. The picture then cuts back to Anderton and the precogs' images, before alternating between the three. The opening is self-contained, and according to Buckland acts merely as a setup for numerous elements of the story. It lasts 14 minutes, includes 171 shots, and has an average shot length of five seconds as opposed to the 6.5 second average for the entire film. The opening's five-second average is attained despite "very fast cutting" in the beginning and ending, because the middle has longer takes, which reach 20 seconds in some instances. Spielberg also continues his tradition of "heavily diffused backlighting" for much of the interior shots.

Spielberg typically keeps the plot points of his films closely guarded before their release, and Minority Report was no different. He said he had to remove some scenes, and a few "F-words" to get the film's PG-13 rating. Following the disappointing box office results of Spielberg's A.I., the marketing campaign for Minority Report downplayed his role in the movie and sold the film as a Cruise action thriller.

Tom Rothman, chairman of the film's co-financier Fox Filmed Entertainment, described the film's marketing strategy thus: "How are we marketing it? It's Cruise and Spielberg. What else do we need to do?" The strategy made sense; coming into the film, Spielberg had made 20 films which grossed a domestic total of $2.8 billion, while Cruise's resume featured 23 films and $2 billion in domestic revenues. With their combined 30% take of the film's box office though, sources such as BusinessWeek's Ron Grover predicted the studios would have a hard time making the money needed to break even. Despite the outward optimism, as a more adult-oriented, darker film than typical blockbusters, the studio held different box office expectations for the movie than they would a more family friendly film. Entertainment Weekly projected the film would gross $40 million domestic in its opening weekend, and predicted that the high concept storyline would not appeal to children and would render it a "commercial extra-base hit rather than a home run."

Minority Report's world premiere took place in New York City on June 19, 2002. An online "popcorn cam" broadcast live from inside the premiere. Cruise attended the London premiere the following week, and mingled with thousands of adoring fans as he walked through the city's Leicester Square. It debuted at first place in the U.S. box office, collecting $35.677 million in its opening weekend. considered those numbers below expectations, as they gave the film a small edge over Lilo & Stitch, which debuted in second place ($35.260 million). Lilo & Stitch sold more tickets, but since much of the film's attendees were children, its average ticket price was much lower. The movie opened at the top of the box office in numerous foreign markets; it made $6.7 million in 780 locations in Germany its opening weekend, and accounted for 35% of France's total box office weekend office gross when it collected $5 million in 700 theaters. In Great Britain, Minority Report made $36.9 million in its first three days, in Italy, $6.2 million in its first ten, in Belgium, $815,000 in its 75 location opening weekend, and in Switzerland, $405,000 in an 80 theater opening weekend. The BBC felt the film's UK performance was "buoyed by Cruise's charm offensive at last week's London premiere." Minority Report made a total of $132 million in the United States and $226.3 million overseas.

DreamWorks spent several million dollars marketing the film's DVD and VHS releases. The campaign included a tie-in video game released by Activision, which contained a trailer for the movie's DVD. Minority Report was successful in the home video market, selling at least four million DVDs in its first few months of release. The DVD took two years to produce. For the first time, Spielberg allowed filmmakers to shoot footage on the set of one of his films. -award-winning DVD producer Laurent Bouzereau, who would become a frequent Spielberg DVD collaborator, shot hundreds of hours of the film's production in the then-new high-definition video format. It contained over an hour of featurettes which discussed various aspects of film production, included breakdowns of the film's stunt sequences, and new interviews with Spielberg, Cruise, and other "Academy Award-winning filmmakers". The film was released on a two-disc Blu-ray by Paramount Pictures (now the owner of the early DreamWorks library) on May 16, 2010. It included exclusive extras and interactive features, such as a new Spielberg interview, that were not included in the DVD edition. The film was transferred from its "HD master" which retained the movie's distinctive grainy appearance.

A video game based on the film titled Minority Report: Everybody Runs was developed by Treyarch, published by Activision and released on November 18, 2002 for Game Boy Advance, Nintendo GameCube, PlayStation 2 and Xbox. It received mixed reviews.

On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, Minority Report received 90% positive reviews based on 252 critics and an average rating of 8.18/10. The site's critical consensus is, "Thought-provoking and visceral, Steven Spielberg successfully combines high concept ideas and high octane action in this fast and febrile sci-fi thriller." The website listed it among the best reviewed films of 2002. The film also earned an 80 out of a possible 100 on the similar review aggregating website Metacritic based on 37 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Most critics gave the film's handling of its central theme (free will vs. determinism) positive reviews, and many ranked it as the film's main strength. Other reviewers felt that Spielberg did not adequately tackle the issues he raised. The movie has inspired much discussion and analysis, the scope of which has been compared to the continuing analysis of Blade Runner. This discussion has advanced past the realm of standard film criticism. Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek fashioned a criticism of the Cheney Doctrine by comparing its preemptive strike methodology to that of the film's PreCrime system.

Richard Corliss of said it's "Spielberg's sharpest, brawniest, most bustling entertainment since Raiders of the Lost Ark". Mike Clark of felt it succeeded due to a "breathless 140-minute pace with a no-flab script packed with all kinds of surprises." Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly praised the film's visuals, and Todd McCarthy of complimented the cast's performances. Film scholar Warren Buckland recommended the film, but felt that the comedic elements-aside from Stormare's lines-detracted from the plot and undermined the film's credibility.

Several critics used their reviews to discuss Spielberg and analyze what the movie signified in his development as a filmmaker. Andrew O'Hehir of the online magazine expressed excitement over the atypically hard edge of the movie. "Little Steven Spielberg is all grown up now ... into of all things a superior film artist ... It's too early to know whether Minority Report, on the heels of A.I., marks a brief detour in Spielberg's career or a permanent change of course, but either way it's a dark and dazzling spectacle." J. Hoberman of The Village Voice said it is "the most entertaining, least pretentious genre movie Steven Spielberg has made in the decade since Jurassic Park." Randy Shulman of Metro Weekly said that "the movie is a huge leap forward for the director, who moves once and for all into the world of adult movie making." Roger Ebert called the film a "masterpiece" and said that when most directors of the period were putting "their trust in technology", Spielberg had already mastered it, and was emphasizing "story and character" while merely using technology as a "workman uses his tools". Ebert eventually named the film the best film of the year. David Edelstein of echoed the positive sentiments, saying "It has been a long time since a Spielberg film felt so nimble, so unfettered, so free of self-cannibalizing." Jonathan Rosenbaum, then of the Chicago Reader, was less convinced. Though he approved of the movie, he derided it in his review as a superficial action film, cautioning audiences to enjoy the movie, but not "be conned into thinking that some sort of serious, thoughtful statement is being delivered along with the roller-coaster ride."

Andrew Sarris of the New York Observer gave the film a negative review in which he described the script as full of plot holes, the car chases as silly, and criticized the mixture of futuristic environments with "defiantly retro costuming". The complexity of the storyline was also a source of criticism for Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times, who considered the plot "too intricate and difficult to follow". Both Rosenbaum and Hoberman belittled the titular minority report as a " red herring". More positive reviews have seen it similarly, but referred to it as a " MacGuffin".

The film earned nominations for many awards, including Best Sound Editing at the Academy Awards, and Best Visual Effects at the BAFTAs. It was nominated for eleven Saturn Awards including Best Actor for Cruise, Best Supporting Actor for von Sydow and Best Music for Williams, and won four: Best Science Fiction Film, Best Direction for Spielberg, Best Writing for Frank and Cohen and Supporting Actress for Morton. It was nominated for two Visual Effects Society Awards in the categories of "Best Effects Art Direction in a Motion Picture" and "Best Compositing in a Motion Picture." It also won the BMI Film Music Award, the Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actress, and the Empire Awards for Best Actor for Cruise, Best Director for Spielberg and Best British Actress for Morton. Ebert listed Minority Report as the best film of 2002, as did online film reviewer James Berardinelli. The film was also included in top ten lists by critic Richard Roeper, and both reviewers at .

In 2008, the American Film Institute nominated this film for its Top 10 Science Fiction Films list.

On September 9, 2014, it was announced that a follow-up television series had been given a pilot commitment at Fox. Max Borenstein wrote the script and served as executive producer alongside Spielberg, Justin Falvey and Darryl Frank. The series was envisioned to be set 10 years after the film, and focused on a male precog who teams up with a female detective to find a purpose to his gift. On February 13, 2015, Daniel London and Li Jun Li joined the cast. On February 24, 2015, Laura Regan was cast as Agatha Lively, replacing Samantha Morton, who was said to have been offered to reprise the role. In March 2015, Stark Sands and Meagan Good landed the lead roles with Sands playing the role of Dash, one of the male precogs, and Good playing Lara Vega, a detective haunted by her past, who works with Dash to help him find a purpose for his gift, Li Jun Li plays Akeela, a CSI technician, Daniel London reprised his role as Wally the Caretaker from the original film and Wilmer Valderrama was cast as a police detective. The show was picked up to series by Fox on May 9, 2015, and made its broadcast debut on September 21, 2015, but was cancelled on May 13, 2016.

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Minority Report is a 2002 American science fiction action film directed by Steven Spielberg and loosely based on the 1956 short story " The Minority Report" by Philip K. Dick. It is set primarily in Washington, D.C., and Northern Virginia in the year 2054, where PreCrime, a specialized police department, apprehends criminals based on foreknowledge provided by psychics called " precogs".

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UrbanistAI #AntonellaRadicchi

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Images generated by UrbanistAI

Relink urban design to social change

"Communities thrive when they can reimagine the future of their cities."

The big rethink in cities starts with harnessing the power of collective intelligence.

UrbanistAI bridges the gap between social imagination and the expertise required to design cities.

Participatory design powered by AI

Social imagination is now universally accessible.

Participants can use natural language to quickly create urban design scenarios.

Details and urban furniture can be added from presets on the go or directly drawn by hand.

Sections can be redrawn with preset AI brushes, to quickly turn a road into a bike lane.

Placemaking from day-one

Starting the development process with citizen's design , contributes to building identity and sense of place.

The option to reimagine our city collectively, generates new values based on local assets.
Designing cities through participatory design gives a sense of ownership to local community.

A fuller participation process

UrbanistAI enables citizens and stakeholders to shift from the role of commentators and become contributors to the design process.

Together, they will shape the local agenda and contribute to the holistic wellbeing of their neighbourhoods.

HumanAI makes design open to everyone, independent from age, skills and capacity.

A one-day session for participatory design

Participants familiarise with the challenges and ambition of the development plan with experts, specialists and the project stakeholders.

Participants will write a manifesto for the development plan, a timeline for action and they will produce their urban design visions with UrbanistAI.

A final media event is held publicly to generate awareness of the new vision and make impact on decision maker by presenting the new vision.

Here are some of the examples of how our interactive tool works.

You select the specific area that will be transformed

And enter the description of what you would like to see there:
"Transform the road into a bike lane with nature"
These are the images generated by Urbanist AI based on your description:

Improving sport facilities

You select the specific area that will be transformed

And enter the description of what you would like to see there:
"Add greener soccer fields"
These are the images generated by Urbanist AI based on your description:

UrbanistAI was ideated to be the first step of the urban planning process. Citizens together with stakeholders, experts and civil servants can come together to provide the ideas that will inspire architects and property developers to realise new projects.

At the same time, UrbanistAI can be integrated with other participatory planning processes in act in cities today.

Participatory budgeting

UrbanistAI can be integrated into participatory budgeting to enable citizens to produce enticing visualisation of the their project.

This would boost inclusivity in a process that rewards the visual appeal of the idea presented. With UrbanistAI we can make participatory budgeting more equitable by removing design skill barriers and provide agency of people of all ages and abilities.

UrbanistAI can be integrated in the current surveying routines of the city by mapping the shared image of the city.

With UrbanistAI citizens can express their sense of place and their emotions into words that are processed by the HumanAI to depict their very personal image of the city. Done collectively, it empowers community through the artistic representation of their sense of place.

The youth' vision of the city as bearing document for the new Narva masterplan

We have established a three steps workshops with elementary schools and gymnasium in Narva: first, we educated the pupils on participatory planning, then we organised a series of exercises to map their mental image of the city and eventually, we concluded with a co-design session to reimagine the future of their city. This vision of Narva became a strategic document that will help planners and designers to align their ideas with the ones from the youth.

A 2-days participatory design session was held for the City of Jyväskylä to reimagine the future design of the city's high street.

On the first day, we present cartographic analysis, invited experts to share analytical frames of reference, and engaged the high-street community in a tour and a charette. The charette revolved around three elements: manifesto, vision, and timeline. On the second day, the results of the charette were synthesised and put online on a purpose-built website, and we came together to celebrate the shared vision.

UrbanistAI is an initiative of Toretei and SPIN Unit, aiming at democratizing the design process of our cities and advanced AI technology with a human-centered approach.

contact us at info@urbanistai.com

See the leaflet

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Images generated by UrbanistAI Relink urban design to social change "Communities thrive when they can reimagine the future of their cities." The big rethink in cities starts with harnessing the power of collective intelligence. UrbanistAI bridges the gap between social imagination and the expertise required to design cities.

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PAVEGEN @ Birmingham City University #UmaimahMunir

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University of Birmingham wanted to bring their community together and meaningfully connect with students.

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PAVEGEN Case Studies #AntonellaRadicchi

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Discover the citizen engagement and kinetic brand experience projects that Pavegen has created with the world's biggest brands.

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Druids Heath Together - case study Birmingham #AntonellaRadicchi

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Our online engagement platform allows you to connect with the whole community, hear their voices and make better, more inclusive decisions about places. #AntonellaRadicchi

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Commonplace - Online Community Consultation Platform

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Commonplace's comprehensive online consultation platform offers planners and developers a richer source of opinion data, insight and analysis.

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Plan✕ is a platform for creating and publishing digital planning services. It aims to make planning less hard work, for everyone. #AntonellaRadicchi

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Plan✕ is a digital planning guide that makes planning information simpler and more transparent, for everyone.

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Article about the work done by one of our Guest Speaker Dr. Aurel von Richthofen, ARUP #AntonellaRadicchi

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Ahead of appearing at our Urban Intelligence event on Thursday 7 July at 3 pm BST, Dr. Aurel von Richthofen and colleagues argue for data interoperability and compatibility to enable sustainable city planning.
Hou Yee Quek, Franziska Sielker, Markus Kraft, Jethro Akroyd, Amit Bhave, Aurel von Richthofen, Pieter Herthogs, Claudia Yamu, Li Wan, Timea Nochta, Gemma Burgess, Mei Qi Lim, Sebastian Mosbach, VSK Murthy Balijepalli

In the 21st century, the advent of faster, cheaper and smaller electronic devices available to a mass consumer base across the globe has altered the prevailing urban dynamic and by extension, city planning processes. The extensive diffusion of internet users and sensor technologies deployed in the built environment has led to the accelerating velocity of data processing capabilities and production of large data streams that can be aggregated, processed and analysed. A hope of urban governments is to develop towards more efficient operations, decision-making and smarter cities.

Adding a Technological Dimension

Given the growing spotlight on the potential of planning technologies such as Digital Twins for urban planning and smart city design, we see some challenges of employing these digital planning tools. In order to understand urban development opportunities today, we think that it is time to add a technological dimension, an intelligent data ecosystem, to the trifecta of economic, environmental and social sustainability goals that guide city planning. This raises questions on the conundrum of interoperability and compatibility through the lens of two different technological approaches.

Today, city administrators and politicians have recognised the potential of technological solutions and by extension, smart cities to address urban sustainability issues while enhancing the quality of urban life across scales. To this end, they have often initiated, advocated, and endorsed new technological endeavours in public, private and research institutions across diverse disciplines such as Germany's third iteration of Modellprojekte Smart Cities and Singapore's Smart Nation initiatives. This generates a growing diversity of digital solutions ranging from interactive online dashboards for city statistics to proprietary optimisation tools for city logistics, building management and infrastructure planning.

Interoperability and Compatibility

Although the ever-growing diversity, range and extent of compatibility between new and old technologies means that real-world problems are being solved at unprecedented speeds, these solutions have also generated numerous heterogeneous systems that are often not interoperable or compatible with each other. Interoperability is defined as the ability of tools and systems to understand and use the functionalities of other tools, while compatibility is defined as the capacity of different tools to work together in the same environment and data format without further modifications. Interoperability and compatibility enable collaboration and more efficient decision-making processes, which lead to greater resource efficiency and innovation in an era confronted by resource shortages and sustainability issues.

With Industry 4.0, the complexity and choice of tools will inevitably increase as the efforts of various public, private and research organisations remain fragmented. In the current state of an ever-growing heterogeneous, distributed and dynamic digital ecosystem, large isolated data siloes are formed and have inhibited knowledge sharing and collaboration processes, leading to the increasing importance of both interoperability and compatibility today. To raise awareness, stakeholders of smart city initiatives have to recognise the pitfalls of a disjointed dynamic digital ecosystem and follow up by formulating strategies on how the various digital systems can be integrated to become interoperable and compatible.

Cities Knowledge Graph

An example of such a semantic system is the Cities Knowledge Graph project, a dynamic knowledge graph, built inside the World Avatar. The Cities Knowledge Graph supports the urban development process (city planning and urban governance) in three ways. Firstly, the World Avatar automates aspects of data gathering and processing in order to generate useful information and knowledge about cities. Secondly, tools, concepts and targets from different city planning departments and distinct knowledge domains are integrated to formulate more comprehensive complex definite planning questions. Thirdly, the World Avatar conducts advanced scenario planning, supporting planners to analyse different variants of their proposals.

The Cities Knowledge Graph in the World Avatar supports the identification, evaluation and proposal of planning issues and their solutions, which are generally communicated through visual mediums. At present, smart city stakeholders and citizens have begun to acknowledge data not as an absolute solution, but rather, as a supplementary tool to support more informed policy decisions. However, this shift from a technocratic perspective to a more humanistic perspective of cities is inadequate. Such digital tools must also consider the entire planning process.

Digital Twins

Current urban Digital Twins are only successful in identifying key planning issues and have yet to be able to make recommendations or proposals. This is troubling as such an action of proposing solutions is a key deliverable of planning processes, which arguably is more important than identifying planning issues. Moreover, existing integration approaches employed are focused on visualisation rather than interpretation of the immense noisy raw data streams generated. Such visualisations are often only a more efficient and swifter method to represent existing data and have yet to generate additional information or insights beyond the given dataset. In addition, models are always merely an abstraction of reality. Even if the data are updated and analysed in real-time, the proposed solutions by urban Digital Twins should only be considered as guidelines into the future. These Digital Twins must also be continuously updated and adapt to an ever-changing, complex reality with "wicked" urban problems, where addressing one problem may create another problem that cannot be predicted by even the best experts.

In the ongoing pursuit for smarter cities, the rapid pace of isolated siloed technological developments and their growing complexities and pitfalls have become too significant to ignore. Hence, technology must be deliberately included and discussed as an explicit new dimension with the three urban sustainability goals to facilitate urban Digital Twins for urban design, planning and governance purposes, which will enable a smarter, more sustainable and inclusive city.
Dr Aurel von Richthofen of Arup Germany and the ETH-Singapore Centre will speak at our online event on Urban Intelligence: how are cities using evidence and data to improve decision-making? On Thursday, 7th July 2022 at 3 pm BST. Get your free ticket here.
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This text is based on this pre-print: Quek, Hou Yee, Franziska Sielker, Markus Kraft, Jethro Akroyd, Amit Bhave, von Richthofen, Aurel, Pieter Herthogs, et al. 2021. "The Conundrum in Smart City Governance: Interoperability and Compatibility in an Ever-Growing Digital Ecosystem," no. 287 (December): 27.

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IPPO Cities: Adding an intelligent data ecosystem to sustainable urban planning

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Ahead of appearing at our Urban Intelligence event on Thursday 7 July at 3 pm BST, Dr. Aurel von Richthofen and colleagues argue for data interoperability and compatibility to enable sustainable city planning.

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Harness Data Streams - Article written by one of our Guest Speaker Dr. Aurel von Richthofen, ARUP #AntonellaRadicchi

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Open Digital Planning is a visionary project to design the next generation of planning services for local government. #AntonellaRadicchi

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Planning services designed by councils for councils.

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The World Avatar - A knowledge-graph-based digital twin of the world #AntonellaRadicchi

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Computational Modelling Group: The World Avatar

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A knowledge graph is a network of data expressed as a directed graph, where the nodes of the graph are concepts or their instances (data items) and the edges of the graph are links between related concepts or instances. Knowledge graphs are often built using the principles of Linked Data. They provi…

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MIT Senseable Lab - Project Portfolio - Urban imagination and social innovation through design & science #AntonellaRadicchi

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Urban imagination and social innovation through design & science

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The Future of...
Leading voices sharing the big ideas that will shape the future of real estate in our cities. #AntonellaRadicchi

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Article

Launching on Wednesday 8 February 2023

In our latest episode, CBRE's Andrew Saunderson, Head of UK Residential Capital Markets discusses the future of our cities with renowned urbanist, Professor Greg Clark. They uncover the long term impact of the pandemic, dive into why our cities must reinvent themselves to remain fit for purpose and look at the active role our cities need to play in helping to tackle climate change.

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Article Launching on Wednesday 8 February 2023 In our latest episode, CBRE's Andrew Saunderson, Head of UK Residential Capital Markets discusses the future of our cities with renowned urbanist, Professor Greg Clark.

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Singapore’s Digital Twin of Entire Country #AntonellaRadicchi

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ARUP's Digital twin for the city of Freiburg #AntonellaRadicchi

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The city of Freiburg im Breisgau is developing the smart city model project DATEN:RAUM:FREIBURG as part of its digitalisation strategy. Arup has developed a digital city twin with two prototypes for this project: An application with local mobility data to create a people-friendly traffic space and a…

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ARUP Cities Alive: 100 issues shaping future cities #AntonellaRadicchi

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Cities Alive workshop cards communicate 100 issues that cities will face in the future. The cards are designed to help stakeholders at all levels - citizens, planners, and officials - prioritise and explore issues that will shape the future of their city and explore the notion of city vitality thinking.

The cards take a holistic view of the future, covering social, technological, economic, environmental and political issues. Every city is different, but the fundamental challenges are often the same. The cards enable participants to explore, prioritise and discuss those issues shaping the future of their city. They are a tool to enable conversation, help identify opportunities for innovation, and facilitate transformative urban change.

Possible workshop settings for using the cards include: trends and implications brainstorms, developing city stories of the future, or collaborative design charrettes. Depending on the aim of the exercise, the cards can inform design processes, aid the identification of challenges, support the review of strategic plans, or initiate new ideas for urban intervention.

If you are interested in receiving a printed version of the cards or want to discuss how to use the cards in your organisation, please contact[email protected] .

Cities Alive: 100 issues shaping future cities

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Cities Alive 100 issues shaping future cities - Arup

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Cities Alive workshop cards communicate 100 issues that cities will face in the future. The cards are designed to help stakeholders at all levels - citizens, planners, and officials - prioritise and explore issues that will shape the future of their city and explore the notion of city vitality thinking.

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ViLO is an interactive and collaborative digital platform used to visualize and analyse spatio-temporal urban datasets #AntonellaRadicchi

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An innovative aspect of the  Vilo  project regards the possibility to conduct real time urban analysis using the various data sets loaded in the digital environment. At the current stage it is possible to conduct two-dimensional and three-dimensional visibility analysis ( intervisibility ; area and perimeter of the visible surfaces; maximum, minimum and average distance; compactness, convexity and concavity).

The platform has been developed in three different version:

A standalone desktop version;

A virtual reality version, that provide a high quality immersive and fully interactive environment;

An augmented reality version, that provide a portable immersive, collaborative and interactive environment;

The three version provide the same features described above, although the user experience and interaction has been customized for each of them.

The ViLO platform has been tested with the users during various exhibitions and conference such as "Smart Cities Expo 2016" hold in Barcelona, November 2016; at the "Open City Documentary Festival", hold in London, September 2017; at "Leading London, London at the heart of business innovation", hold in London, October 2017.

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An innovative aspect of the  Vilo  project regards the possibility to conduct real time urban analysis using the various data sets loaded in the digital environment.

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Luna et al. - 2018 - Developing mobile applications for environmental and biodiversity citizen science: considerations and recommendations (book chapter) #AntonellaRadicchi

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Luna et al. - 2018 - Developing Mobile Applications for Environmental a

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ARUP Rethinking green infrastructure - Focus on Section 2.2: Creating Smart and Connected Landscapes #AntonellaRadicchi

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Cities Alive Rethinking green infrastructure - Arup

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Cities Alive addresses global issues such as climate change, urban population growth, resource scarcity and risk of urban flooding.

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Commentary Seven intersectional feminist principles by D'Ignazio and F. Klein 2020 #AntonellaRadicchi

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D'Ignazio and F. Klein - 2020 - Seven intersectional feminist principles for equit

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Project site website #AntonellaRadicchi

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Smithfield is a once in a generation opportunity to reshape Birmingham's city centre. Located in the heart of the city, it will provide a new home for the city's historic Bull Ring markets, outstanding new leisure and cultural spaces, including a festival square and landscaped park, integrated public transport, and thousands of new homes alongside community facilities.

The site will be an international destination, created and shaped by local people - building upon a rich diversity in the city and providing a place for Birmingham's communities to come together and share experiences and new ideas.

Following a major programme of consultation with Birmingham's communities, a planning application was recently submitted to Birmingham City Council. If approved, infrastructure works could begin in 2023. You can view the planning application here, using the reference number 2022/09643/PA.

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Smithfield is a once in a generation opportunity to reshape Birmingham's city centre. Located in the heart of the city, it will provide a new home for the city's historic Bull Ring markets, outstanding new leisure and cultural spaces, including a festival square and landscaped park, integrated public transport, and thousands of new homes alongside community facilities.

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The Birmingham Smithfield Visioning document  #AntonellaRadicchi

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Adobe Acrobat: PDF edit, convert, sign tools

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Do more in Google Chrome with Adobe Acrobat PDF tools. View, fill, comment, sign, and try convert and compress tools.

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The Birmingham Smithfield Masterplan #AntonellaRadicchi

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Birmingham Smithfield Masterplan | Birmingham City Council

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Birmingham City Council download - Birmingham Smithfield Masterplan | Planning and development | Local plan documents | Approved planning policies

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Birmingham City Council (2021). Out Future City Plan. Central Birmingham 2040 #AntonellaRadicchi

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Birmingham City Council (2017). The Birmingham Development Plan 2031 #AntonellaRadicchi

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Birmingham City Council (2010). Big City Plan #AntonellaRadicchi

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Directory of city wide and area based planning policies that have been approved for Birmingham.

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By Mustafa Al-Adhami #AntonellaRadicchi

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This is part of Mustafa Al-Adhami's Lecture Series at Birmingham City University, where he leads the Emerging Digital Technologies module for Level 5 Architectural technology. This subject provides an in-depth examination of the integration of technology in the lifecycle of the building. The series aims to enlighten students and professionals about the latest advancements and their potential to shape the future of our built environment.
Session 0.1: Introduction to Emerging Digital Technologies in the Built Environment Session 0.2: Solution Design Session 0.3: Digital Twin
What is a Digital Twin?

There are many definitions of a digital twin from different fields. Below is a list of some of them.

A digital twin is a virtual model designed to accurately reflect a physical object.

A digital twin is a virtual model of a physical object. It spans the object's lifecycle and uses real-time data sent from sensors on the object to simulate the behaviour and monitor operations. Digital twins can replicate many real-world items, from single pieces of equipment in a factory to full installations, such as wind turbines and even entire cities. Digital twin technology allows you to oversee the performance of an asset, identify potential faults, and make better-informed decisions about maintenance and lifecycle.

A digital twin is a digital representation of a real-world entity or system. The implementation of a digital twin is an encapsulated software object or model that mirrors a unique physical object, process, organization, person or other abstraction. Data from multiple digital twins can be aggregated for a composite view across a number of real-world entities, such as a power plant or a city, and their related processes.

Arup, 2019

A digital twin, as a means to link digital models and simulations with real-world data, creates new possibilities for improved creativity, competitive advantage and human-centred design.

Bolton et al., 2018

In the context of the Centre for Digital Built Britain, a digital twin is "a realistic digital representation of assets, processes or systems in the built or natural environment".

Lee et al., 2013

A digital twin is a coupled model of the real machine that operates in the cloud platform and simulates the health condition with integrated knowledge from both data-driven analytical algorithms as well as other available physical knowledge.

Glaessgen et al., 2012

A digital twin is an integrated multiphysics, multiscale, probabilistic simulation of an as-built vehicle or system that uses the best available physical models, sensor updates, fleet history, etc., to mirror the life of its corresponding flying twin.

Read more on ( cyberrealityX )

Why do we need digital twins?

Digital twins offer users many benefits. We'll unpack some of the following.

Improved product design and performance

Enhanced operational efficiency

Better decision-making capabilities

Reduced downtime and maintenance costs

Digital Twins to improve performance

Digital Twins can offer predictive capabilities

Digital Twins offers Remote monitoring capabilities

Digital twins can reduce downtime and maintenance costs

What industries use digital twin technology?

A number of industries are increasingly using digital twins to build virtual representations of their real-world systems, Such as:

Construction

You can accelerate production time on products and facilities before they exist by building digital replicas. By running scenarios, you can see how your product or facility reacts to failures and make the necessary changes before actual production.

Manufacturing

Digital twins are used throughout the manufacturing lifecycle, from designing and planning to maintaining existing facilities. A digital twin prototype allows you to monitor your equipment at all times and analyze performance data that shows how a particular part or the entirety of your plant is functioning.

Digital Twin in Energy

Digital twins are widely used in the energy sector to support strategic project planning and optimize the performance and lifecycles of existing assets, such as offshore installations, refining facilities, wind farms, and solar projects.

Automotive

You can accelerate production time on products and facilities before they exist by building digital replicas. By running scenarios, you can see how your product or facility reacts to failures and make the necessary changes before actual production.

Healthcare

You can accelerate production time on products and facilities before they exist by building digital replicas. By running scenarios, you can see how your product or facility reacts to failures and make the necessary changes before actual production.

Types of Digital Twins

There are generally Four types of digital twins:

Component twins

A component or part digital twin is a virtual representation of a physical product, such as a machine, vehicle, or consumer product. It captures data from sensors embedded in the product, allowing manufacturers to monitor performance, identify issues, and make improvements.

Asset twins

Asset twins let you study the interaction of those components, creating a wealth of performance data that can be processed and turned into actionable insights.

System twins

A system digital twin is a virtual representation of a complex system, such as a city or a network of connected devices. It captures data from various sources, such as sensors and cameras, to provide insights into the behaviour of the system and help optimise performance and efficiency.

Process twins

A process digital twin is a virtual representation of a physical manufacturing process, such as a production line. It simulates the behaviour of the process in real time, allowing manufacturers to optimise production, reduce downtime, and improve quality.

Each type of digital twin has its own unique characteristics and uses. For example, Product digital twins are used for design optimisation, predictive maintenance, and performance monitoring. Process digital twins are used to optimise production and improve quality. System digital twins are used for smart city planning, energy management, and optimising logistics and transportation.

How does a digital twin work?

A digital twin works by creating a virtual replica of a physical asset or system and then connecting that replica to real-time data sources such as sensors and other IoT devices. This allows the digital twin to monitor the real-world asset and provide insights into its behaviour and performance.

The overall process of creating a digital twin typically involves the following steps:

Creation of a virtual model: A virtual model of the physical asset or system is created using computer-aided design (CAD), BIM for building or any other software. This model includes all the relevant details, such as dimensions, materials, and components.

Integration with real-time data: The digital twin is then integrated with real-time data sources such as sensors and IoT devices. This allows the digital twin to receive data from the physical asset in real time.

Analysis and visualisation: The data received from the physical asset is analysed by the digital twin to provide insights into its behaviour and performance. The insights are then visualised using various tools such as dashboards, graphs, and charts.

Predictive capabilities: The digital twin can use the insights gained from its analysis to predict future behaviour and performance of the physical asset or system. This can help identify potential issues before they occur and allow for proactive maintenance. At this stage, you need to consider Artificial intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning models.

Optimisation: The digital twin can also be used to optimise the performance of the physical asset or system. By simulating different scenarios, the digital twin can identify the most efficient and effective ways to operate the physical asset or system.

Overall, a digital twin is a powerful tool that can provide a wealth of insights and opportunities for the optimisation and improvement of physical assets and systems.

Building Information Modeling (BIM) and digital twins are both digital representations of physical assets, but they differ in several ways:

1. Scope: BIM is primarily used in the construction and building industry to design, build and manage physical structures. On the other hand, digital twins are used across a range of industries, including manufacturing, healthcare, and transportation, to create digital models of products, systems, and processes.

2. Data: BIM focuses on capturing the geometry and attributes of a building, such as dimensions, materials, and equipment. Digital twins, on the other hand, capture real-time data from sensors and other sources, providing a dynamic and up-to-date representation of the physical asset.

3. Interactivity: BIM is a static model that is typically used during the design and construction phases of a building's lifecycle. Digital twins are interactive models that can be used throughout a building's entire lifecycle, providing ongoing monitoring, analysis, and optimisation.

4. Purpose: BIM is primarily used for design and construction purposes, while digital twins are used for a range of purposes, including predictive maintenance, performance optimisation, and monitoring.

While both BIM and digital twins are digital representations of physical assets, BIM is focused on the design and construction phase of buildings, while digital twins are interactive models that provide ongoing monitoring, analysis, and optimization across a range of industries and asset types.

Guest Speaker

During the session, we were privileged to have Dr Yasin Ortakci and Prof Huseyin Seker, as our guest speakers, who spoke about the vrarch Project.

The project aims to create immersive VR applications that accurately visualise historical buildings, enabling restoration education in 3D. Additionally, it aims to train individuals capable of developing these applications, creating a new area of employment in the field of informatics. The project's objectives are threefold:

Firstly, to enhance the quality of higher education by providing innovative course materials and training methods that can be utilised in restoration education.

Secondly, to promote the development of a new employment sector in informatics by providing human resources with the necessary training and skills to create these applications.

Finally, to safeguard our cultural heritage by establishing a VR application archive that can be utilised for centuries to come in the restoration of historical buildings.

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Emerging Digital Technologies - Digital Twin - Mustafa Al-Adhami

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This is part of Mustafa Al-Adhami's Lecture Series at Birmingham City University, where he leads the Emerging Digital Technologies module for Level 5 Architectural technology. This subject provides an in-depth examination of the integration of technology in the lifecycle of the building.

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Report East Birmingham digital Twin - final report v3.1 #AntonellaRadicchi

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Digimap #AntonellaRadicchi

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Digimap delivers maps and geospatial data from the Ordnance Survey (OS), the British Geological Survey (BGS), Landmark Historic maps, OceanWise marine mapping, the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH), and Getmapping aerial imagery

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East Birmingham Data Platform #AntonellaRadicchi

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East Birmingham and North Solihull energy performance certificates

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Berlin Tegel Smart City #AntonellaRadicchi

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The former Berlin-Tegel Airport is making room for Berlin. On its 500-hectar grounds, Berlin TXL - the Urban Tech Republic, a research and industrial park for urban technologies and Schumacher...

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The Matrix #AntonellaRadicchi

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The Matrix (1999) ⭐ 8.7 | Action, Sci-Fi

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Blade Runner #AntonellaRadicchi

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Her #AntonellaRadicchi

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Adam Greenfield on the Dangers of Smart Cities #Antonella Radicchi

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Adam Greenfield on the Dangers of Smart Cities

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Urban Design for the 21st Century #AntonellaRadicchi