The questions

• How can we visualise the dynamics of a controversy?
• How can we time track a twisting and changing controversy trajectory?
• How can a controversy generate specific spaces according to the dynamics of actors and concerns, and the varying magnitude of their connections?

The controversy

The London Olympics Stadium controversy provides an interesting example of how a controversy revolves around the life cycle of a not-yet-existing object - a stadium -, the latter being just one moment in the process. The similarities between a controversy and the complex ecology that a building-in-the-making can create are at the heart of our experiment with architectural tools.

The challenge

An architectural tool – parametric modelling - is applied here to visualise the London Olympics controversy. Predominantly used by architects to visualise the dynamic relations of all parameters that would generate a new design shape, we use parametric modelling for the first time to visualise how an assembly of heterogeneous actors, their locations in time and space, and conflicting concerns shape the controversy.

The simulation can be viewed at: http://www.msa.ac.uk/mac/london. A legend is provided on the website that assists the viewer with understanding the mapping.

The 1st phase of the animation provides a world-view of all the actors in relation to media attention, depicting when they entered and exited the controversy. The animation shows how a controversy unfolds as driven by matters of concern. Actors appear and link to concerns by lines of varying thickness, with the thicker lines signifying a stronger connection as defined by media attention in the UK press. They position themselves closest to the issues with which they are most connected. The animation allows for tracking the actors’ involvement in the controversy in a dynamic way and enables you to identify the nature of their involvement. One can witness the flexible grouping and regrouping of heterogeneous actors gravitating around the concerns, their attraction or shrinking as time unfolds, and the different speeds of swarm formation according to the changed magnitude of the concerns in the media debate.

Phase 1: The time flasher: the folding of time according to the intensity of events

Figure 1 (a, b & c) – Animation Page (Phase 1)

The time-dimension of a controversy is visualised as connected to the intensity of events, rather than as a linear flow. There is no timeline. There are flashing time points (2002, 2007, 2009) with a different size varying according to the intensity of the events in the controversy and according to the accelerated actors’ interactions. Thus, time does not “flow” smoothly or “fly” horizontally; it flashes with different regularities. As the controversy unfolds, the actors are constantly modifying the scales and their relations to the concerns; they rely on subversion, disjunction, displacement and rescaling. The time flasher resolves the problem of the intensity of time as opposed to its expansion. It is only because the actors constantly shrink or are being attracted by different concerns that the controversy generates a space. Once expressed in the media the concerns can vary and their magnitude could be tracked.

Phase 2 contains four reconfigurations of the controversy space to illustrate:

• how individual concerns are weighted with respect to the actors;
• how each matter of concern (stadium legacy, stadium design, stadium cost, and community issues) shapes a different controversy space.

The actors are: humans, organizations and non-humans. The size of the actor’s name is defined by relative media attention. The actor’s position is defined by the magnitude of media attention associated with the actor and a given concern. Actors with a large media presence associated with a particular concern are positioned closer to that concern. Connections between actors and concerns are shown with coloured links: Red = legacy connection; Blue = design collections; Dark Purple = cost connections; Purple = community connections. The thickness of each connection is defined by the magnitude of an actor’s media presence with a connected concern.

On each re-configuration a concern becomes the centre of attention and the actors are re-positioned and re-sized in relation to the degree of media presence they have about the given concern. The links below the menu bar then provide further details on the primary actors.

Legacy as a matter of concern shaping the controversy space

Figure 2 – Animation Page (Legacy - time 00:53)

Cost as a matter of concern shaping the controversy space

Figure 3 – Animation Page (Cost - time 01:15)_

Community as a matter of concern shaping the controversy space

Figure 4 – Animation Page (Community- time 01:29)_

Results

The animation made with parametric modelling showcases:

• a matter–of-concerns oriented controversy mapping
• a dynamic mapping with dynamic actors clustering according to concerns
• the folding of time according to different intensities of events and actors interactions
• some significant connections among actors which could not be visible otherwise

You will need the Quicktime player to see the animation.

Animation 1 – London Case Study Animation

Such a dynamic simulation allows exploring the relative importance/weight of different concerns over the course of a design controversy. This experiment with parametric modelling also showcases the potential of architectural tools to map human and nonhuman relationships, to follow multi-actorial dynamics and time track the trajectory of issues so as to unravel how spaces are shaped. The simulation of the controversy dynamics illustrates that the design of a building is more conceivable as a contested assembly of concerns of legacy, community, cost, (i.e. as a “thing”). Mapping a design controversy is not about telling a story with a happy end, it is about tracing a tentative trajectory and accounting for the whole process of transformations of the building in design.

Further research can explore:

• What kind of new tools can architecture offer to understand complexity and map contested assemblages?
• How architectural tools can help visualizing density and intensity in a controversy, moments of black boxing of the issues and repetitive re-openings of the black-boxes?
• How can we simulate the speeds of a controversy, i.e. slowing down or accelerating the course of actions?
• How can we better take advantage from the new developments of architectural software and methods in architectural design and use them to track issues in social sciences and map complex ecologies?

There is therefore considerable potential for further exploration of controversy visualisations in concrete form by sharing expertise in architecture, web software, and science studies theory in the exploration of data-rich techno-scientific case studies.

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Albena Yaneva & Liam Heaphy
Simulation & Design: Danny Richards and Nick Dunn

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Attachments of PlatformControversyDynamicsSim