Developing books like cities. A LIFT workshop by Laurent Bolli and Frederic Kaplan. http://www.bookapp.com

1. Book urbanism
Developing books like cities
Laurent Bolli & Frédéric Kaplan
http://bookapp.com
frederic.kaplan@bookapp.com Twitter : @frederickaplan
laurent.bolli@bookapp.com Twitter: @lobollo

2. One can think of many
metaphors for reading.

3. e.g. Swimming
Linking Linking
Reading
Reading Reading

4. In this workshop we will
think of books as cities.

5. Books Cities
Book projects as urban projects
Book sequences as travel routes
Book development as urbanization processes
Book economics as urban economics
Book reading as urban experiences
Book problems as urban problems...

6. Books Cities
Our hypothesis is that working in the cities
space will give us ideas in the book’s space.
This is what you will do in this workshop.

7. Construction of
the metaphor.

8. Dimension 1
A text is like a unidirectional path.
Reading a text is like walking the path.
Reading fast is like running.

9. Dimension 2
Pages are like closed surfaces with
indicated entrances and exits and
associated circulation rules.

10. Talmud, Isaac Alfasi
1380-1400

11. “Un coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hasard”
Stéphane Mallarmé, 1914

12. Zic et Puce aux Indes
Alain Saint-Ogan

13. Dimension 3
A book is like a city, a 3D organization
of closed spaces with complex
circulation rules.

14. Entrance

15. Saline Royale d’Arc et Senan

16. Saline Royale d’Arc et Senan

17. Entering a book:
pages de garde, page de faux titre, page de grand titre, page de copyright, page de
départ.

18. Circulation patterns

19. Linear
The reader has no other choice
than to move forward.

20. Chinese wall

21. Linear
The reader can leave the main road
to explore complementary circuits.

22. Divina Commedia + glose

23. Treaty on Aristote’s “soul”, with Averroès comments, beginning of XIVe century, BNF

24. Vézeley (France).
A processional path to a
Benedictine abbey with a
church famous as the resting
place of the remains of Mary
Magdalen.

25. City of Bern with three main streets

26. Parallel lines
The reader can switch sideways.

27. Samuel R. Delany’s “On the Unspeakable”.

28. Translation
The reader can switch sideways.

29. Book in two languages at the same time Rosetta stone

30. Grids

31. Italo Calvino, “The Castle of Georges Perec, “La Vie mode
Crossed destinies” d’emploi”, book map and organisation

32. Map of New-York, 1755

33. Star-Shaped

34. Palmanova (Italy) created in 1593-1623
Closed - Clear districts - 3 gates

35. Why the Net Matters, iPad-only
book by David Eagleman Annual Report, Nestlé 2010

36. Labyrinths

37. Gamebooks (livre dont vous êtes le héros)

38. Aigues-Mortes (France) 1240s

39. Souk Future city of Masdran

40. Growth patterns

41. Wikipedia
A huge collection of authors (architects) writes formatted
texts (paths) and makes links between them (connected
paths). The resulting city grows organically and
demonstrates a modern form of book-urbanization.
Its growth is semi-planned as some patterns and editorial
rules are imposed to maintain regular structures throughout
the development of the project.

42. Chris Harrison, 2007. One
representation of Wikipedia

43. Los Angeles

44. Wikipedia is the !rst apparently
sustainable megabook.
It attracts constantly new constructions.
It su"ers from the same problems as big
cities (vandalism, orientation and signage
systems, cleaning, etc.)

45. Many others have fails (Geocities, etc.)
It is crucial to understand well
the rules of successful social growth.

46. Exercise :
What kind of megabook is Facebook ?

47. Suburbs

48. Other kinds of
growth patterns

49. Annotations

50. QR Code URL
F. Kaplan, “La Métamorphose des objets”, FYP

51. QR Code URL
comments
images
videos
...
F. Kaplan, “La Métamorphose des objets”, FYP

52. bookstrapping.com

54. Now your turn
Books Cities

55. Warming up.
What kind of book models
correspond to these
cities pictures?

57. Shopping spaces
(1) A company hires professional builders to construct a
shopping district. Entrance is free but visitors will be
encouraged to buy other goods or services from the
company. Alternatively, (2) a company gets specialized in
designing/building shopping districts and sells shopping
spaces to companies of type 1.
This is the business model of
- brochures (1)
- catalogues (2).
Shopping districts > Catalogues, Brochures

59. Advertising spaces
Like the shopping area, entrance is cheap and some
spaces are rented for advertising. What counts is attracting
visitors.
This is the business model of many magazines, newspapers
and websites.
Time square, Shinjuku > magazine

61. Sponsored spaces
A sponsor/the state gives money to an architect and a
building company to produce a space with special
sponsored content/services. It does this essentially to get
recognition in a chosen area.
This is the business model of sponsored books.
Campus, Museum, Gardens
> sponsored books

63. Model: Co-created settlements
In Favelas, inhabitants co-create their own services and
infrastructures.
This is the model of plateforms facilitating the co-creation
of content. The role of authors and readers tend to
merge.
Organic self-organized settlement, Favelas,
Mutualized urban systems
> Co-created content (print and digital)

65. Model 7: Science-!ction cities
Science-!ction provides many interesting city models.
(cities than can change shapes, cities controlled by
computers, etc.). Can they give us idea for new models
for books ?
- Dark City, Matrix, Minority report
- Book-machine

66. Time to work.
Let’s imagine we are in
charge of the great
country of book-cities.

67. 5 Ministries to set the
foundation for a new
period of development.

68. Ministry of Post
Mission: How to create a universal address
system that can designate precisely any
content in any book-city.
Deliverable : A concrete solution working for
all the book-cities of our country.

69. Ministry of Tourism
Mission: How to encourage visitors to come
to the book-cities of our country with
attractive o"ers (organized tours,
subscriptions), well-designed material
(brochures, postcards)
Deliverable: Ex. of actions and campaigns

70. Ministry of Commerce
Mission: How to create economically
sustainable book-cities in which
commercial actors may want to settle
and invest.
Deliverable: Innovative business models

71. Ministry of Population
Mission: How to encourage readers to settle
in book-cities and engage collectively in
their development (private/public spaces,
co-construction, platforms).
Deliverable: Concrete solutions and o"ers

72. Ministry of Connectivity and
Circulation
Mission: How to create new kinds of
connectivity inside and in between
our book-cities. How to optimise
circulation of resources and information.
Deliverable: Connectivity & circulation maps.

73. Process:
• 30’ brainstorm
• 5’ minutes presentation per ministry
• debate