new article written for hyperthinkers website, a fine and welcome new initiative by philosopher Nicole Dewandre and artist Frederik de Wilde: ‘an open platform for critical reflection, dialogue and exchange that seeks to explore the ways in which the digital and physical worlds have merged to create an entangled hybrid and complex reality that encompasses us globally.’
Categoriearchief: articles
Wonen in een infosphere
artikel geschreven voor BNI’s themanummer 2017-4 over technologische innovatie; lees pagina 14-17.
“Soon, your house could betray you”
Rem Koolhaas, Artforum, April 2015
“It is only human choice that makes the human world function. Technology can motivate human choice,
but not replace it”.
Jaron Lanier, ‘You are not a gadget’
domus en/of technica ?
Domotica (ook wel huisautomatisering of smart homes[1] genoemd) is het toepassen van elektronica en huisnetwerken ten behoeve van de automatisering van processen in en om de woning. Het woord “domotica” is een samentrekking van domus (huis in het Latijn) en het achtervoegsel -tica dat lijkt te duiden op ’toegepaste wetenschap’.
Een definitie van domotica is: De integratie van technologie en diensten, ten behoeve van een betere kwaliteit van wonen en leven.[2] Bij domotica draait het dus niet alleen om integratie van techniek en bediening in de woning, maar ook om de dienstverlening van buitenaf naar de woning.
bron: Wikipedia.
Als er iets is dat de mens gemeen heeft de medemens is het dat allen ‘wonen’. Vanzelfsprekend verschillen vorm en kwaliteit, maar op enigerlei wijze hebben wij allen min of meer een dak boven ons hoofd. Tezelfdertijd is de mens een technisch wezen; in toenemende mate echter zorgt de combinatie voor frictie, met name daar waar menselijke waarden – b.v. de wens/noodzaak tot privacy – in het geding zijn.
Onze gebouwde omgeving vormt tevens de fysieke (wettelijke) basis voor het verschil tussen private en publieke ruimte; we hebben als individu het eerste nodig om te kunnen ‘acteren’ in het tweede. Zolang deze scheiding bestaat en de private ruimte een fysieke vertaling – de woning – nodig heeft zal deze geleefde ruimte ontwerp en technologie kennen.
Daarnaast; als wij woningen bouwen doen we dat voor ca. 100-120 jaar, de gemiddelde duur van bewoning in ons land is 7-10 jaar. Geen weldenkend mens zal kunnen voorspellen hoe de wereld eruit ziet over 25 jaar, laat staan over 100 jaar. Het is dus tamelijk pretentieus bij ontwerp te bepalen hoe komende generaties hun wonen moeten vormgeven zolang wij geen totale flexibiliteit inbouwen en daarmee wenselijke en/of noodzakelijke aanpassingen faciliteren.
(sm)art city
After a delay of some time the long awaited, monumental monograph of Cedric Price (1952-2003) was published recently by AA/CCA; 2 volumes in a box document extensively the impressive works and thoughts of one of the most influential British architects whose line of thinking still is more actual then ever. Like the projects of his Dutch contemporary Constant, who worked for almost 20 years on his New Babylon-project, the works of Price – in particular Fun Palace – show another approach towards (re)thinking and designing the built environment. In the words of Guardian-journalist Jeremy Melvin after Price’s death in 2003: “The architecture was indeterminate, flexible and driven by what technology then existed – and some that Price anticipated – for exchanging ideas and goods, and the movement of people from place to place.” Above all, Price offers “a focus to the optimism of the time, when it seemed possible to remake society around the potential for delight and opportunity.” Lees verder
a Smart (?) City History
May 2016, York (UK), an upcoming theatrical performance based on the beautiful short story by E.M.Forster: ‘the Machine Stops’, written in 1909. The main character – Yuno – finally escapes from an underground city in a post-apocalyptic world in which all individuals live in standardised cells while technology facilitates and supplies all they ever need. Connectivity to the natural world is impossible; it is the machine that frames and determines one’s daily life and ultimate destiny. Lees verder
huisjes en consumenten, of dragers en mensen?
“Indien men in de woningbouw alleen de menselijke relaties wil herstellen maar niet de technische mogelijkheden van vandaag wil uitbuiten, blijft alleen een weg naar het verleden over, een weg die wij niet kunnen gaan.”
Een citaat uit ‘de dragers en de mensen’ , van Prof.Ir. N.J.Habraken uit 1972, 44 jaar geleden en nog altijd onverminderd actueel.
Op 22 december j.l. reageerden Gerben van Dijk en Cees-Jan Pen in een kritisch artikel (‘Vastgoedsector heeft gezond verstand nodig’) op recente rapporten van CPB en EIB. Deze – helaas noodzakelijke – kritische reactie valt zeer te prijzen. Ik roep in dit verband het interview van januari 2015 in Bouwformatie van Prof. J. Rotmans in herinnering.[1] Recente ontwikkelingen illustreren dat een substantieel deel van de bouwsector nog altijd hecht aan de bestaande gekende praktijk en de focus legt op proces-innovatie, niet op product-innovatie. Dit impliceert geenszins dat product-innovatie in de woningbouw niet bestaat, wel dat dit vrijwel geen fundamentele consequenties heeft voor het opgeleverde product als geheel. Er wordt nog altijd toegewerkt naar een traditioneel ‘huis’, terwijl we nu als sector bereid moeten zijn ook inhoudelijk anders te denken over hoe ons wonen er in de toekomst uit kan/moet zien; proces en product moeten onderdeel van de discussie zijn. Wij bouwen per slot van rekening niet ter wille van de werkgelegenheid en het bouwen zelf. Lees verder
smart or feel
smart or feel
“There are many realities. There is no single world. There are many worlds, and they all run parallel to one another, worlds and anti-worlds, worlds and shadow-worlds, and each world is dreamed or imagined or written by someone in another world. “
Paul Auster, Man in the Dark
While my first article here originated from several more theoretically oriented issues concerning the iot and the built environment, it should be obvious that theory only will not provide the solutions needed to really achieve understanding, let alone real practical progress. When summarizing the Onlife Initiative discussion in 2013 it was chairman Luciano Floridi who stated that ‘we should write a Manifesto for mum’ ; illustrating that the Manifesto as discussed that day in July needed a transformation that would make it more accessible for the average citizen. The subtitle of the Manifesto – ‘Being Human in a Hyperconnected Era’ – points to the place and role of humans in a framework that increasingly becomes a mix of bits and atoms, of the digital and the analog, of the real and the virtual. Floridi again, later in his recent book: “the infosphere is progressively absorbing any other space”.(Florida, 2014) This, I would add, includes the ontology of the built environment, as discussed in my former article. Lees verder
IoT, built environment and a hyperconnected world
the internet of things connects things to the internet,
architecture connects people to the environment….
What is it that really frames, determines and influences our built environment? Since centuries we create – out of ‘nothing’ – a (semi-)permanent built structure out of natural and/or artificial materials; in the words of v.d.Laan: “we extract architectonical space as an emptiness out of natural space”.[1] It provides an artificial physical structure in an analogue – originally natural – environment, which – ultimately, when inhabited – facilitates a living space, creating lived space. Architecture thus has fulfilled its role, i.e. the defining and articulation of space, providing a social order, creating a static distinction between public space and private space. Is what we call ‘home’ the only adequate answer to our need for shelter and for our ‘right to be left alone’?
But; ”Architecture’, in the words of Virilio, ‘is more than an array of techniques designed to shelter us from any storm. It is an instrument of measure, a sum total of knowledge that, contending with the natural environment, becomes capable of organizing society’s time and space.” [2]
dreams and science
Dreams or science?
For many people a new year tends to set off with dreams, expectations and good intentions. Just before the turn of the year, on Dec. 14th.2013, the Dutch writer/columnist Bas Heijne read his so called ‘Huizinga’-lecture; a yearly presented text based on the works of the Dutch historian Johan Huizinga who lived from 1872 till 1945. The title of his fine and thoughtful lecture was “the Enchantment of the World” and is – so far, alas – only available in Dutch. (http://uitgeverijprometheus.nl/index.php?option=com_pac&view=boek_detail&isbn=9789044626377) Lees verder
a sense of awareness
a sense of awareness.
“If the wind starts to blow, swarms of leaves turn out to be subtle bioengineered robots that harness that very wind to propel themselves into an emergent shelter that surrounds you”.
Jaron Lanier, ‘Who owns the Future’. (2013, p.9)
The recent announcement of a 2014 IoT-conference states that “the Internet of Things (IoT) has been considered an innovative and imminent information infrastructure enabling to ubiquitously network various machines, physical devices, and objects, denoted as things, for environment sensing, information sharing and collaboration in intelligent and autonomous manner.” (italics MP)
Our homes are, next to the place to which we keep returning, also the environment where we are surrounded by memories of – past – experiences, dreams and images. Many of these are closely related to objects: many of us occupy houses that have a history of sometimes ages. These houses have witnessed generations of inhabitants, each of which has left their personal signs, marks and traces. Since decades our housing is simply ‘functioning’ , meaning that it does not ‘communicate’; a house remains a passive structure which was not ‘responsive’, let alone communicative. Lees verder
Technology and/or senses?
Technology and/or senses?.
My first two blogs may have created the impression that I am something of a Luddite , i.e. someone who has an overall negative attitude towards technology in general. So, before proceeding, let me be clear on this: I am not. What I do think is that technology primarily should have a serving role which we can manage and control; where this concerns architecture this raises the question whether our speed and ways of implementing innovative technologies does keep up with our ability to relate these developments to our senses. After all, as humans living in a hybrid world we perceive – and act – to a large extend as individual beings who are also in part depending on innovative technologies. Architecture and man ‘depend’ on each other; we experience space – and therefore architecture – by moving through it and technology becomes an increasingly important part of that space. In his book architect Kas Oosterhuis states: “we must see all objects, including the ‘I’ and individual building components, as actors, as active players in parametric world”. (Oosterhuis, Towards a New Kind of Building, p.24) (http://www.naipublishers.nl/architecture/towards_new_building_e.html) Lees verder