It’s coming out the book "informação, conhecimento e valor" (information, knowledge and value) by my colleague Ruy Sardinha Lopes (Architecture school, USP São Carlos). Only in Portuguese for now.
I haven’t had the opportunity to lay my hands on this book yet, but I know the excellent PhD thesis of which this book stems from. Thus, despite different formatting and updates from the book to the thesis, this work must have maintained the same high level of the research which it comes from.
It is of especial interest to this blog as it helps us think through the importance of discussions which poses central attention to ICTs as a ‘technical fix’, disembodied from its intrinsic historic and, more importantly, social roles. It also contributes with indirect considerations about the (re)construction of concepts and ideas of territorialisation, urbanisation, spatialisation, even relating itself (without admitting so) to the important group of socio-constructivist theories such as social construction of technologies.
In the author’s words (in Portuguese, from the abstract of his PhD thesis):
"Esta tese analisa o papel da informação, do conhecimento e das novas tecnologias de informação e comunicação (TICs) no atual estágio do capitalismo, em curso desde o final da década de 1960. Reconhece a centralidade econômica destes elementos e as mudanças significativas na lógica do sistema de acumulação e reprodução capitalista, embora se contraponha àqueles que advogam tratar-se do surgimento de uma nova ordem societária "pós-capitalista" ou que atribuem às novas tecnologias, notadamente às redes eletrônicas, papel democratizante e emancipador [...] Analisa também a dialética entre a vocação "desterritorializante" do capital, sua busca por maior flexibilidade e liquidez, e as necessidades "territoriais" dos poderes locais e das infra-estruturas tecnológicas que lhes dão sustentação Aborda, por fim, as subjetividades geradas por esse processo e a possibilidade destas se contraporem ao estado atual das coisas".
The book can be found at:
https://www.saraiva.com.br/produto/produto.dll/detalhe?pro_id=2592291&ID=42F947857D8081010132E0369http://www.idealshop.com.br/loja/produtos_descricao.asp?lang=pt_BR&codigo_produto=792861
http://www.ssscla.com/
André posted on his carnet de notes about a very interesting project called Urban Mobs, which alledgedly maps people's emotions in European cities. Quoting their official website: "Urban Mobs provide a tool to study crowd communication activities and paint a popular emotion cartography".
Of course that D-tower and Urban Mobs have their similarities in the way relational concepts are applied (with the aid of technologies) to depict, question and think through spatial manifestations. But, essentially, they do it and happen in different scale. I would say they both have similar ideas, one at the building (or architecture) scale, and another at the urban or regional (or global) scale.
A 2-day workshop will take place at PUCPR in Curitiba, sponsored by Fundação Araucária and the Postgraduate Programme in Urban Management, on the 28th and 29th October 2008. Here is the programme of the event (click on the image to see an enlarged figure of the promotional poster, in Portuguese): 
"The editors of urbe (Brazilian Journal of Urban Management), a journal by the Postgraduate Programme in Urban Management from the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Paraná (PUCPR), would like to invite contributors to submit original papers to be considered for publication in the journal’s two first issues, to be launched in 2009. Urbe will consider papers with a preferential focus on the following thematic areas: Urban and regional development; Urban economy; Urban epistemology; Natural resources management; Public management; Governance and urban networks; Electronic governance; Urban mobility; Urban planning; Municipal strategic planning; Public policy; Information systems; Urban and regional sustainability; Urban law; Urban sociology; Urban geography; Perception and urban landscape; Urban design.
Creative Urban Regions: Harnessing Urban Technologies to Support Knowledge City Initiatives.
It’s coming out the book "informação, conhecimento e valor" (information, knowledge and value) by my colleague Ruy Sardinha Lopes (Architecture school, USP São Carlos). Only in Portuguese for now.
