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Dr. Sarah Barns

CREATIVE DIRECTOR, RESEARCHER, STRATEGIST
  • HELLO
  • Essays and Features
  • Academic Research
  • Strategy & Urban Design
  • Presentations
  • Studio ESEM [Visit Site]
  • Storybox Places Platform [Visit Site]
  • Sound Practice [Visit Site]
  • Talks & Media
  • Contact

Platform Architecture and the Connected City

September 01, 2017

Click on the link to watch the presentation…

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Selected published writing

I’ve written a lot on cities and the historical trends and transformations shaping how we live and respond to changing ecologies, technologies and climates.

Featured

Featured
Jackhammer Nation
March 23, 2021
Jackhammer Nation
March 23, 2021

We tend to think of “innovation precincts” as hubs for technology and knowledge workers, like the Australian Technology Park in Sydney. But cities need innovation in the very nature of building — especially in managing construction waste and using materials efficiently — to meet the challenges thrown up by accelerating urban growth.


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March 23, 2021
The end of the city? No, not quite
October 21, 2020
The end of the city? No, not quite
October 21, 2020

If the relative emptiness of the central city feels like a shock, we’d do well to remember how relatively novel is the particular, pre-pandemic form of the city we’re familiar with. Skyscrapers stacked tight in the centres, with radial train networks transporting commuters in and out of dormitory suburbs, represent distinct configurations of home and work, domesticity and commerce, that might be slipping. Has the “age of dispersion” arrived?

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October 21, 2020
Platform Urbanism and the Governance of Cities
October 21, 2020
Platform Urbanism and the Governance of Cities
October 21, 2020

The digitisation of urban interactions creates productive data that can be leveraged to support better decision-making and critical transformations in the design of cities. And yet, as attention toward platform business models makes clear, many of today's digital platforms yield not just new data points or information flows that can enhance urban intelligence. They also raise complex new challenges to do with how data are used to capture and govern the informational landscapes of digitally mediated cities, provoking new challenges for urban leaders and decision makers.

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October 21, 2020
Better Outdoors? Imagining a different kind of outdoor media.
May 15, 2020
Better Outdoors? Imagining a different kind of outdoor media.
May 15, 2020

Can we imagine a better outdoor media landscape? Storybox is a project that does just that. We promote more inclusive spaces for digital storytelling and creative media outdoors, in partnership with city governments and cultural organisations.

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May 15, 2020
Let's get contract tracing right: How we build these apps is how we’re building our digital future
April 30, 2020
Let's get contract tracing right: How we build these apps is how we’re building our digital future
April 30, 2020

An article on digital contact tracing commissioned by Inside Story, ahead of the launch of the Australian Government’s COVID Safe tracing app. Read a short excerpt here.

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April 30, 2020
Making Space: What does the coronavirus mean for Australian cities?
April 5, 2020
Making Space: What does the coronavirus mean for Australian cities?
April 5, 2020

A reflection on coronavirus and Australian cities, commissioned by Inside Story in the opening week of Australia’s lock down and shift to social distancing measures.

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April 5, 2020
New book! Platform Urbanism
March 21, 2020
New book! Platform Urbanism
March 21, 2020

I’ve written a new book on Platform Urbanism, published by Palgrave Macmillan December 2019. Read an Introductory excerpt here.

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March 21, 2020
You, Me, Data and the City
January 15, 2020
You, Me, Data and the City
January 15, 2020

Is the data-rich city taking on a life of its own? And can Hugh Stretton’s Ideas for Australian Cities help us navigate its hazards? My piece for Inside Story, commissioned to mark the 50th anniversary of Stretton’s seminal work.

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January 15, 2020
So You Want to Live in a Pivot City?
December 1, 2019
So You Want to Live in a Pivot City?
December 1, 2019

A piece of speculative fiction I wrote for an edited book collection. In this piece I imagine Sydney as a ‘pivot city’ chosen by a major tech company to show how data-driven accountability can be used to enforce a carbon budget in the fight to limit carbon emissions. Problem is, our guy can’t quite behave like he should.

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December 1, 2019
Re-imagining Parramatta: Negotiating the Arrival of Australia's Next Great City
October 2, 2018
Re-imagining Parramatta: Negotiating the Arrival of Australia's Next Great City
October 2, 2018

This article for Griffith Review’s Who We Are explored the history of migration in Parramatta, and how this ‘cradle of the colony’ is being re-imagined in an era of rapid social and cultural transformation in the city.

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October 2, 2018