Frequently Asked Questions
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- Why have you set up the project? - -
- - -Initially we set out to collect and share numerical and categorical data -relating to the age and land use of buildings for research into the built environment and -demolition, but we soon realised that the opportunity existed to capture many -more types of data for use in all sorts of areas: from local history and -heritage to building conservation, sustainable urban planning, architecture and -the built environment. - - - -
- Who is it designed for? - -
- - -Anyone interested in London and its buildings and anyone interested in cities -and large-scale building attribute datasets. - - - -
- How will the data be used? - -
- - -We have some ideas, but we also hope to be surprised! Our main task is to -enable the collection, collation, visualisation and dissemination of the data. -We are very excited to see how they are used. To help stimulate discussion and -ideas we will include a data showcase which will allow anyone to share examples -of how they use Colouring London data, and to provide examples of how similar -datasets are being used elsewhere in the UK and around the world. - - - -
- Is there anywhere else you can access this type of information at building level? - -
- - -No, not for London as a whole. The Valuation Office Agency holds the most -comprehensive records for tax purposes, but these are restricted at the building -level, even for research within academia. - - - -
- Why aren’t you crowdsourcing textual information on the history of buildings? - -
- - -Our main focus is to collect data for modelling and statistical analysis, where -numerical and categorical data tends to be most useful. However, we will -collect links to other sites where text based information on a building can be -created and shared. The Layers of London project by the Institute for Historical -Research and the Histories of Whitechapel project by the Survey of London -and the Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA) both have an -interest in text (and audio and photographs). We are working in close -collaboration with both projects. - - - -
- Why did you choose these categories of data? - -
- - -We have had conversations with many different groups, from academics and -teachers to community groups and built environment professionals, and found -many overlaps. We have limited ourselves to 12 main categories to keep things -simple, within which there are around thirty sub-categories. The prototype -testing period will allow us to see whether there are any key categories -missing—feedback is welcome. - - - -
- How will you deal with people who may want to disrupt the system? - -
- - -Our intention is to cultivate a community which can handle occasional -disruption, along the lines of other collaborative online projects. The site -will allow anyone to upload and edit data as they like and to go back and forth -over the details if necessary. Quantitative data on the building stock is, we -hope, not too controversial, other than perhaps for large developments. The -locations of utilities’ may be sensitive, but this is not within the main -scope of our data collection. For the ‘Like me’ category, users -will have only one vote per building. - - -
- How do you deal with people who enter ‘wrong’ information. - -
- - -Like Wikipedia, we as a community will have to keep re-editing, however edit -histories will help users see where data comes from, for example if it is -uploaded by a specialist body. - - - -
- What about the spaces in between buildings? - -
- - -We recognise the importance of this but in the first instance we will only -gather data on the buildings themselves. We will however include a sub-category -which records a building's position, i.e. mid-terrace, end-of-terrace, -semi-detached or detached. - - - -
- What do you do about multiple uses that the footprint doesn’t record? - -
- - -We intend to record as many uses per building as necessary. - - - -
- What if several buildings are represented as a single outline? - -
- - -We rely on Ordnance Survey MasterMap for our building outlines, so if these are -not subdivided, we will need to attach extra data to the single outline, or -else consider altering the outlines manually. Some buildings have the opposite -problem, where there are multiple polygons for a single building. For example -some post-war estates have each of the balconies drawn separately. Our hope is -that the project will stimulate discussion with Ordnance Survey regarding a -more user friendly open version of the building outlines. - - - -
- Can this be rolled out to other cities? - -
- - -Yes, in principal. We hope that Colouring London will act as a proof of -concept. We rely on a sufficient set of building outlines to provide the basis -for all the building attribute data that we collect—for London, Ordnance -Survey and the Greater London Authority have supported us by providing -the MasterMap building outlines. - - - -
- Have you involved OpenStreetMap in the project? - -
- - -Yes, we had a discussion with OpenStreetMap contributors at an international -mapping conference in Leuven last year and would very much like the -OpenStreetMap community to become involved in the project. We hope that by -generating data of relevance to local areas we will also stimulate increased -interest in OpenStreetMap and in collecting building outline polygons as open -data. - - - -
- Will all the data collected be released as open data? - -
- - -Yes, all the building attributes which we collect will be available under an -open data license. However, we are limited by Ordnance Survey data licensing -and are not currently able to provide building outlines or geographical -coordinates. We will provide sufficient data for MasterMap users to link -building attributes to their own copies of the polygons. - - - -
- How can communities download the data with sufficient spatial information? - -
- - -We will collect details of building addresses, including postcodes, as a first -step towards providing location details. We will also look into the -possibility of creating and sharing geographical coordinates for our -dataset as open data, as suggested by a contributor, in collaboration with the -OpenStreetMap community. - - -
