By Gernot Riether
Gernot Riether, associate professor and director of the School of Architecture at the College of Architecture and Design at New Jersey Institute of Technology, and Board Member of CSU, co-authored a book on information technology and urban space with Marcella Del Signore, associate professor at New York Institute of Technology.
“Urban Machines: Public Space for a Digital Culture” describes how digital technology disrupted city life at the beginning of the 21st century by changing the way we communicate, we gain goods, and we receive information. It also speculates in how these changes may affect the physical public space of our cities itself.
The book depicts a particular landscape of projects that engage information technology to alter public space and social interactions in the urban space. It also addresses a series of questions that affect how information technology will be integrated in public space: Does the internet have to be free for a public space to be truly public? How accessible should the information of smart cities be for its citizens? The book also outlines the potential of information technology to allow citizens to actively participate in the creation of public space.
Through essays, case studies and conversations, this book presents a recent history and overview of the impact of information technologies on the physical public space while providing an inspiring vision of possible future scenarios for the public realm in a digital culture. The book was published by LISTLAB and is available at: https://www.amazon.com/Urban-Machine-English-Italian/dp/889877428
