Why do streets continue to route traffic in the same direction over time?
How do we make lighting an interactive project in the City?
How do people interact with the public space?
What happens when the Internet of the things becomes the Internet of the cities?

This thesis is about a smart water system which can have a direct and indirect effect for the improvement of life on the street. The street of San Joan; situated at the center of Barcelona; is primarily residential and sits on an immediate gradient of 1:50. The data we have collected here states that within the area of 90Km2  the municipality daily consume approximately 30’ 000 liters of tap water while coincidentally about 2.8 Million liters of potential grey water is available from the surrounding residential buildings- enough to produce around 37’000 apples a day! Our primary criteria, therefore, was to integrate a smart sensor system with an infrastructural branching water purification system (called ‘Phytodepuration’ alongside such natural systems as hydroponics) which would require gravity as a metabolism for keeping water flowing. Thus the gradient of our site would enable the system to grow vegetation and flora according to the participation of neighboring grey water outputs.  Didactic Information would then be given to residents and general public on the quality of their grey water both through digital methods and analogue ones with means of improving it. Whereby residents are encouraged to use non pollutant products sold in the previously closed down outlets to see greener results on the street. At the same time where necessary, the municipality, would be able to see how much water they can irrigate with. As the system improves, local restaurants and residents would be able to harvest from the produce and permaculture workshops would be introduced to reap from all the benefits of the smart filtering recycled water.

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Our approach is behavioral & sociological; this is why we conducted a one on one survey and 2 live experiments to extract as much data from the users.  We used very primitive tools, but the results were astonishing.

Based on these results, we mapped out all the activities and behaviors of the users. Some of them were unique and some were overlapping. We focused on what they needed rather than what they had.

Our thesis is based on these studies and how to provide the users with tools to reach their needs instead of imposing on them. This is the main idea of our project: How to let the user decide rather than obey.

The current state of the street is a static space filled with ready-made elements. If every user had the choice to create their own need, then the street will become a dynamic pulsating mesh of activities hence reaching our goal of making the Rambla del Poblenou street a self made one.

PROPOSAL VIDEO

Rambla de Prim [ east fringe of Barcelona ] is the place where multitude of complicated spatio-social situations intersect,from urban experiment of ideas of international modernism to the biggest imigrant communities in the city. How canwe turn this at  rst sight disadvantage to a powerfull tool which will bring near future development? A er analyzing thesocio-cultural and economic background of the area we propose develop an open program, free of restrictions and hierarchies,centres or rhetorical  gures and create areas of opportunity, interaction, investigation, research and development[ eDucattion + Di usion, R + 3D, culture and entertainment ].

OPTIMIZE TRAVEL TIME AND ENERGY

Since its birth, a series of contradictory urban design provisions facilitated the appearance of ephemeral buildings and the conversion of Paral·lel into a dense area for leisure and entertainment. Many new directions in entertainment, culture, and even politics originated on this street and quickly spread around Europe. It was a meeting point for intellectuals, entertainers, and people in search for a good time. Paral·lel was for everyone, and it catered for it. People had freedom in the street; they were able to move about comfortably and without obstruction. But as the city grew bigger and traffic substantially increased, the spirit of Paral·lel got run over by motorized traffic.

Today, almost a century later, we need a street that would respond to the ever changing demands of its users in a dynamic and versatile way. People should be able to generate activity on the street rather than limiting it to indoor venues and periodic festivals. The streetscape needs to change to respond to that specific activity. It has to be flexible and able to facilitate, advertise, and connect different activities at the same time.

The Plug & Play­­­­ stations allow people to find out about events and concerts on parallel. Plug in events and street performances themselves, and get discount tickets for upcoming performances. The stations are interconnected and people can get real time activity feeds from different parts of the street. The interface analyses the real time information coming from the street and takes all necessary action. These stations are linked to swarms of quad-copters that are dispatched whenever an activity is taking place. These drones with their agile capabilities are very effective at multitasking they can operate separately or collectively, in a decentralized system. They are capable of reverting traffic away from events in a more effective way than conventional traffic lights. They can work together to light up events on the street, project videos, and spread broadband connection to large scale gatherings. The drones will guide people to areas of interest, and relay the information back to the stations for reassessment. The drones can even guide you home on a late Saturday night. We would like to say “The sky is the limit” but it’s not.