Architecture and Information: How will the rapidly increasing database of digital information be utilised to generate a more relevant

architectural form for society?

Word Count: 3095 1

Contents
----------------------------------

Introduction: Architecture and Information

Page

Spatial application

Page

A New Virtual Reality: Urban Possibilities

Page

Information as experience

Page

Conclusion

Page

10

Additional Information

Page

11

References and Terms

Page

11

Architecture of Information:
How will the rapidly increasing database of digital information be utilised to generate a more relevant architectural form for society?

In the present realm of architecture we are experiencing a transitional period within design with the increasing emergence of digital places, these hybrid spaces contain both physical and electronic characteristics. These places are undoubtedly not an ends mean but part of the evolutionary process of adaption whilst we continue to seek to link bricks to clicks as the intersection of electronic and physical spaces occurs at an increasing rate, through necessity. We must ask the question, as our access to information changes, how will architecture embrace the vast world of new data and will space become increasingly virtual?. It is unlikely, no matter how far this evolutionary process continues the importance of physical space will disappear, as it is 1human need to attach meaning to physical places as part of their culture (Horan 2000:86) and the need for physical place and interaction will not cease, but continue to evolve. At present we are living in one of the most exciting periods in the worlds history. Society is being transformed rapidly around us by a growing need for information and how it is being distributed. Accessing this vast constantly growing database of information from any point in the world is now a reality. Through these advancements and the constantly growing prosthetic digital networks we are becoming ever closer to one another, developing alongside an increased understanding of the world. Recent innovations have lead modern society to share and generate information now in more abstract methods.

Spatial application
2

Progressive information technologies are constantly evolving and mutating, and if communities do not evolve they will be left behind (Wilson 2004). As the world of information progressively moves faster around us it is imperative that this process of evolution is integrated into the fabric of the space we occupy. The virtual information networks attracts a deal of negative stereotyping with some of social critics such as Mark Slouka taking the view that the growing trends will unintentionally eliminate social interaction as virtual life becomes a escape of the real. However 3despite the rise of intoxicating virtual places, social science research continues to find that the built environment plays a key role in defining our sense of self identity (Stokols 1999). The concept of digital place does not eliminate the need for the design of meaningful building types that we are accustomed to; instead the ambition should be to focus on alterative combinations to complement the meaning of physical place. The additional electronic layer can give rise to new functions not feasible without. In the modern urban world with the increasing privatisation of space, the necessity of relevant public space as a stimulant for encouraging cultural, educational and social
1
2

Horan, T. 2000, Digital Places: Building Our City of Bits, ULI-The Urban Land Wilson, E.J. 2004, The Information Age and Developing Countries, MIT Press. STOKOLS, D. (1999) Human development in the age of the internet: Conceptual and methodological horizons. In S. L. Friedman &

interaction is becoming increasingly important. Public Space, both real and virtual- have the capacity to provide a perceptual and functional meeting grounds for friends and strangers alike 4(Horan 2001:15) and have the capacity to transform a sense of place into a sense of community. Public buildings must become important points of entry for members of society into the digital realm. Architecture has always had a symbiotic relationship with scientific technology throughout time and the architecture of the information age should continue to embrace this relationship. Designing to accommodate the needs of this generation one must bridge the gap and utilise the structures components as a link between the physical and virtual worlds. Design must surpass the simple screen and physically interact, change, update and stimulate users. Essentially it is required to rethink conventional building programmes and functions for the creation of a more immersive knowledge experience. 5Architects of the twenty first centenary will shape, arrange and connect spaces (both real and virtual) to satisfy human needs. They will still care about the qualities of visual and ambient environments. They will seek commodity, firmness and delight. But commodity will be as much a matter of software functions and interface design as it is of floor plans and construction material (Mitchell 2000:105). The inevitable effects of current resource storage systems are that bytes are replacing the once physical, removing requirements for large storage areas; this creates implications regarding form as some previous necessities no longer apply, creating the potential for a more relevant brief. Planners and architects are beginning to comprehend the importance of space flows and their ability to create new dialogues among educational institutions in a manner that stimulates social interaction. Advancing technology will continue to impact our communities and social communications; the success of their integration will be dependent on the quality of design. This awareness has resulted in the materialisation of some modern public structures whose programmes provide electronic and physical access to residents. Particularly effective examples that illustrate this transitory process include: Toyo Itos Sendai Mediatheque and OMAs Seattle public library. These multimedia learning environments encourage both electronic and face to face communications.

4 5

Horan, T 2001 Digital PlacesDesign Considerations for Integrating Electronic Space with Physical Place

Mitchell, W.J. 2000, E-topia, Paperback Edition edn, MIT Press, USA.

A New Virtual Reality: Urban Possibilities

Representing the Virtual is proving to be a problematic challenge for architecture. The very nature of virtual realms is the issue, as their presence lacks visibility and physical expression being currently primarily perceived through un-stimulating mediums. To perceive the invisible it is imperative that we reshape the space that houses it as senses such as seeing and feeling are central to the way we comprehend information. 6Vision is especially important when dealing with architecture. Technology and architecture often met in their common attempt to shape or reshape the categories of visual perception. (Picon, Lerner 2003:295). Our perception of the virtual information is related to our level of understanding and it can only flourish through our understanding and how we engage with it. This virtual reality of information is but a potential awaiting its full realisation.

Programmatic datascape development Attempting to establish a more related method of designing to embrace this realisation, a partial new generation of architects are becoming to embrace the scientific based ideology of deep planning and datascapes. Architects MVRDV are among the forefront of this new generation of architects who choose to incorporate this massing of digital information we create as a central tool in analysing the city to influence design in ways never anticipated. The modern creators of the architectural datascape process, MDRDV has sought to create a new visual means of representing architecture as it relates to the mapping of urban phenomena. Mapping these urban phenomena involves data driven visualisation to represent the unacknowledged features of the city. Through mapping this invisible information in a perceivable manner bearing scale, creates the possibility to merge
6 Picon, A. & Lerner, R. 2003, Architecture and the Sciences: Exchanging Metaphors

information and form to create a more relevant structure for modern society. Brett Steele describes datascapes as 7visual representations of all quantifiable forces, which can have an influence on the work of the architect or are even able to determine and to steer them (Steele B, 1998). The work of Maas (MVRDV) exhibited in the Metacity/ Datatown publication seeks to give visual expression to the numerical value of the information incorporated. 8 Data do not yield information except with the intervention of the mind. Information does not yield meaning except with the intervention of imagination (Harvard.B 1985) and this approach allows the complex statistical information to be presented in a much more perceivable way through the medium of digital art. The publication explores various data from both real and theoretical scenarios in Mexico City, San Paulo and as a contrast Netherlands. Datascapes expose extreme conditions, new unexpected spatial boundaries and are considered to have paradoxical properties. The process is considered to be rational as it is derived from scientific information and irrational because the spatial restrictions exposed can give a surreal image of the area under examination. The datascapes are controlled and critical in nature offering the dweller of urban space a visual critique of that in question. They can examine the effects that external forces have and the implications that trends may have if they continue in terms of spatial consequences. Datascapes are much more than persuasive illustrations, they reveal urban influences and when transformed into images (digital art) become maps with multiple dimensions. These maps can then become a tool to guide the urban designer to achieve potential new development in current practises and used as a persuasive power to guide public policy. One of the most interesting features of datascapes is that they can continually be updated as information in the world around us changes. Information however when materialised into a physical object becomes an artefact and is quickly outdated as information changes. Architectural firms such as UN studio have begun to embrace a similar method, however there approach is more clearly related to finished final constructed form than that of MVRDV, whose initial datascape projects are primarily theoretical works. In order to do
7 8

Brett Steele, Reality Bytes: Datascapes in Daidalos 9/70, 1998, p.10. The Globalization of Markets in Harvard Business Review, May/June1985, p.99

things differently we need to see things differently and UN studios in projects such as Arnhem Central Masterplan in the Netherlands have embraced the use of digital information as a means to generate habitable space through a process known as deep planning. Deep planning incorporates a variety of aspects including economics, infrastructure, programme and construction. This result is similar relationships as appose to the use of individual data, form the parameters of a project and illustrate suitable space. 9The typical product of deep planning is a situation-specific, dynamic organizational structural plan that uses scenarios, diagrams, parameters, formulas and themes, encompassing the mapping of political, managerial, planning, community and private relations. This allows for the generation of increased possibilities and more functional space as one of the primary focuses in Arnhem is the concentration on overlapping spaces that contain shared parameters, with movement studies becoming an important focus and generator of form. 10 The reason why such a large effort is a made to map information on the actual flow of movement, as well as projected future movement, is that this information, together with time, defines use; and use is the most vital ingredient determining the future of a location. Since no program is thinkable without people, no value exists without users. By analysing the site for its spatial flows areas that may be problematic and positive are highlighted. The primary aim of deep planning is not to generate a design proposal, but to create a concise development policy that relates specifically to that which surrounds it.

Information as Experience
Emerging as a result of current practise methods in the architectural realm and our shifting perception of the world, there is an increasing alteration in the way scale is being perceived. Unlike physical matter whose dimensions define building scale, virtual information has no scale; its scale is only established through the medium of representation. 11Information ignores the distinction between the large, the medium and the small, between the macro and the micro. (Picon, Lerner 2003:30). This transformation in scale has been brought about due to our ability to perceive a much broader perspective than was possible of previous generations; we can now focus on molecules or complete images of planet earth. The implications of this shift in the perception of scale is important when considering the impact of creating a hybrid environment, that will nurture and stimulate users of future buildings to enjoy a more complete learning and cultural experience. Some modern experimental innovations have begun to explore the relationship of spatial flows by the use of interactive displays that relate to human scale.

10 11

http://www.domusweb.it/en/architecture/deep-planning/ accessed 11 May 2011 www.unstudio.com/uploads/.../e54d03f7-7614-4b1e-8d6a-44d709c08450 accessed 11th May 2011

Picon, A. & Lerner, R. 2003, Architecture and the Sciences: Exchanging Metaphors

th

The Bloomberg Ice project by Klein Dytham Architecture (Marunouchi, Tokyo 2002) significantly progressed the way that interactive displays can be used to create fun public interfaces to engage the public realm. The project concept is about communication and information and aims to appeal to all age groups in a very public environment. The interactive display gathers information from around the world and displays it in an easily perceivable touchable manner. As the screen is approached it detects human presence and begins to engage the user, interactive menus allow users to select games to interact with.

Increasingly members of the virtual information age are becoming equipped with an electronic body that manifests itself in the form of personal media devices that circulate information linking us to the world through a network of information. 12This virtual body of electron flow is drastically changing the mode of communication in family and community, while the primitive body in which water and air flow still craves for beautiful light and wind (Ito Toyo 1997). The issue arising is how can design consolidate these two contrasting body types, traditional architecture form has its origins rooted in the movement of fluid physical characteristics. Contemporary architecture must establish a more intimate relationship with the digital environment by arrangement of information vortices. How primitive space and nature will be connected to virtual space is its link to the world through the growing electron network. People who occupy this new space will experience the built form as an extension of the skin, nature and information simultaneously. 13Architecture today must be a media suite (Ito Toyo 1997), people who are immersed in this suite will have their consciousness expanded as the suite will act as an external brain feeding information to the mind.

Hyperhabitat by Vincent Guallart Vincent Gullarts Hyperhabitat: Reprogramming the World installation for the 2008 Venice Biennale engages with these themes in a provocative, innovative way. The project was
12

T. Ito, Tarzans in the Media Forest, in 2G, n2, 1997, pp. 121144, (accessed on 18th April 2010)http://www.designboom.com/eng/interview/ito_statement.html 13 T. Ito, Tarzans in the Media Forest, in 2G, n2, 1997, pp. 121144, (accessed on 18th April 2010)http://www.designboom.com/eng/interview/ito_statement.html

developed in tangent with MITs The Centre for Bits and Atoms. The installation suggests the need to re-programme the spaces that we as users inhabit by 14distributing intelligence in the nodes, networks and environments with which we construct buildings, cities and territories (Wiley John). The project highlights the multiscalar relationships between objects, (from that of the individual to more worldwide spans) and illustrates the line codes that previous interacting users were encouraged to follow. The project was also connected simultaneously to the internet and proposals visitors created for reprogramming the world were able to be submitted by use of line codes that illustrated how by establishing different relationships we can create more efficient interactive urban environments. One of the primary ideas of the digital space was that as the project was a node in broader digital network 15any person will able to register their personal objects belonging to any of the categories, and propose the relations that they would like to establish with the world, between same category and scale objects (books with books), objects of same category but different scale (book with the Congress library), different category and same scale (book and cross) or different category and scale (book with the Vatican)(Gullart Vincent). The exhibit sought to be a platform for the sharing of ideas through an abstract medium and promote innovations within architecture. All the furniture used in the project contained interactive 0 micro servers that correspond to one another to create relationships intended to be similar to neurons of the brain. Conclusion It is inevitable that world of the virtual as has been illustrated throughout the last two decades will increasingly become a more fundamental part of design across all forms of urban architecture. Embracing this digital extension of the mind promises to redefine the way we interact and create relationships leading to a more efficient, sharing society. 16"We of the modern age are provided with two types of bodies, writes Ito. The real body which is linked with the real world by means of fluids running inside, and the virtual body linked with the world by the flow of electrons" (Ito Toyo1997). Innovations such as datascapes promise to create more efficient and equal cities through more informed urban planning. It is imperative that the new structures we design go beyond simply just relating to the surrounding urban syntax but embrace the invisible acting forces that can lead to the creation of more profound and functional spaces. Recent work by Paul Krugman who received a Nobel Prize (in economics 2008) for his contribution, gives rise to greater potentials of datascapes in urban planning. His studies examined geographic concentration of wealth and consumer preferences for goods and services; this promises to add a new dimension when incorporated into future datascapes. 17In the highly digitised age of the 21st century, architecture has become so thoroughly enmeshed within a network of other disciplines that what we are witnessing are new hybrid, mutant forms of practice that serve to reinvent the discourse of architecture as we know it. (Leach Neil)
14 15 16

Digital Cities Neil Leach (ed.), Digital Cities, London: Wiley, pp.89

http://www.hyperhabitat.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/hyperhabitat_eng.pdf accessed 12th may 2011

T. Ito, Tarzans in the Media Forest, in 2G, n2, 1997, pp. 121144, (accessed on 18th April 2010)http://www.designboom.com/eng/interview/ito_statement.html 17 Digital Cities Neil Leach (ed.), Digital Cities, London: Wiley, pp.89

10

Additional Notes I only was able to look briefly into the work of Pipilotti Rist. Her work looks really interesting and her grasp on digital media as a means to create immersive space is amazing. I was particularly interested in her Pour your body out installation, thats a space I could chill in for a few hours!. Unfortunately I have been unable to come across any solid text in relation to her recent work so that is why it has not been included as a reference. I wish I had a greater amount of time to work on the essay as I feel I was just beginning to uncover some interesting ideas and the essay does not necessarily reflect that. I would like to wish you all the best for the summer months and thank you for your guidance in Quest. The subject was very interesting and scary, but refreshing to know that there are still so many ideas in architecture and the world left to explore.

Terms:

Digital Places term coined by Thomas A Horan Space Flows refers to our virtual interactions and the components that make it possible. Deep Planning term coined Ben van Berkel and Caroline Bos UN studios to describe the process of computer based information input used to create building forms and advanced spatial programmes. Line Codes Description by Neil Leach: The line codes proposed in hyperhabitat are essentially relationships poised in abstract form, and can be emotional or functional. They do not identify the kinds of relationships that are established directly between objects. Image Referencing:

Cover Image: Hyperhabitat Digital Cities Neil Leach (ed.), Digital Cities, London: Wiley, 2009 pp.86 Bloomberg Ice: http://www.klein-dytham.com/uploads/projects/full/331.jpg [accessed 19th of april 2011] Programmatic datascape development. Image accessed 11th of May 2011 http://www.arch.columbia.edu/work/courses/studio/sp10-rothstein/collin-anderson Data Town Image: http://media08.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/mvrdv-datatown_02.jpg Hyperhabitat Digital Cities Neil Leach (ed.), Digital Cities, London: Wiley, 2009 pp.87

Text References: Included in footnotes at bottom of page .

11