Nomadism in the Digital Era

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Francesca Beltrame, 12/2018 Dwelling and sense of Home in the Nomadic culture The Digital Nomadism of a Global Village Challenges and experiments of Nomadic Architecture and Urbanisms INTRODUCTION In Vitruvius’s De Architectura, he defines the three principles of good architecture as “durability, propriety, beauty”. Traditionally one would understand them to refer only to buildings because durability also means permanence from medieval latin permanentia ‘remaining to the end’[0]. Yet, permanence is not directly linked to Sedentarism. Nomadic dwellings are characterized by their ability to be durable and permanent to the natural conditions and in time. Moreover, the mobility of nomadic architecture doesn’t translate into temporality. They are designed to last and not as ephemeral structures. In fact, they probably deteriorate slower than a static wooden or turf structure. Therefore, even though we might not think of nomadic settlements as being part of Vitruvius’s architectural tradition they disclose an enormous potential for solving contemporary architectural issues. Traditional nomadic architecture couldn’t exist without the nomadic life style they entail. As the origin of the word suggest nomad from Greek nomas ‘roaming in search of pasture’ [0], a nomad is someone that travels from place

to place and thus has no permanent ‘home’ in the sentimental connotation of the term rather than the physical quality of it. In today’s hyper-connected and globalized society, we could be considered nomads as well. The digital shift our society is going through is manifesting nomadic behaviors. I myself moved from four different ‘homes’ during my university years without feeling totally isolated each time thanks to the power of social media to reconnect you to people you love. We are a generation little aware of the implications of our mobility. The integrity of our identity is shifting towards these nomadic behaviors in response to technologies and as a reaction to the need of our planet. We are going towards a nomadic society that affects the way we relate to each other, to our cities and to the natural environment. We will therefore discuss the possibility of applying a nomadic architecture as an answer to new life style brought by the digitalization of societies by learning from the notion of dwelling and sense of home in traditional nomadic communities. [0] Oxford Dictionary online, Nomad, Sedentary and Permanence definitions, https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/permanent


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