engaged with better cities
300.000 Km/s is a professional firm that provides data analysis and consulting services for cities. We innovate. We apply technology to architecture, city and territory. We look for new ways of transforming the environment. We work in the fields of urban analysis, cartography, urban planning, development of digital tools and digital humanities. Our knowledge comes from architecture, urbanism, analysis of geographic data, urban history, restoration, museology, product design, project management and software development. We work with data. Data is crucial in our activity as urban designers. Data on almost every city – from demographics and employment to transport and health – has become much more accessible. This access, as well as the ability to use and share the data, will bring huge potential for understanding urban problems and for designing more sustainable and equitable cities. We influence. We provide data analytics services and data products to help urban stakeholders make better data -driven decisions. We work with. In the past years, we collaborated successfully with public bodies, international firms, cultural institutions and organisations.
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Services Data gathering We collect data, we digitize data, we organize data, we store data, we clean data. We search for the best possible data sources to help us understand contemporary urban environments. We capture information, we normalize it and we prepare it for further analysis. We work to reduce the growing digital divide, in the current city but also in history, as a result of unstoppable digitalization of the world.
Spatial analysis We analyse the spatial component of information. We translate delocalised data into coordinates to decode spatial relations. We understand that behind the digital world there is a material world that supports it -formed by places that link us with information.
Urban planning Our knowledge provides a solid basis for informed decision-making, development of public policies or improvement of services that operate in the city. We make urban planning and management proposals to improve cities based on previous analysis; from morphological, economic, social and tourist studies to master plans.
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Board
Mar Santamaria CEO - founder
Pablo MartĂnez CTO - founder
Andre Resende CDA
Mar is an urban planner, graduating from the School of Architecture of Barcelona, where she has been Associate Professor during 10 years. She is a professor at the Institute of Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC) and an Open Data Institute (ODI) Associate.
Pablo is an architect (School of Architecture of Barcelona). He is a professor at the Institute of Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC) and an Open Data Institute (ODI) . He previously lectured at Barcelona UPC, IED and URV.
Andre is an architect (Federal University of Minas Gerais). He is a professor at the Institute of Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC)
Advisors
Ariadna Cantis Project Manager Madrid
Graciela Chaia Urban Lawyer
Ariadna is our local specialist. She is an architect (School of Architecture of Madrid), critic and independent curator of architecture.
Graciela is our legal specialist. With long experience in housing plans, she is key to transfer analysis and diagnosis into urban planning schems and public policies. 4
Clients We work for public administrations, companies and organizations involved in the management of cities.
Public bodies
Private componies
Cultural institutions
NGO
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Case studies We believe that the best way explain what we do and how we can improve cities' functioning is to illustrate several examples of recent work.
Urban studies and policies
Urban information
How to ensure coexistence between commercial activity and residents’ quality of life?
How to easily access the different information layers in a city ?
How to measure the impact of tourism?
How to engage citizens in heritage conservation?
How set the basis of a new urban Master Plan at a metropolitan level?
How to explain the urban evolution of a city?
How to plan the economic growth within the metropolis?
How to read the Big Data from other eras?
How urban fabric generates a positive transference of economy and innovation? How to promote commerce as a public service? How to plan the 24 hours city?
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Case studies Urban studies and policies
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Case study:
How to ensure coexistence between commercial activity and residents’ quality of life? Ciutat Vella land-use plan Barcelona City Council / 2018 # urban simulation # spatial analysis # data management # urban master plan
The mixture of land-uses generates great benefits but also can negatively impact on the citizens' quality of life. We have both made a diagnosis of the impacts of economic activities in the central district of Barcelona (Ciutat Vella) and draft a master plan to regulate public access activities, food shops and tourist services. The plan, fuelled by recent methodologies of analysis based on Big Data and KDD in the urban studies field, emphasizes the role of urban planning as an instrument to put the city as a common good above the free market. It elaborates new regulatory proposals that, in addition to protecting the morphological characteristics and providing a dynamic vision of urban fabric, highlights the integration of productive activity in the city and its coexistence with the habitability needs of citizens.
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Case study:
How to measure the impact of tourism? Touristification / 2017 The state of tourism / 2016
Tourism is transforming cities at a growing speed. This rapid transformation requires constant monitoring to evaluate the possible impacts in cities and respond with new policies. Traditional statistical tools do not provide the velocity and complexity that this transformation demands. We have developed several projects to describe the state of tourism in a city using and the impact of peer to peer tourist apparments in the housing market.
# spatial analysis # data management # data publication
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Case study:
How to set the basis of a new urban Master Plan at a metropolitan level? Barcelona Dynamics AMB / 2015 # spatial analysis # data management # data publication ‘Barcelona Dynamics’ is a collection of 24 cartographies analyzing the growing complexity of the metropolitan territory of Barcelona over the past 40 years. The Metropolitan Authority of Barcelona (AMB) is currently drafting a new Metropolitan Urban Master Plan (PDU) -the last General Master Plan for this large conurbation made up with 36 municipalities dates back to 1976. The PDU is a great opportunity to think about the future of the metropolitan city as well as exploring new approaches and tools that are transforming the urban design discipline itself. Introducing contemporary Big Data analysis and visualization as an initial step of a large scale urban design process is a new concept. ‘Barcelona Dynamics’ quantifies sociodemographic, economic and morphological aspects of the territory to provide a point of departure for the future metropolitan proposal. The cartographies demonstrate that the mixture of urban uses, constructed forms and economic activities generate a vibrant metropolis. These multiple dynamics can be read under the parameters of Density, Time and Diversity. We have developed an open digital tool to publish the project information. 10
Case study:
How to plan the economic growth within the metropolis? Geographies of innovation AMB / 2017 # spatial analysis # data management # data publication
Cities and metros around the world are experiencing a proliferation of knowledge-driven activities.Why innovation leverages in certain urban areas rather than others? Which are the variables that influence this positive place making? And if urban conditions can foster innovation, which is the role of urban planning and public policies in this process? The research 'Geographies of Innovation in the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona' evaluates the impact of knowledge economy at a territorial level. It provides a solid base of methodology (both an exhaustive cartographic description and data mining analysis) to define the capacity of urban fabric to foster innovation.
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Case study:
How urban fabric generates a positive transference of economy and innovation? InnoMap / 2015 # spatial analysis # data management # data visualisation The research ‘Geographies of Innovation’, comissioned by Barcelona City Council, aims to define what form innovation takes in urban areas, exploring spatial relations between innovative initiatives to identify successful business development and potential knowledge transference.
The data and analysis in this research are intended to help drive evidence-based decisions on which companies and industries should invest in Barcelona –and other similar cities- and how planning and policy-making can augment this process.
The research examines specific urban conditions to promote innovation, the relations between innovation stakeholders, the urban morphology of the innovative ecosystem and the transference of knowledge between different areas of the city.
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Case study:
How to promote commerce as a public service? BBVA Urban / 2015 # data visualisation # spatial analysis The information of credit card transactions is collected by BBVA Data & Analytics to deliver mainly financial services based on data discovery techniques. However, BBVA data could also be used to explore urban issues both at regional and local scale. We have developed an exploratory research with the aim of understanding the opportunities for urban transformation using BBVA data. Generating healthy commercial fabrics is key to maintain citizens' quality of life (commerce is a public service) and ensure the economic development of urban areas. Thanks to the knowledge extracted from the analysis of BBVA Data, public bodies could draft more effective policies to ensure business and commerce development from an urban perspective.
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Case study:
How to plan the 24 hours city? Report Nocturnal Landscape Barcelona City Council, 2017 # spatial analysis # urban planning
Night-time planning is a major issue of concern in contemporary urbanism. The night poses significant challenges in urban environments going from energy saving and control of light pollution to balance night rest with an increasing economic activity, without forgetting the definition of a common identity nonreciprocal with the diurnal city. This research aims to describe, using Barcelona as a case study, both the form and the behaviour of the nocturnal city in order to identify its values and elements, incorporating complexity to the fields of urban planning, landscape design, heritage conservation and lighting. Among specific objectives, the report focuses on the liaison between the diurnal and nocturnal visual structures, the link between light and urban activity and the role of common memories and heritage in the construction of night-time identity. For this reason, the report is based on the analysis of mobility data, citizens’ activity and business type (over a period of one year) to define via clustering techniques several functional areas that have similar behaviour. The resulting areas have been crossed with visual structures (photographs), heritage, light pollution (satellite image) and current lighting regulations. 14
Case studies Urban information
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Case study:
How to easily access the different information layers in a city ? Urban Ecosystem / 2016 # web platform # data management # data visualisation For urban stakeholders operating in cities, it is crucial to access multiple information from several official and unofficial data sources on the same platform to browse and compare. Urban Eco Sysrem (UES) is a tool to visualises urban cadastral and sociodemographic data in Spain that integrates other data sources. As a result, it generates a set of cartographies and threedimensional models of buildings that can be used to better understand the functioning of the city.
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Case study:
How to engage citizens in heritage conservation? Big Time Bcn / 2014 # data publication # data visualisation Big Time is an open platform to disseminate the architectural heritage of Barcelona. It is an imteractive cartography that, for the first time, offers a global image of the urban history of the city making information available for citizens, professionals and tourists. The platform offers an insight into more than 2,000 years of history, nearly 70,000 plots and 3,000 protected monuments. It includes several existing databases and archives, most of them still to be digitized or opened. Ensuring access to heritage catalogues and making a proper communication is not a minor issue. At present, we preserve more monuments than ever before; a large number of monuments and sites are still at disadvantage. This is the case of Barcelona: minor monuments face significant risks arising from an inadequate dissemination of the Catalog of Heritage. A real change in the perception of heritage by citizens and tourists should come through the use of such digital tools, that articulate both modern mechanisms of approaching heritage (user geolocalition via a mobile app) and its cataloging and other identification processes. 17
Case study:
How to explain the urban evolution of a city? Historical Charter / 2015 # digitital humanities # digitisation # data publication # data visualisation The Historical Charter of Barcelona is a unique document in the world that explains the history of the city through its most relevant cartographies.
The platform allows superimposing maps of various ages (also current cartography), zooming, adding comments and drawing on top of the plans.
It contains 26 maps that have been drawn from texts, historical cartographies, archaeological maps, digitisation of modern cartography and contemporary digital maps.
The tool provides the Museum of History of Barcelona (promoter of the project) with all the necessary information for its pedagogical activity. It also collects information updates arising from the museum research activity.
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Case study:
How to read the Big Data from other eras? CerdĂ Big Data / 2017 # digitisation # data publication # data visualisation # data divide The second volume of the General Theory of Urbanization, published in 1867 by Ildefons CerdĂ , contains more than 700 pages with 100 tables with a statistical description of Barcelona's s. XIX It is the first book about the science of making cities. We have digitised all this information, translated it into machine-readable format and visualised it according to the most appropiate graphic representation. We have also ordered the contents according to a logical reading scheme, creating a global storytelling and providing a context and a description to each part (gathering various data that unstructured in the original volume). With the aim of contributing to increase the knowledge of the city's own history, we have compared several urban indicators of Barcelona during 1867 with the current ones using a 3d model. As the project has a strong commitment to openness, the platform contains a complete series of data sets published under open standards. An internal visualization tool enables the users to make and share their own graphics.
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