Metropolitan Information Architecture and other mouthfuls

Returning to my info design roots this weekend as I give a talk at the IA Summit in Phoenix on city design. But this one’s a bit different. It’s a call to arms, the other half of a talk I gave last year to architects of the physically-built environment. I’ll be presenting with my grad school colleague and pal, Don Turnbull. Here’s his preview and the full details. UPDATE: Here’s audio from the talk and our slides.

Stretching a bit further, I will be speaking at the Metropolitan Planning Council of Chicago on April 21 on a panel called Talking the Walk: The Importance of Pedestrian-Friendly Public Spaces. I’m honored to share 90 minutes with Sam Schwartz and -Joe Gonzalez- Mike Toolis and am fully prepared for quizzical looks as I try to explain the importance of walkability from the perspective of information network design. Full details here. UPDATE: Recap here.

PS – Mouths-full?

One response to “Metropolitan Information Architecture and other mouthfuls”

  1. Jim Farrell says :

    John,
    You gave a great talk today in Chicago. It was like listening to the John Adams piece after the Brahms and the Prokofiev. By itself it would have seemed peculiar to the general audience, but in the context of speeches by classical urban planners and architects, it was clear that you had understood their work and were extending it in new directions.
    Oddly it is still considered a “modern” principle of architecture that form follows function. More troubling is that this same principle has yet to be extended to the planning of the city itself as an economic and cultural entity.
    So, now I have to go read about “fractal loading.” Thanks for that!