The original note, as written at the time
INFORMAL GROWTH ARCHITECTURE. With Spaxzyte I will be able to create an updatable database of all spatial documentation. With this system I could use these specially designed drones that seek out all new changes in the night — in one night in a month — and they update all the spatial information in the cloud. Now, this system should be able to work with field printing as well, in the event that a viable slum project is identified.
Ongoing development
An updatable database of all spatial documentation, with drones that seek out the changes at night — one night a month — and update all the spatial information in the cloud. The system should also work with field printing, so that a viable slum project identified in the data can be built from a printed plan on site.
The method is the idea: measure the change rather than the state. Every city has a map of what was there in some year. Almost none has a map of what is happening, which is the thing that matters, because informal settlements change monthly and every intervention arrives to find a different place.
A monthly night survey is a good cadence. It is frequent enough to catch construction, cheap enough to sustain, and night is when a drone sees roof and roof-light rather than laundry and people.
The field printing is the part that closes the loop, and it is the part usually left out. A survey that produces a report is an academic exercise. A survey that produces a printed plan, in the settlement, that a household or a small contractor can build from, is a tool — and it costs almost nothing once the measurement exists.
The ethics are severe and must be designed in, not added. A precise map of an informal settlement is also a map for eviction. So the data has to belong to the settlement, be published openly, and be useless for enforcement — which means mapping structures and services rather than names and occupants.
Measure the change, publish it cheaply, and let people build from it.