iPlanning: Urban Maps and Curatorship in the Age of Data Deluge

Abstract

Big Data — defined as “… collection of data sets so large and complex that it becomes difficult to process using on-hand database management tools or traditional data processing applications” — is one of the key cultural phenomena redesigning the relation between physical and digital domains. The sophisticated techniques to mine large data sets promise to redefine our relation with the built environment and how we will intervene in it.

One key facts often overlooked by architects is that 75% of the current processing power is no longer contained in desktop computers but it is distributed within our environment. Through mobile phones, sensors, and RFID tags we already inhabit a landscape in which the dominant technological paradigm is characterised by diffuse and ubiquitous computation in which previously separated domains — real and virtual — can now dialogue.

In 2011 Calit University in San Diego manufactured the smallest IP address to date: 10 micrometres in width, its size is roughly the same as that of a red blood cell. This innovation coincided with the simultaneous implementation of IPv6 protocol for Internet addresses which will expand the current IPv4 protocol by allowing creating an impressive number of uniquely identifiable virtual addresses. As Benjamin Bratton pointed out through a theoretical calculation, if these IPv6 addresses were evenly distributed over the entire surface of the planet, we will have an impressive 6:67 × 10²⁷ uniquely tagged objects per square metre; this will allow an unprecedented fusion between virtual and physical realms; one in which not just objects but even atoms and cells could have a presence both in reality as well as on the Internet.

This would constitute yet another paradigm shift in the relatively brief history of the relation between real and digital domains: the image that we had to conjure up would be radically different from the those of prosthetic gloves and goggles developed in the 90’s, but it would also mark a significant departure from the much more integrated and seamless paradigms of the web 2.0 — term coined in 1999 — dominated by the development of socialmedia andmedia convergence. However, what the experiments at Calit suggest is something far more radical: a scenario in which it is possible to conceive of such thing as digital matter. As Benjamin Bratton also argues the actual challenge brought up by these developments is not primarily technological; rather it will be a design challenge as what will be at stake will the relation between subjects and objects, their levels of interaction/integration, finality, and agency. This is all the more urgent if we consider that fields as diverse as music or the military have already capitalised on such radical advancements, whereas architecture and urbanism are still largely unaffected by this transformation.

A point in case in this argument is the current research carried out on the so-called Smart City. In this field — which obviously should involve architects and urbanists — IT companies and car manufacturers are making most of the progresses. Ciscos, IBM, Living PlanIT, Audi, and Siemens — to mention but a few — are actually developing projects for new towns as well as defining the discourse accompanying these initiatives. Every company in this business has its own definition of what a Smart City is, but as Adam Greenfield pointed out, it was Living PlanIT’s which provided the most concise, perhaps earnest account what they stated that “… [the Smart City] is the missing link between real estate and technology sectors”. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it is here framed rather bluntly that the domain of Smart Cities largely overlaps with that of corporations and market-driven agendas.

Again, what is missing in this discussion is a broader and more cultural take on these issues in order to expand this conversation beyond the claustrophobic constrains of profitability and economic value. Design issues are imbued with and draw inspiration from larger societal and cultural transformations; the kind of concerns that this debate is in need of.