The research carried out in the project Nocturnal Landscapes: Urban Flows of Global Metropolises, curated by Iker Gil and organized by MAS Context, has materialized in a publication that collects the contents of the project’s exhibition in Chicago as well as new ones.

Nocturnal Landscapes: Urban Flows of Global Metropolises is a project that observes and analyzes cities at night from an interdisciplinary perspective. We have used data about urban life to compare the rhythms and regions of global cities through cartographic representations. The maps and graphics generated are complemented by the photographs of David Schalliol, photographer and sociologist, questioning the correlation of human activity and light, and revealing hidden aspects of our cities.

A special edition of the COAC magazine Quaderns d’Arquitectura i Urbanisme, dedicated to the project “Catalonia in Venice – Air / Aria / Aire” has recently been published.

The monograph, directed by the architect Olga Subirós, collects the research carried out for the project as well as articles written especially for the magazine.

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The report compiles the results of the Mercè project, a citizen science experiment carried out from May to November 2020 in which citizens have trained an artificial intelligence algorithm to be able to predict the habitability of the city of Barcelona. The report collects the main results of the experiment and determines which are the most and least livable streets in the city based on variables that have been individualized thanks to the vote of the citizens.

Our contribution to the book ‘Integrated urban planning: learning from Europe’ promoted by Diputació de Barcelona and edited by Paisaje Transversal is a compendium of best practices under the title ‘We cannot work with what we cannot measure”.

The article aims at helping institutions to implement integrated urban planning in line with Europe and the major global agendas using a series of own experiences (Energy map of Rubí, Open Papers and Arturo) to present the toolkit available to public administrations today interested in incorporating the new ecosystem of public data and big data into their urban policy and planning.

This article focuses on the existence of a possible data divide in the context of growing digitalization. The Open Papers project helps shine a light on social inequality derived from an inaccurate datafication of the environment. What urban problems are left out of decision-making processes due to a lack of information? How can citizens generate data without using complex technologies through processes of collective capture?

The Aragonese government launched an open and collaborative platform for sharing knowledge and practices focused on the areas of open government and social innovation. Given this situation, we reflect on the need to involve the administration and citizens in the generation of data infrastructures in a context of the increasing privatization (at the hands of large corporations) of cartographic and geospatial information.

In the immediate context of the end of the lockdown in response to the first wave of Covid-19, this article reflects on the need for changes to the urban and territorial model (based on the concepts of distance and density that have emerged in their different dimensions as a result of the pandemic) and how the city should transition from impacting citizens’ health to serving as an infrastructure of collective health.

A series of 13 maps illustrates the inequality of living conditions in Barcelona during the strict lockdown of the Covid-19 pandemic. This initial description of the housing stock – based on public but also partially private data – is a first step in reflecting on the role of housing to guarantee spatial justice and social integration through urbanism.

The article ‘Atnight visions through data’ presents the first results of atNight project by means of a series of maps that compare the image and activity of Barcelona during day and night.

MAS Context, a quarterly journal created by MAS Studio (editor Iker Gil), addresses issues that affect the urban context. Each issue delivers a comprehensive view of a single topic through the active participation of people from different fields and different perspectives who, together, instigate the debate.

The issue 15 ‘Visibility’continues to make visible the invisible conditions present around us that inform the way we engage with the city. At the same time, we are bringing forgotten landscapes, hidden away systems and lost environments back to the forefront of the discussion, all of them significant in our history and waiting to be reexamined.