ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the condition of the postdigital cultural context as murky, at best, for the processes of design and computation and emerging data sets to broaden definition, understanding, and translation of context. It aims to translate them into relevant and meaningful design outcomes, and to critically reconnect with social and natural context. The chapter focuses the more unusual use of computation as it involves the incorporation of emerging urban information sources and "big data" into everyday design and planning practice. Supernormal is also a response to the vast amounts of fine-grained data about local places that are continuously generated and increasingly available, but not well understood or utilized for the purposes of design and city-making. The chapter analyses a set of continuously collected data within this designated collection boundary to understand the impact of routine block-by-block urban events such as shifts in retail tenancy and the influx of housing units generated by new construction.
