Green Maps: informing and engaging through icons
Description
Helsinki Green Mapmakers and founder of Green Map System Wendy Brawer (US) welcome you to this session exploring iconography, mapping and community engagement. Around the world, hundreds of local Green Map projects are linked by an award-winning universal iconography that highlights sustainable living resources along with ecological, cultural and activism sites. Thousands of these sites have been added to the Open Green Map social mapping platform, where multiple icons point out the green principles applied in each location. On OGM or the GreenMap.org mobile website, you can explore by the icon, illuminating the diversity of innovations. Locally published editions also use Green Maps Icons, and locally-designed or existing symbols can be mixed in, as desired, motivating residents, tourists and decision-makers toward healthier choices.
In this presentation, we’ll show how this evolving iconography has been used to leverage participation in sustainable community development. We’ll involve you in the ongoing discussion regarding the newest icons to be added to the globally designed set. We’ll learn how to contribute to the Helsinki Green Map and share your perspectives on this remarkable city. And we’ll take a stroll round the Arabianranta area to experience first-hand the neighbourhood and its built and natural environment.
Session Host
Cindy Kohtala, Helsinki Green Map / Aalto University, Finland, HKIGreenMap / @GreenMap (Twitter), helsinki.greenmap@gmail.com, cindy.kohtala@aalto.fi
Contributors
Wendy Brawer, Green Map System, USA, @GreenMap (role in session keynote speaker and co-moderator)
Ciprian Samoila, Romania Green Map by Skype (presenter)
Philip Todres, Cape Town Green Map by Skype (presenter)
Bios
Cindy Kohtala is a Canadian-born doctoral researcher in NODUS, the Sustainable Design Research Group in Aalto University, Finland. She is team leader of the independent Helsinki Green Map working group and also chairs o2 Finland and organizes Helsinki Green Drinks. She has been a researcher, educator and writer in the Design-for-Sustainability field for many years.
Best known as Founding Director of Green Map System, Wendy E. Brawer is an eco-designer and social innovator focused on sustainable community development through local leadership. From her original New York Green Map, the movement has spread to 65 countries, supported and linked by the participatory tools, icons, multimedia and events Wendy has co-created and shared at GreenMap.org. Areas of expertise include urban mobility, food and waste reduction. Wendy has been appointed Designer in Residence at Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, an Utne Visionary and a Woman of Earth, as seen at www.EcoCultural.info.
Details
Location: Aalto PRO
Date & Time: Tue 18, 14:00 - 15:30, Open walk outdoors 15:30-16:30
Target Group: Anyone interested in the topic, Experts on Sustainability, Mapping, crowd-sourcing, icon design, Helsinki
Topic Stream: Open Knowledge and Sustainability
Session Etherpad page: link