Architecture Open Lecture Series 2010 /11
- University of Greenwich
- School of Architecture & Construction
- Mansion Site, Avery Hill Campus
- Bexley Road, Eltham, London SE9 2PQ
- Norbert Singer Lecture Theatre (M055)
Wed 3 November 2010 18.30
Alessandro Aurigi
THE CITY, AUGMENTED: DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY IN URBAN SPACES BETWEEN INEVITABILITY AND DESIGN
The recent history of the relationships between the city and the emergence of a ‘digital’ society has been often characterised by contrasting, extreme dialectics. On the one hand the hype associated with an ever-increasing usage of manifestos and buzzwords such as the ‘digital’ or ‘virtual city’ of the 1990s and early 2000s, or the more recent ‘u-city’ developments in hi-tech intensive countries like South Korea. On the other side, the acknowledgment – often dystopia-driven – of how the ‘digital’ and ‘mobile’ could create more displacement and kill entire sets of urban functions, virtualising them. This talk looks at the city as naturally ‘augmented’ by high technologies, ubiquitous and mobile networks and the like, but draws its attention to whether we can proactively intervene on it by design. It tries to look at space as one, un-divisible, complex and increasingly tech-rich,
environment, which presents some very challenging tensions. On the one hand it is argued here that traditional urban design principles and ways to look at the city should still inform and guide the shaping of urban augmented spaces. On the other hand it is acknowledged how some of the ‘normal’ spatial and social relationships described and dealt with by these principles can be extended and somehow challenged by ICTs.
Alessandro Aurigi (MArch Florence Italy, PhD Newcastle) is Professor of Urban Design and Head of the School of Architecture, Design and Environment at the University of Plymouth. Alessandro was previously Head of the Architecture Department at the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape at Newcastle University, where he was member of the Global Urbanism Research Unit (GURU) and taught architectural design and theories on the information age, high technologies and architecture. Previously, he worked as a lecturer at the Bartlett School of Planning, University College London and as a research fellow in the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA), UCL.
His main research focuses on the relationships between the emergence of the information society and the ways we imagine, conceive, design, and manage our places. Alex has produced several publications on the topic, among which the 2008 multi-disciplinary book Augmented Urban Spaces: Articulating the Physical and Electronic City (Ashgate, edited with Fiorella De Cindio), and the 2005 book Making the Digital City: The Early Shaping of Urban Internet Space (Ashgate). He has also published in a variety of international journals, including the Journal of Urban Technology, the Journal of Architectural and Planning Research, Knowledge, Technology and Policy, Springer’s LNCS
and Town and Country Planning.
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