A Social Dimension to Digital Architectural Practice

This paper proceeds from an analysis of practice and critical commentary to claim that the opportunities presented to some architectural practices by the advent of ubiquitous digital technology have not been properly exploited. The missed opportunities, it claims, can be attributed largely to the retention of a model of time and spaces as discrete design parameters, which is inappropriate in the context of the widening awareness of social interconnectedness that digital technology has also facilitated. As a remedy, the paper shows that some social considerations essential to good architecture - which could have been more fully integrated in practice and theory more than a decade ago - can now be usefully revisited through a systematic reflection on an emerging use of web technologies that support social navigation. The paper argues through its text and a number of practical projects that the increasing confidence and sophistication of interdisciplinary studies in geography, most notably in human geography, combined with the technological opportunities of social navigation, provide a useful model of time and space as a unified design parameter. In so doing the paper suggests new possibilities for architectural practices involving social interaction.

Through a review of recent digital architectural practice, the paper identifies the inappropriate persistence of a number of overarching concepts informing the field. The paper contrasts these with the emergence and growth of human geographical concepts and elaborates upon the concept of the social production of space, which it relates to an analysis of emerging social navigation technologies. In so doing the paper prepares the way for an integration of socially aware architecture with the opportunities offered by social computing. The paper cites a number of practical public projects that have been specifically designed to extend and amplify certain concepts and are intended to illustrate the theoretical claim and provide a model for further practical exploitation.

