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Lookup NU author(s): Professor Alessandro Aurigi
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How do planners and designers deal with the increasingly important "digital" layers of the city? We cannot deny that digital infrastructure exists, but apart from the inconveniences caused by roadworks to install ducts and wires, it can be very hard to notice. The emergence of wireless networking and the increasing availability of small, mobile, and personal terminals wirelessly connectable could potentially widen, rather than fill, the gap between what is often perceived as "real" space and what is seen as "virtual." All of this invisibility creates the very tangible problem of understanding the importance and communicating the impacts, relevance, and benefits of the deployment of information and communication technologies in the urban scene. This paper deals with the interpretative difficulties that built environment professionals are facing when it comes to designing and planning within the increasingly "digital" city. It highlights how research carried out in the past few years in supposedly high-tech European cities is showing that planners are unprepared to deal with augmented urbanity and fail to think strategically in this respect. The paper envisages a change in the generalized approach towards the trap of the "real vs. virtual" dualism and puts forward some initial ideas on ways to overcome the impasse by making the digital components of the city relevant, more understandable, and indeed useful within a planning and place-making perspective. Copyright © 2008, Locke Science Publishing Company, Inc., All Rights Reserved.
Author(s): Aurigi A
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Journal of Architectural and Planning Research
Year: 2008
Volume: 25
Issue: 2
Pages: 106-117
Print publication date: 01/06/2008
ISSN (print): 0738-0895
ISSN (electronic):
Publisher: Locke Science Publishing Company, Inc.
