Innovation in automation, robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) presents challenges and opportunities for cities. Across multiple sectors – including healthcare, transportation, food production and security – automated urbanism is changing our interactions within, and experiences of, the city.
Opportunities to support urban living, manage services more efficiently and respond to ecological turbulence are set against issues of morality, trust, control and widening social disparities.
The programme undertakes conceptual and empirical work to understand how innovations in automation, robotics and AI are shaping urban experiences, decision-making and infrastructures.
Research Questions
– Can urban automation and robotics be understood as a distinctive socio-technical field and what are their potential urban implications?
– How are experiments in automation, robotics and AI shaping decision-making and processes in different domains of urban life?
– What forms of humanmachine interactions are developing and how do they shape our capabilities and experiences?
– How is non-human decision-making creating more adaptable and/or centralised logics of urban control?
The team
Director: Aidan While
UI members: Simon Marvin | Rachel Macrorie | Andy Lockhart | Mateja Kovacic
Associates: Desiree Fields | Pauline McGuirk | Noor Ahmad Basri | Bei Chan
Publications
Papers and reports
- Marvin, S. Lockhart, A., While, A., Marvin, S., Kovacic, M., Odendaal, N. and Alexander, C. (2019) DRONE FINAL REPORT MARCH 2019
- Chan B, Marvin S and While A (2020) Containing COVID-19 in China: AI and the robotic restructuring of future cities. Dialogues in Human Geography 10(2), 238-241.
- While A, Marvin S and Kovacic M (2020) Urban robotic experimentation: San Francisco, Tokyo and Dubai. Urban Studies, DOI: 10.1177/0042098020917790
- Fields D, Bissell D and Macrorie R (2020) Platform Methods: studying platform urbanism outside the black box. Urban Geography, 41(3): 462-268.
- Macrorie R, Marvin S, and While A (2019) Robotics and Automation in the city: A research agenda. Urban Geography, DOI, 10.1080/02723638.2019.1698868.
- Kovacic M (2019) Society 5.0: Japan’s Super Smart Society as a Global Model. ‘La sociedad japonesa superinteligente como modelo global’ La Vanguardia.
- de Hoop E, van Oers L, Becker S, Macrorie R, Späeth P, Astola M, Boon W (2019). Smart as a global vision? Exploring smart in local district development projects Architecture and Culture, 7(2): 1-19.
- Macrorie R and Marvin S (2019) Bifurcated Urban Integration: The selective dis- and re-assembly of infrastructures. Urban Studies, 56(11): 2207-2224.
- Marvin S, While A, Kovacic M, Lockhart A, Macrorie R (2018) Urban Robotics and Automation: Critical challenges, international experiments and transferable lessons for the UK, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)UK Robotics and Autonomous Systems (UK RAS) Network White papers. ISSN: 2398-4414.
- Kovacic M (2018) The making of national robot history in Japan: monozukuri, enculturation and cultural lineage of robots. Critical Asian Studies 50(4): 572-590.
- Marvin, S and Luque-Ayala, A (2018) Urban Operating Systems: Diagramming the City, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 41(1): 84–103.
- Schindler. S. and Marvin, S. (2018) Constructing a universal logic of urban control? City, 22(2): 298-307.
- de Hoop E, Smith A, Boon W, Macrorie R, Marvin S, & Raven R (2018) Smart urbanism in Barcelona: A knowledge politics perspective. In: Stissing Jensen J, Spaeth P and Cashmere M (eds.) The Politics of Urban Sustainability Transitions: Knowledge, Power and Governance. Chapter 3. ISBN: 9781138479654
- Lockhart A and Marvin S (2019) Microclimates of automated urban reproduction: The limits of automating environmental control. Antipode 52(3): 637-659.
- Taylor Buck N & While A (2017) Competitive urbanism and the limits to smart city innovation: The UK Future Cities initiative. Urban Studies, 54(2): 501-519.
- Foulds C, Robinson RAV, Macrorie R (2017) Energy monitoring as a practice: Investigating use of the iMeasure online energy feedback tool, Energy Policy, 104: 194-202
- Luque-Ayala A and Marvin S (2015) The maintenance of urban circulation: An operational logic of infrastructural control. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 34(2): 19-208.
- Luque-Ayala, A. and Marvin, S. (2015) Developing a Critical Understanding of Smart Urbanism? Urban Studies, 52(12) 2105-2116
Books
- Luque-Ayala and Marvin S. (Dec 2020) Urban Operating Systems: Producing the Computational City. MIT Press.
- Marvin S, Bulkeley H, Mai L, McCormick K, Voytenko Palgan Y eds. (2018a) Urban Living Labs: Experimenting with City Futures. London: Routledge.
- Marvin S, Luque-Ayala A and McFarlane C eds. (2016). Smart urbanism: Utopian vision or false dawn? London: Routledge.
Blogposts
- Macrorie R (2018) Three ‘living labs’ that show how autonomous robots are changing cities, The Independent, 21 July 2018.
- Kovacic M (2018) Robot cities: three urban prototypes for future living. The Conversation, 10 April 2018.
- Marvin S and Rutherford J (2017) Artificial environments are turning the world outside in, but that’s no way to save the planet. The Independent, 15 July 2017.
Research projects
- ‘Policies, regulations & experiences of Urban RAS experiments: USA, Japan and UK’ (2019) EPSRC UK-RAS. Network Strategic Task Groups.
- ‘Toward a platform urbanism agenda for urban studies’ (2018) Fourth Flexible Grants for Small Groups Competition. Independent Social Research Foundation (ISRF).
- ‘Urban automation/automated cities: Developing a critical research agenda’ (2017) University of Sheffield and University of Amsterdam.
- Knowing: The KNOWledge politics of experimentING with smart urbanism: Comparative work on urban automation over 8 European cities over three years within Sheffield and with European partners (3-yrs from Sept 2016, ORA-ESR funded).
- ‘Daily life, digital technologies and energy demand’ (2015) Creativity Greenhouse: Balance Network, Exploring Work-Life Balance in the Digital Economy. UK EPSRC.
- ‘Drones/Robotics and Development Priorities in Africa: Transformative Infrastructure or Digital Colonisation?’ (2017/2018) Knowledge Frontiers: International Interdisciplinary Research Projects. The British Academy.
- ‘Governance of Urban Sustainability Transitions (GUST): Advancing the role of the living lab’ (2014-2017) JPI. Urban Europe.
- ‘Beyond Smart Cities: A Comparative Analysis of Experimentation in Urban Automation and Robotics China/UK’ (2017-2019) In collaboration with the School of Architecture at the Southeast University. The Royal Society.
Networks
- Sheffield Robotics: Cross-institutional network of 70+ academics.
- UK-RAS Urban Robotic Living Labs network; including partners from; Leeds and York Universities, Ocado Technology, RACE/UKAEA, Innovate UK, Oxfordshire & Milton Keynes local authorities.
- International network of the German Academy of Spatial Research and Planning (ARL): 3 year working group (from 2016) on “Smart grids – Smart cities”.
- JPI Urban Europe Scientific Advisory Board.
- UK ESRC International Network on Urban Low Carbon Transitions (INCUT)