Readings-StefanoAndreani

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 * Responsive Environments and Artifacts: DISAPPEARANCE - Readings **
 * Reading: **The City in the Digital Sprawl, Antoine Picon
 * Discussion Mediator: **Stefano Andreani __andreani@gsd.harvard.edu__


 * Reading Summary (1000 words): **

This reading proposes an analysis of how the city evolved with the development of information and communication technologies, highlighting the relationship between contemporary city and digital architecture under the lens of responsive environments. In particular, Anotine Picon discusses the consequences of the digital realm on the physical organization of cities, and he does so by investigating concepts such as dematerialization, dispersion (sprawl), social networks, augmented reality, history and memory. Picon starts his analysis by comparing the “digital age city” with the city as we know it but, a la Marc Augé, characterized by a state of super- or hypermodernity – with more circulation patterns, more complex relations, and more intricate networks. In this sense, Picon describes the three main features the digital age city: 1. The increasingly individual nature of urban life and urban styles – a process of individualization fostered by digital technologies. 2. The rapid development of virtual spaces – a sort of multiplication of interfaces or hybrid situations (augmented reality). 3. The importance of occurrences and events as defining elements of urban life – digital tools are indispensable for advertising them. The reading then analyses in depth these emergent features of the “digital city”, studying how “digital architecture” relates to them: architecture, in fact, plays a different role in each of these situations.

** 1. City of Individuals ** Contemporary urban life seems to follow Nicholas Negroponte’s prediction regarding the increasing individualization that comes with digital technologies – this digital dimension being present at various levels. In particular, digital technologies are able to established: //- Who you are//: The aim is the precise identification of individuals (the age of computer-aided identification). Examples are related to safety: iris scans or DNA sampling. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Arial Narrow',sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">- <span style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">// Where you are // : The accurate localization of individuals. Examples are GPS in cell phones, dynamic cartographies of city rhythms using data collected by cell phones companies (Carlo Ratti’s SENSEable City Lab has mapped the intensity and distribution of phone calls in Rome during a concert of Madonna), Urban Mobs technology (developed by the French phone company Orange). A consequence is what is called “dynamic localization”, that is the possibility for companies to reach potential customers. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Arial Narrow',sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in; vertical-align: baseline;">// - What you are doing // : The importance of being potentially or actually watched – a possibility offered by computer-aided surveillance. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Arial Narrow',sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">Digital technologies also play a determining role in the reshaping of cities, fostering their appropriation by individuals. Particularly, they allow for the creation of sensory stimulating environment, for promoting civic goals as well as mass-customized consumption. In this context, Picon refers to the emergence of a “new materiality”, in which the environment is sensed through smell, taste, and touch. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Arial Narrow',sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">Digital design can then be seen as a tool for the satisfaction of senses. Related examples are fashion boutiques or trendy restaurants that often are characterized by complex digitally-produced geometries. A further interesting case is the concept of “fooding”, a term designated by the French sociologist Francois Ascher to emphasize the quest for a more global experience in which unique atmosphere plays an important role. Picon points out that this quest for immersive sensory environments already characterized the 1960s and 70s, but the big difference with today’s approach is its strong individual dimension. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Arial Narrow',sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">As a conclusion of this first part, Picon explains the relationship between “digital architecture” and “city of individuals”: digital architecture aims at the total reshaping of the urban sensory experience.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Arial Narrow',sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">** 2. City of Augmented Reality ** <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Arial Narrow',sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">This section begins with the statement that architecture has always had a relation to the virtual realm, particularly as anticipation of a built or potential reality. In particular, the notion of immersive space is almost as ancient as architecture itself. Roman villas and baroque cupolas are quite emblematic examples. However, with the development of cyberspace a new form of architectural virtuality emerged, for two main reasons: <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Arial Narrow',sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in; vertical-align: baseline;">1. 1. A social character characterizes virtual reality – with the nature of interaction being designed and not the result of spontaneous social processes. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Arial Narrow',sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in; vertical-align: baseline;">2. 2. Electronic virtual reality relates to the physical world (examples are teleconferencing, telesurgery, and e-commerce. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Arial Narrow',sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">Today’s augmented reality is one in which the physical and the electronic are increasingly interacting. Or better, augmented reality is most of the time based on the enrichment of the physical environment with electronic content ( the SPOTS Media and Light Façade on Berlin’s Postdamer Platz is a clear example of that). In architectural terms, augmented reality not only involvs senses of vision and touch through screens, but also can change the perception of concepts such as the exterior and interior of spaces, as Blur Building for the Swiss Expo 2002 by Diller Scofidio + Renfro clearly demonstartes. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Arial Narrow',sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">It then emerges the relationship between “digital architecture” and “city of augmented reality”: relating to digital architecture’s performative attitude, architectural space is more and more supposed to react to the presence of people – an either physical or electronic presence.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Arial Narrow',sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">** 3. City of Events ** <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Arial Narrow',sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">According to Picon, the presence of events is the most important character of the digital city. For supporting his claim, he brings the concept of urban mapping: to map a city is not only to represent it but also to make sense of it. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Arial Narrow',sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">Maps have somehow always been like that, highlighting what is really important. However, Picon speculates of what type of maps can make sense of our contemporary city. In fact, he believes that traditional cartographic tools are no longer appropriate because cities have become incredibly complex. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Arial Narrow',sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">Picon then proposes two types of contemporary maps: <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Arial Narrow',sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in; vertical-align: baseline;">1. Global maps: Dynamic representations that show the city from a control-room perspective (for example, cities’ global map of traffic). <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Arial Narrow',sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in; vertical-align: baseline;">2. Maps of local or individual experiences: Maps that show us the city as we experience it (for instance, maps that appear on personal digital assistants or GPS systems). <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Arial Narrow',sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">A consequent question is: in which ways is it possible to integrate the global and individual levels? Picon answers by proposing to map occurrences, events, and situations, rather than objects, arrangements, and organizations. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Arial Narrow',sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">In this sense, digital media play an essential role in fostering an event-based perception of urban organization and urban life. Indeed, there have been some experiments to emphasize the vitality of the city as a structure: Archigram’s Living City exhibition of 1963, or the Situationists’s city as living matrix of situations that is experienced only through drift and psycogeography. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Arial Narrow',sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">Antoine Picon defines the city as a system of events, in which events – even everyday events – are considered as landmarks that can define our contemporary city as much as monuments do. Picon then moves on by describing some features of contemporary events, and it takes the example of financial markets to explain the fact that today unpredictable phenomena are often based on computable processes. In this sense, digital architecture should reflect this event-based city. However, it is never clear whether the status of event of the architectural representation can be transposed to the built object. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Arial Narrow',sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">At an urban scale, the author observes that traditional planning is progressively replaced by the elaboration of narratives and scenarios. It is of particular interest the reference to star architects, who are expected to provide the necessary glamour to urban scenarios. In this transformation of plans into scenarios, two issues arise: <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Arial Narrow',sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in; vertical-align: baseline;">1. The relation of the city to nature: With the contemporary discourse on sustainability, the perspective is to write a scenario of harmonious co-evolution between the natural and the urban. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Arial Narrow',sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in; vertical-align: baseline;">2. The relation of the city to memory and history: Picon talks of a crisis of the sense of history, because the accumulation of events leaves us with the curious impression of living in an eternal present (for example, Internet reproduces a characteristic of the world of globalization, and in turn the “flat” world of globalization is perceived as a never-ending present. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Arial Narrow',sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">As a consequence, the author proposes that we may have to reinvent a conception of digital media not only as tools for immediate interaction but as means to promote delay, even opacity. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Arial Narrow',sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">Finally, in order to explain the relationship between “digital architecture” and “city of individuals” – relating to the coherence or incoherence of what is awaiting us – Picon formulates two questions: <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Arial Narrow',sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in; vertical-align: baseline;">1. Can a city of individuals be imbued with collective values? <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Arial Narrow',sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in; vertical-align: baseline;">2. Is augmented reality compatible with the reinvention of genuine public space beyond the superficial interactions made possible by tagged spaces and personal digital assistants? <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Arial Narrow',sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">A pessimistic answer to these questions is presented by Stephen Graham and Simon Marvin. They claim that city evolution is entering a phase of increasing splintering. In fact, technological networks that were initially conceived as to integrate urban diversity are now introducing major disparities in terms of accessibility to the services they provide, linking only parts of the city. Graham and Marvin particularly refer to a double process of local fragmentation and global connection.


 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Arial Narrow','sans-serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Questions and Challenges: **
 * Can a city of individuals be imbued with collective values?
 * Is augmented reality compatible with the reinvention of genuine public space beyond the superficial interactions made possible by tagged spaces and personal digital assistants?
 * With the globalization of technology, are we loosing the ability to create a ‘sense of place’ in relation to local cultures?


 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Arial Narrow','sans-serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Documentation of Class Discussions and Responses to Questions and Challenges: **

The discussion started by investigating which types of relationships between individuals characterize the contemporary city. What emerged is that individuals are involved in a mix of physical and digital relationships, with the city acting as a meta-space of interactions. In this sense, buildings and infrastructure reflect this kinds of interaction – architecture being really slow compared to digital technology’s evolution though.

The debate then moved to the role that digital technologies have been playing in changing the modes in which we build our networks of relations. Since few years ago, in fact, the concept of proximity was the one that was driving the construction of relationships (neighbors, for example). On the contrary, today, the concept of proximity is not only physical, but also digital, thanks to the possibilities that digital networks offer.

A this point, a critique to the text emerged: the author analyses the current role of the digital age city, but doesn’t propose any future scenario nor possible evolution. From the following discussion, it emerged that the reason lies in the fact that technology is evolving too fast, leaving to an almost unpredictable future.

Finally, the debate focused on the relation between physical and digital environments. In particular, as designers, we believe that digital realms are not as “cool” as physical ones. However, things are changing, with the slow emergence of “augmented” types of beings. Therefore, how to romanticize the city seems to be one of our challenges of the future.

<span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; margin-bottom: 0in; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: -25px; width: 1px;">** The City in the Digital Sprawl **