urban planning « Candy Chang

urban planning, signs, public space, design, Helsinki, print, NYC, public installation, Africa, music, law & order, India, Asia, New Orleans, urban planning
The Trucks of the Sidewalk In reference to the ground signage dividing bikes and pedestrians in Helsinki… a more nuanced edit on my block on Uudenmaankatu:	Fix Everything My Ass When I was working on a criminal justice project in New Orleans in 2006, there were still houses on top of cars. And this was one year after Hurricane Katrina… Last month Sean and Carolina show us around their neighborhood in the Marigny, where restored shotgun houses and abandoned shells sit side-by-side and a mardi gras [...]	Pebbles After Helsinki’s first big snow, the City sprinkles pebbles on the sidewalks to give pedestrians grip over the ice. How many pounds or kilograms of pebbles they must have, I’m not sure, but they continue to add more after each snowfall until the Spring (who am I kidding, Summer) when they sweep it, store it, [...]	Free Maps Finland offers free local maps in choice public spaces like Helsinki’s train station and outside of Turku’s tourist office (above, demonstrated by the lovely Suvi). Just push the button and out pops a handy guide and a welcoming feeling.

Tenants’ Rights Flash Cards Renters' rights made fun Boxed set of 30 fun and friendly flash cards on New York state’s tenant rights	Street Vendor Guide Accessible city regulations An accessible guide to NYC street vendor rules, rights, history, and policy reform	The Idiotic Building Book A little skyscraper story A miniature book about NYC’s first skyscraper and the world’s tallest buildings through history	Post-it Notes for Neighbors Real estate revealed Public installation transforming a storefront window into a neighborhood resource

Million Dollar Blocks Criminal justice mapping Mapping prison costs per block to incite changes in community investment in New Orleans	Nairobi Metropolitan Big scale urban planning A strategic master plan for growth in Ruiru, a peri-urban satellite town of Nairobi, Kenya	Buy Tenants’ Rights Flashcards! The tenant flash cards can now be purchased online for $10! The boxed set makes a handsome and righteous gift for anyone living in New York state, and all profits go to the good work of non-profit Tenants & Neighbors. It was great fun creating them and now you can enjoy good times learning the [...]	Community Chalkboards Flexible local platforms Public chalkboards to improve information-sharing between residents in a Johannesburg township

Hello Neighbors Local information-sharing A study about neighborhood communication in public space through flyers and online forums	Recovery Park and Guide Facilitating drug rehab Helping female recovering drug addicts in Vancouver through a temporary park and resource guide	Mobile Air Quality Data for mobile devices Invisible health data made visible through interactive maps and augmented reality views on mobile devices	Global Studio Towards a better future Action-research program informed by the UN Millennium Development Goals

Local History by SMS Local history on the go 200+ stickers in public space with codes to SMS for instant local history on your mobile phone	The Hair District Salons in Johannesburg A photography book about hair salons in Johannesburg that highlights creative energy and planning challenges	Pedestrian Timeline Local history on the streets Stenciled timeline on the sidewalk to bring the history of Governors Island to the streets	Bike Map Covers Two wheels good Proposed cycling map covers for NYC’s Department of Transportation

Water in Africa Poster Startling facts A poster bringing awareness to the lack of safe water access in Africa	Infrastructure Geometry Statistics by shape Diagrams of living conditions in Nairobi, Dakar and Johannesburg for The World Bank	A Nice Place for a Tree Promoting green sidewalks A street campaign for more tree-lined streets in Chinatown	Ginormous Rubber Duck Big fun at the waterfront A proposed installation enticing all to test the frisky waters of the East River

Brooklyn Bridge Signage A study and proposal for wayfinding on the Brooklyn Bridge pedestrian walkway	Flash cards have arrived Last year I got a generous grant from Sappi Ideas That Matter to create flash cards on tenants’ rights with the NY grassroots organization Tenants & Neighbors. After working together for months and sending them out to the printers, the cards have arrived! The boxed set of thirty cards translates NY state’s official Tenants Rights Guide [...]	Project Moustache Stick it to outdoor ads Sticker campaign subverting outdoor advertising with the distilled mark of the people	Dog Parking By an S-Market grocery store in Helsinki.

The Day After This is what the sidewalks look like during Vappu, the Finnish May Day celebration where students dress like race car drivers (academic jumpsuits color-coded by university department) in sailor hats (graduation caps)… and everyone drinks large quantities in public space… until the next day, when it’s capped off with a “quaint” picnic in Kaivopuisto Park with the [...]	5 Ways to Redesign a City Rachel Abrams, Creative Director of Turnstone Consulting, wrote a cool article “Five Ways to Redesign a City” for the UK Design Council magazine about ways interaction designers can tackle urban issues in various cities around the world. She includes good ol’ Helsinki and its public transportation-tracking tools with a little Atari reference from me. Watch the [...]	I’m a TED Fellow! I’m so happy and honored to be a 2009 TEDGlobal Fellow! Yay! The inspiring conference features some of the world’s biggest thinkers and doers and I’ve spent many mind-churning hours glued to my laptop watching videos that include Bonnie Basler on how bacteria talk, Malcolm Gladwell on choices, Jimmy Wales on the birth of Wikipedia, Kwabena Boahen on a [...]	Global Polis Exhibit Two of my projects, Million Dollar Blocks New Orleans and the Guide to Street Vending in New York City, are currently featured in the NYC exhibition The Global Polis: Interactive Infrastructures. Curated by Nader Vossoughian and organized by the Center for Architecture, the exhibit awesomely highlights communication tools as just as important of an infrastructure [...]

I’m in The New York Times! Article all about the street vendor guide! And check out my project page for more photos of the guide and the distribution to vendors!	Pass Out Some Vendor Power! It’s hot off the presses! As part of Making Policy Public, I collaborated with street vendors, the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP), and The Street Vendor Project to research, compile and design this guide to street vending in NYC. It clarifies the rules so NYC’s 10,000 vendors can understand their rights, avoid fines, and earn an honest living. [...]	The People’s Map What are your favorite places in Helsinki? Add it to the collaborative Google map here!	North by Northwest How do you feel comfortable in a city? For me, part of it is knowing what direction I’m facing. This was an easy thing to do in NYC where I was always aware I was walking north on Mott or west on Spring. As one of the first planned cities, Helsinki actually has a grid [...]

Mapping Our Crashes Crashstat.org combines Google maps with DMV stats on pedestrian and biking accidents so you can see which NYC intersections are danger zones. Since 1995, there have been 35 injuries and 2 fatalities just two blocks from my old apartment. And that doesn’t count tramplings-by-fellow-pedestrians on Canal Street… Made by Transportation Alternatives.	Green Since 1508 Before the salad days of electricity and air conditioning, there were Persian wind towers like these in Dubai. They cool buildings during the day and warm them at night by some clever architectural prowess I don’t fully understand. More here.	Drinking from our water features A fresh-water fountain in Chamonix, France What does it take to trust your tap water? My doubts started as a child, when the family refrigerator was consistently stocked with a store-bought gallon of water. And that was Ohio. There are places where suspicions are seriously grounded like a hostel in Nairobi, where the water ran yellow [...]	I’m on the Urban Omnibus! NYC’s Architectural League recently launched an inspiring online project called the Urban Omnibus that showcases design and activism in the City. They were kind enough to feature my thoughts behind my Post-it Notes for Neighbors public art project. Check it out here! Big thanks to Cassim Shepard and the Omnibus family!

Snow Graffiti Snow tagging in the UK (hat tip to Melinda). Usually street art leads to the branded version, but not this time, as far as I know. Neat idea, especially in Helsinki, hmmm… Image from Springwise.com	NYC to Middle Class: Drop Dead Interesting article from NY Observer about the dwindling middle class in New York City. Getting an apartment in NYC can be a humiliating experience – proving you make a ridonkulous 80 times your rent, offering up every bank statement and check stub and coin jar you can muster, explaining why an overdue movie at Blockbuster [...]	Weird Bench Formations in Helsinki Small talk turned into performance art…	A Cleaner Transition Thoughtful transitional services that take the local weather into consideration and help you clean up before entering… Shoe brush for cleaning off snow outside of an apartment complex in Helsinki. Contraption for wrapping your wet umbrella at a restaurant in Kyoto. Bowl of water for cleaning sand off your feet in front of a cabana in Placencia, [...]

Keeping You Posted Not only does Helsinki have a tram system that tells you exactly when the next one will come, but they have a neat map of bus lines moving in real time. An arrow notes the bus direction and the icons jolt every few seconds like a city version of Asteroids. No more fidgety gazing into [...]	My Country Village in the City Multiple points plotted via multiplottr.com My NYC apartments 2001-2008: West Village – 22 Jones Street Apt 3F, New York NY Chinatown – 219 Grand Street Apt 1, New York NY Carroll Gardens – 44 4th Place Apt 2, Brooklyn NY Cobble Hill – 130 Dean Street Apt 1, Brooklyn NY Chinatown – 154 Mott Street Apt 5B, New York NY I rocked [...]	Big Strokes From Above A whopping twenty-five percent of the world’s cranes are in Dubai right now. Collosal I-beams and signs for new developments are stacked along the E11 highway and culminate in a unique corridor. A singular strip of shiny new skyscrapers line Sheikh Zayed Road. Behind these buildings are nothing but giant parking lots. There’s no room [...]	Pictures of You in Other Places In the Shembe village in Durban there’s this big ’80s photo of two white people rafting in North America. For 20 rand ($1.95) you can get a picture taken of yourself in front of this granola scene. I asked the photographer why he chose this backdrop – a demand for fake visits to the US? [...]

Data Walk I’ve got a bag of proposals that may never see the light of day, but they can live on here for funzies and future inspiration. One of these is Data Walk: Bringing Demographics to the People. According to data from the 2000 Census, a particular block east of Allen Street is 50 percent more Asian [...]	Seeing What You’re Breathing Hell yes, this is lorem! When I pass by people in Chinatown wearing face masks I always wonder if the air quality is really that gnarly. Someday the answer will be as easy as opening a mobile phone app! I worked with Spatial Information Design Lab co-director Sarah Williams and Columbia University Computer Science PhD candidate Sean White on visualizing [...]