ADAPTING TO A CULTURE OF ‘TRANSIENCE’ DESIGN METHODOLOGY FOR THE 21ST CENTURY CITY Aditya Vipparti, Masters student in Urban Design, CEPT University, Ahmedabad, India
Abstract Built environment is a continuously evolving dynamic entity. The role of designers is to mediate between stability and change. Design is thus an act of morphing built form and space to align people and their environment with change, yet retaining the vitality of fundamental human needs– dwelling, community and place. The transient nature of the built environment and indeed life is as crucial as the three physical dimensions of our perception. This paper explores the above discussed theme in the context of today‟s „network culture‟, where digital network technology has become a dominant cultural logic. Contemporary life increasingly dwells in the virtual information realm, apart from our familiar physical environs. Boundaries of time and space are shrinking, and fundamental notions of „program‟ and „typology‟ are being challenged. Consequently, built environment will be characterized by homogeneity and generic nature of spatial use and character. Having said so, the „atemporality‟ and „location free‟ nature of activities and virtual interactions that have become possible, should only reinforce the need for the „local‟ / „specific‟ / „physical‟. This forms the premise to envision a new adaptable spatial system equipped to bring about an appropriate local-global / real-virtual relationship. Keywords: network culture, physical, virtual, transience, generic, anti-type, parasitic, glocal. INTRODUCTION „Network Culture‟ signifies the development of a new societal condition spurred by the maturing of the internet and mobile telephony. Over the last decade, „the network‟ has become a dominant cultural logic, and has restructured global economy. Owing to it‟s pervasiveness, the network‟s influence has crept into the major realms of urban life – economy, public sphere and culture [1]. Importantly, it has overlaid a new „virtual information realm‟ over our physical urban environment. Architecture and Urban Design would have to increasingly take into account the play of digital information in space, apart from the traditional play of masses and light. The network‟s ubiquity is accentuated by the fact that it directly or indirectly affects urban life patterns of people from all walks. We are at the threshold of a new kind of transformation- that brought about by „bits and bytes‟. Research methodology The effort here is to understand the characteristics of „transience‟ endemic to network culture. Subsequently, the research would attempt to trace the threshold at which network culture creates a paradigmatic shift in our notion of stability and change. This would entail that the organizational structure of the built environment that governs it‟s dynamics, will need to be revisited. It would bring to fore some critical concerns for space/place makers. Also, the exploration here dwells in a zone of contradictions – real vs virtual, local vs global. The study would then further attempt to find some latent opportunities, beneath these contradictions; which could become the basis to frame a design methodology for the 21st century city. Specifically, the paper elaborates on the „generic city‟ theory as one of the implied transformations. In trying to counter this theory, the research tries to understand the fundamental human need for the „local‟/ „specific‟/ „physical‟ as a possible latent opportunity.