“Urbanopticon”, which can be found at http://www.urbanopticon.org is free to use and takes just minutes to play. Players are shown randomly-selected photographs of different London streets and asked to name the nearest tube station, or to identify the borough in which the photo was taken. They can also share their score with friends on Facebook and Twitter.
The game is also part of a serious experiment, however. Building on long-standing studies which show that we each create our own mental map of a city, the researchers will use the results to map recognisability across London. Theorists have suggested that the recognisability of the urban environment is closely linked to people’s well-being. The project will also investigate how far it is linked to social deprivation.
In the long-term, the data from Urbanopticon could be used to help town planners focus on where the urban environment needs most improvement, so that people feel more at home.
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Image: London street photo. Credit: Carlos RM from Flickr
Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge
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