Flexible cities

On this post I have attempted to relate the outcomes of my older posts to conclude to some basic ideas that picture the evolution of architecture in megacities and urban design in extend.

The current architecture and urban development of megacities is characterised in terms of mobility by:

· the mobility of the citizens using several modes of transportation through well designed networks of transferration and semiotics which ensure the ordered, quick, secure and efficient mobility.

· the mass plyletic movements to the cities which is responsible for the multidiversity of needs, historic and culture backgrounds as well as the architectural styles in the cities.

· the rapid transferration of materials in abundance through great organised networks of transport and delivery.

· the direct (in speed zero) exchange of knowledge and information as well as the new technologies and techniques.

· the evolution of the direct internet communication through computers and handhold devices that has modulated the everyday needs for mobility.

· the form of everyday activities of the citizens and their needs to mobile according to those.

All the above guide to the passage from the mass production to the flexible and individual production not only in architecture but in design in general as well. It is a necessity to consider our cities as living hypostasis that never remain stable but adapt and vary according to the each epoch needs. Architecture should not be a result of static volumes and masses, we should emphasize on relations instead of mass in architecture and to consider that these relations might change during the time.

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networks - digital networks + immobility

Networks

The meaning of mobility is abstractive as long as we live in a world that "everything flows" (panta rhei) (Heraclitus,535BCE-475BCE). Therefore I decided to bound the theme on how humans has achieved to model and organize their own mobility into space. From my point of view human mobility has being modelled using networks that comprised by lines and nodes. The target of this system is to achieve the rapidity and the effectiveness of his transmission. Since the historical epoch people used to built their settlements on natural networks of water transmission which they used them also for their own and their products transmission. Ancient Rome used to have admirable developed road and sewerage networks which part of those are still in use. Towns were build according product transferration networks either oceanic or terrestrial. Today humans have constructed advanced networks transporting energy, water and other essential supplies and he continuous developing systems to automate the route and delivery of either material or immaterial products. The transport infrastructure is now necessary for the integration of the national economy. The rapid expansion of rail and the improvement of roads, opened industry to inter-regional competition, but also lowered inputs costs for production. Improvement in transport meant the city' s food supply was no longer depended on local production. The horizontal extension of the modern city was directly dependent on the emergence of new vehicles such as trains, bicycles, trams and automobiles which provided the infrastructure for the suburban dispersion of populations, while also enabling new forms of linkage between cities and surrounding regions. Megacities, although they remind labyrinths they are "dynamic labyrinths" benefit of fixed coordinates that guide humans to more efficient and rapid transformation. Even the interior spaces of dwelling are partly based on mental networks that models the dwellers everyday mobility. Nature has taught us the organized model of our mobility through examples as the natural networks of water transferration, ants nests and even our anatomy itself. All the above with the connection of our trend to automate our movements I guess that have guide us in organizing our mobility using networks.

Digital networks

There will be a road. It will not connect two points. It will connect all points. Its speed limit will be the speed of light. It will not go from here to there. There will be no more there. We will all only be here. (MCI Telecommunications company - TV ad 1993)

Apart from the physical network they have been developed also digital networks that are still based on the human mobility organizing model that is consisted by lines and nodes (networks). The difference between physical and digital networks is the second ones annihilate space and time. Digital networks import us in a world where infinite speed overcomes distance to generate a technological form of perpetual presence. A space where there is never "outside", or "there" but permanently "here". From a social and political perspective if there is no more there, this may imply - at least in fantasy - the disappearance of the place of the other, the final solution to colonial strategies of territorial domination.

Immobility

While synchronous and daresay pessimist theoretical futurists mention the issue of immobility because of the automatization of delivering either material or immaterial products, at the same time scientists and engineers indagate new methods and technologies for the human mobility. Space for the recent human kind is a toy rather than a tool. He wants to be as mobile and variable as possible. Digital networks links users efficiently to services such as transport timetables, theatre tickets and parking availability. If the person knows the public transportation system schedules and fares, he can figure out the best way for to go. Today women trend to mobile more than before when their mobility localized in the house and atriums and they used to chat with the neighbours through the kitchen window. I guess that more physical activity has been reduced which is a personal choice. Today human may not spend time and energy on finding food but he has much time and energy to get occupied with other activities like dancing or going for rafting. Mobile phones and laptops has been invented for the human of the 21st century who mobiles.