Come to our Mapping Party!
On 7th November 2014 Hannah posted in Events, Featured, News
Mapping party!
This week, the Mapping for Change team have been busily preparing for our Wheelmap Mapping Parties! These events will coincide with UN Enable’s International Day of Persons with Disabilities – held annually on December 3rd.
For 2014, the UN have chosen ‘Sustainable Development: the Promise of Technology’ as a theme, to highlight the promises and limitations of technology that are experienced by people with disabilities. Technology has the power to bring far-reaching, positive change, and no groups should be excluded from this.
Given the technological scope of our ongoing project, My Accessible EU, the day seemed like an excellent opportunity to host a series of activities: et voila! The idea of a pan-European Mapping Party was born!
Community Air Quality Mapping Funding Opportunity
On 5th November 2014 Hannah posted in Featured, News
Mapping for Change now have £1,000 funding available to enable up to four communities to undertake Air Quality Mapping projects. Proposals are invited from communities across London. The funds will cover the cost of purchasing diffusion tubes to measure nitrogen dioxide (NO2), laboratory analysis, and map creation.
Clean Up London Air
On 8th October 2014 Louise posted in Featured, News
Four communities across London took part in a month long citizen science project supported by Mapping for Change. The aim of ‘Clean Up London Air’ was to monitor and map Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) pollution levels in both quiet residential areas selected by the local residents and adjacent roads with heavy passing traffic during the month of July. The four areas involved in the project, Latimer Road, Camden, Islington and Crystal Palace can be viewed on the Air Quality Community Map.
Mapping for Change Access All Areas with TfL!
On 6th October 2014 Hannah posted in Events, Featured
Here at Mapping for Change, we’ve been busy working on our latest project – the EU-funded My Accessible EU. Accessibility is a key issue in cities all over the world. However, for various reasons, plenty of people can often struggle to access services and facilities. These issues are likely to affect everyone at some point in their lives: as parents or carers with pushchairs, as wheelchair users, or more generally as people grow older and become less mobile. My Accessible EU hopes to raise awareness about these problems, and devise new tools and technologies which can help to make European cities more inclusive places for everyone.
Street Mobility at Abbey Road Coffee Morning
On 1st October 2014 Hannah posted in Events, Featured
Last Friday, Mapping for Change joined a group of residents at the Abbey Road Community Centre for their weekly coffee morning. The centre is situated on Belsize road, midway between Kilburn High Road and West Hampstead Overground stations. We were welcomed to their garden room with coffee and custard creams, and spent a couple of hours nibbling away, and discussing people’s experiences of the local area.
Street Mobility Project Moves to Finchley Road
On 8th September 2014 Louise posted in Featured
Sunny days throughout August have found Mapping for Change at the Swiss Cottage Farmers Market, a great venue for meeting local residents as they browse the colourful produce stalls and have leisurely lunch or coffee breaks in the market square. So far it has been a refreshing experience with so many people saying how much they like the area and are genuinely happy with their neighbourhood and excellent local facilities:
“There is the Hampstead Theatre, Swiss Cottage Community Centre, the Leisure Centre, Library and Cinema all within a stone’s throw of my flat – there is always somewhere to go and something to do, its like living on the edge of paradise.”
Taking a walk every day is critical for health and well-being. Local residents share with us their cleverly devised routes that avoid the steepest hills that characterise the area:
I walk everywhere, to Waitrose daily and to Primrose Hill and Hampstead Heath, I do contouring to avoid the hills.
Living with the Seven Sisters Road
On 16th July 2014 Louise posted in Featured
Word Cloud from Woodberry Down Perception Mapping
Community mapping from the first pilot for the Street Mobility Project has provided interesting insights into how the people of Woodberry Down have adapted to the presence of a major busy road cutting through their estate. They told us how communities and movement networks evolved round connected neighbourhoods on different sides of the road, most often made up of the friends and neighbours in their housing block.
There was a real community – We all knew each other, our children grew up together and you knew who your neighbours were, we all looked out for each other and the children. We never really went over Seven Sisters Road, there was no real need to.
Woodberry Down resident (80)
Science in the City Maps Dust Storm
On 18th June 2014 Louise posted in Events, Featured
As part of the Science in the City project, residents of the Barbican Estate in the City of London monitored their local air quality between October 2013 and May 2014. Since February, residents have been using handheld sensors to track the presence of PM2.5 particulates* whilst on their everyday journeys and have managed to capture the effects of the dust storm in their community.
Twenty-five Barbican residents took part, carrying the sensors for up to five days each and making eighty-seven journeys in total. Although Science in the City focuses on air quality around the Barbican Estate, residents carried the sensors as far as Darlington and Cambridge providing a wealth of information illustrating changes in air quality across the country as well as in the Barbican area.
Street Mobility Mapping Project
On 27th May 2014 Louise posted in Featured, News
Throughout March to June 2014 we have been working in the Woodberry Down area of north London, preparing the way for the first in a series of four community mapping projects exploring how busy roads impact on the daily lives of residents. The Woodberry Down Estate is dissected by the busy Seven Sisters Road, and the area is being transformed by a substantial private – public regeneration scheme that will include new blocks of privately and social housing units.
HackDay at Mozilla – Citizen Social Science
On 13th May 2014 Louise posted in Featured
At the end of March Mapping for Change were successful in having our challenge chosen for a “swarm” event around the theme of Citizen Social Science at the Mozilla hackspace in London. Ours was one of four challenges that were selected that had the potential to meet the aims of the event:
“To explore the potential of applying citizen science approaches to solving persistent social problems through rapid prototyping”
And have the potential to produce a prototype within a day!