Situated Technologies

Situated Technologies Pamphlet 6:
MicroPublicPlaces
Spring 2010

Marc Böhlen and Hans Frei

In response to two strong global vectors: the rise of pervasive information technologies and the privatization of the public sphere, Marc Böhlen and Hans Frei propose hybrid architectural programs called Micro Public Places (MMPs). MPPs combine insights from ambient intelligence, human computing, architecture, social engineering and urbanism to initiate ways to re- animate public life in contemporary societies. They offer access to things that are or should be available to all: air, water, medicine, books, etc. and combine machine learning procedures with subjective human intuition to make the public realm a contested space again.

Situated Technologies Pamphlet 5:
A synchronicity: Design Fictions for Asynchronous Urban Computing
Fall 2009

Julian Bleecker and Nicolas Nova

In the last five years, the urban computing field has featured an impressive emphasis on the so-called "real-time, database-enabled city" with its synchronized Internet of Things. Julian Bleecker and Nicholas Nova argue to invert this common perspective and speculate on the existence of an “asynchronous city”. Through a discussion of objects that blog, they forecast situated technologies based on weak signals that show the importance of time on human practices. They imagine the emergence of truly social technologies that through thoughtful provocation can invert and disrupt common perspectives.

Situated Technologies Pamphlet 4:
Responsive Architecture /
Performing Instruments
Spring 2009

Philip Beesley and Omar Khan

A new generation of architecture that responds to building occupants and environmental factors has embraced distributed technical systems as a means and end for developing more mutually enriching relationships between people, the space they inhabit, and the environment. This pamphlet discusses key qualities of “responsive” architecture as a performing instrument that is both mutable and contestable.

An exhibition critically exploring the evolving relations between ubiquitous computing, architecture and the city

September 17 - November 7, 2009

exhibition website: www.sentientcity.net

In September 2009, the Architectural League will present Toward the Sentient City, a major exhibition that will imagine alternative trajectories for how various mobile, embedded, networked, and distributed forms of media, information and communication systems might inform the architecture of urban space and/or influence our behavior within it.