1st Edition

Augmented Urban Spaces Articulating the Physical and Electronic City

Edited By Alessandro Aurigi, Fiorella De Cindio Copyright 2008

    There have been numerous possible scenarios depicted on the impact of the internet on urban spaces. Considering ubiquitous/pervasive computing, mobile, wireless connectivity and the acceptance of the Internet as a non-extraordinary part of our everyday lives mean that physical urban space is augmented, and digital in itself. This poses new problems as well as opportunities to those who have to deal with it. This book explores the intersection and articulation of physical and digital environments and the ways they can extend and reshape a spirit of place. It considers this from three main perspectives: the implications for the public sphere and urban public or semi-public spaces; the implications for community regeneration and empowerment; and the dilemmas and challenges which the augmentation of space implies for urbanists. Grounded with international real -life case studies, this is an up-to-date, interdisciplinary and holistic overview of the relationships between cities, communities and high technologies.

    Introduction; 1: Augmented Spaces; 1: Places, Situations and Connections; 2: Framing, Locality and the Body in Augmented Public Space; 3: Mobile Networks, Urban Places and Emotional Spaces; 4: Epigraphy and the Public Library; 5: Impacts of Social Computing on the Architecture of Urban Spaces; 6: Towards Spatial Protocol: The Topologies of the Pervasive Surveillance Society; 2: Augmenting Communities; 7: The City and the Two Sides of Reciprocity; 8: Social Place Identity in Hybrid Communities; 9: Interplay Between the Actual and the Virtual in the Milan Community Network Experience; 10: Enabling Communities in the Networked City: ICTs and Civic Participation Among Immigrants and Youth in Urban Canada; 11: Pioneers, Subcultures and Cooperatives: the Grassroots Augmentation of Urban Places; 12: Augmenting Communities with Knowledge Resources: The Case of the Knowledge Commons in Public Libraries; 13: City Information Architecture: A Case Study of OTIS (Opening the Information Society Project) in Sheffield, UK; 3: Planning Challenges in the Augmented City; 14: Public Space in the Broadband Metropolis: Lessons from Seoul; 15: Stretching the Line into a Borderland of Potentiality: Communication Technologies Between Security Tactics and Cultural Practices; 16: (D)urban Space as the Site of Collective Actions: Towards a Conceptual Framework for Understanding the Digital City in Africa; 17: Woven Fabric: the Role of Online Professional Communities in Urban Renewal and Competitiveness; 18: The Digital Urban Plan: A New Avenue for Town and Country Planning and ICT; 19: Planning and Managing the Augmented City: ICT Planning in Medium-sized Cities in São Paulo, Brazil; 20: Epilogue: Towards Designing Augmented Places

    Biography

    Alessandro Aurigi, Professor of Urban Design, School of Architecture, Design and Environment, University of Plymouth, UK and Dr Fiorella De Cindio, Laboratorio di Informatica Civica, University of Milan, Italy

    'In laying the groundwork for further research and analysis, this book is extremely useful in equipping urban researchers with vignettes of empirics, morsels of theoretical insight and plenty of food for thought...The book will no doubt inspire others to research and analyze our augmenting built environment, and for that, it must be applauded.' European Spatial Research and Policy