Venice Project Center [2007]

The very first project at the Venice project Center took place in term B of 1988, so next year, in term B08, we will mark the 20-year anniversary of the center. To prepare for the 20^th anniversary, this year’s projects (B07) will ALL have a common theme, namely a review of the past accomplishments in each of the following five main categories:

1. Environment [CD, website]

2. Art [CD, website, webabstract, preservenice]
3. Socio-Economics
4. Urban Maintenance [CD, website, webabstract]
5. Miscellaneous - Production

We have conducted a preliminary classification of the 119 IQPs completed in Venice since 1988 and have determined that the first four categories above adequately capture most of the projects. We have added the last category as a catch-all to collect all projects that do not neatly fall into the first four categories. Each category covers ±20 projects, but there are many overlaps between categories that make a strict classification arduous.

Given that 22 IQP students will be going to Venice in B07, we have decided to assign 5 students to the “meatier” topics (Art and Urban Maintenance) and 4 students to the other three.

The general guidelines are:

• Review all projects conducted at the VPC and identify those that fall under your category
• Determine what each project contributed (in a nutshell), paying more attention to the more recent ones which would be typically based on the earlier ones
• Create a synopsis of each project, highlighting the main contribution of that project. Design a simple web page to encapsulate the project, including one or two interesting visuals and one or two paragraphs of description, focusing on one or two truly innovative aspects of the project. Consider using off-the-shelf technologies for this purpose
• Determine how each project (or sequence of projects) impacted day-to-day life in Venice
• Plan on contacting past project sponsors to interview them about the contributions that WPI has made to them – record specific quotes from them (consider videotaping or recording the interviews)
• Gather together all maps and databases related to your project category and publish them on the web
• Analyze the data collected to date to identify gaps that could be filled and/or areas that could benefit from an update
• Plan on conducting field work while in Venice to fill those gaps and/or produce an updated datasets and maps
• Figure out how we could engage Venice alumni to give them an update about what happened as a consequence of their individual IQPs – think electronic newsletter
• Consider the possibility of writing an academic paper to summarize the more interesting findings. Identify a journal and plan on submitting a paper to it as part of your final IQP report
• Consider producing a chapter to be part of a book about our achievements
• Be creative and ambitious in developing a plan for the 20^th year anniversary

The following projects will be conducted at the Venice Project Center from October 21 to December 15, 2007:

1. Environment

According to our preliminary count, we classified 25 past IQPs in this category. Past projects in this category have ranged from an early study on the effects of acid rain and acid fog in Venice, to a review of pollution control methods for the glass factories in Murano, to wetland management in the Lagoon, to organic farming on Venetian islands. More recently, we have collaborated with the Osservatorio Naturalistico della Laguna which was instituted in 2002 by the City of Venice (Comune di Venezia) as the repository for all of the environmental information related to Venice and its lagoon, for the purpose of supporting institutional decision-making with respect to planning and development within the municipal borders. In this context, the Osservatorio recently published the Atlante della laguna (Lagoon Atlas) which collects and organizes environmental data about the lagoon. The Osservatorio is also collaborating in the S.I.A. (Sistema Informativo Ambientale) to create a dynamic on-line version of the Atlas. The Osservatorio has agreed that the online Atlas would be a great repository for whatever datasets and maps the B07 team will be able to put together based on the past 19 years of WPI Environmental projects.

1. Art

According to our preliminary count, we classified 36 past IQPs in this category. Past projects in this area have focused primarily on public art (decorative art visible from public streets) and on religious architecture (churches, convents, belltowers), though we have also worked on archeology, as well as with museums and art restoration labs. WPI has accumulated the most complete and well-documented catalog of Venetian public art ever compiled (over 4500 objects), which includes very accurate mapping of the objects’ location and extensive photographic documentation. More recently we have completed an inventory of all inscriptions contained in Venice’s church floors and have began some work on the Venetian scuole. There are several possibilities in terms of publishing finished and already cleaned-up datasets (such as public art) as well as rough-but-ready inventories (like the church floors) which will require some database manipulation and some touch-ups and integration. There is also a pending proposal to create a major archeological database for the City’s department of Public Works that may provide some interesting work while in Venice. Some of the datasets and maps may be published on the Online Atlas (see previous section on Environment), but mostly we will be working on creating our own online Geographical Information System to make all of the VPC data accessible on our own portal.

2. Socio-Economics

According to our preliminary count, we classified 17 past IQPs in this category. Past projects in this area have focused on issues that directly affect local citizens and businesses, such as “The impact on non-residents on the housing market”, the transformation of the retail shops from WWII until today and the Re-engineering of Cargo Delivery and Taxi Transportation through the Canals of Venice. Despite the language barrier, many of these projects have truly made concrete contributions to the quality of life of Venetians, which you should plan on quantifying when in Venice by evaluating the level of actual implementation and the impact of our past studies. There are several possibilities in terms of completing, integrating and possibly duplicating some of these projects to measure change over time. The latest – and to some degree still incomplete – topics that we tackled are the transformation of retail and the taxi re-engineering, so you should plan to conduct some field work in Venice to bring these two areas to closure. Some of the datasets and maps may be published on the Online Atlas (see previous section on Environment), but mostly we will be working on creating our own online Geographical Information System to make all of the VPC data accessible on our own portal.

3. Urban Maintenance

According to our preliminary count, we classified 23 past IQPs in this category. Past projects in this area have provided first-of-their-kind inventories of on the physical infrastructure that is the target of public maintenance, with a major focus on the crucial infrastructure network of the Canals of Venice, which resulted in really visible and lasting contributions to the physical maintenance of everything from canal dredging, to canal-wall repairs, to bridge maintenance, etc. A book containing many of our contributions was published in 1999. One main task to accomplish in Venice is to document the numerous accomplishments that WPI students were instrumental in promoting thanks to their IQPs. Since many of these important projects were completed in the 1990’s, many of the topics may lend themselves to being duplicated – a decade later – to see what (if any) changes may have ensued since the original studies. The more recent urban maintenance and management projects have focused on Urban Data Farming based on the concept of City Knowledge, to identify mechanisms that may allow these datasets to be kept update in perpetuity. Some of the datasets and maps may be published on the Online Atlas (see previous section on Environment), but mostly we will be working on creating our own online Geographical Information System to make all of the VPC data accessible on our own portal.

4. Miscellaneous - Production

According to our preliminary count, we found 18 past IQPs that we could not fit into any of the prior 4 categories, so we bunched them together into a Miscellaneous category. Past projects in this area include VPC-related IQPs (such as the very 1^st “Bootstrap” IQP in B88 and a 10^th anniversary IQP in 1998), but also projects on the geo-morphological evolution of the islands of Venice, on the preservation of traditional boats, on the Sounds of Venice and on Alpine Mountain Huts in the Dolomites. Because of the diverse nature of these projects, it will be difficult to try to weave a common thread through all of them, but it may be worth trying to re-classify and possibly follow up on some of them. Some of the datasets and maps may be published on the Online Atlas (see previous section on Environment), but mostly we will be working on creating our own online Geographical Information System to make all of the VPC data accessible on our own portal.

Since this group will be a sort of “catch all”, we foresee this team to also be in charge of the overall “production” of the anniversary materials and web sites. It would therefore be preferable if some of the team members were the “creative types” (preferably with some experience in media and/or public relations), and if some other team members were the “technical types” who could interact with the techies in each of the other teams to put together the online framework where we will display our achievements and share them with past Venice alumni, sponsors and the world at large.

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