The decline of public space in the digital age?

Abstract

The world we live in is more and more a digital world and the number of people having access to digital communication technologies is growing rapidly. This integration of digital technologies into everyday life is what is called the digitalization process (IGI Global dictionary, 2018). It is a process that can be seen as a long-term societal transition influencing our daily life, like the way we work, how we do our shopping or how we communicate with friends and family (Van Winden & De Carvalho, 2017). As the way we live influences our use of the space around us, changes in this process also change our use of the space around us. On the other hand, our surroundings influence the decisions we make as well.This graduation projects will focus on the use of public space and how public space is affected by the introduction of digital devices. It is believed that this digitalization process has introduced new behaviour, making public space not just a space for traditional uses, like meeting people, but also places where digital devices are used more often, either for practical or for social purposes. Public space is seen as one of the fundamental elements of cities and thus also of Dutch cities, and cities need to prepare themselves for future changes. This graduation project tries to find a new synergy between this traditional use of public space and the use of digital devices in public space, by analysing the phenomenon in the Indische Buurt, a neighbourhood in the eastern part of Amsterdam. It will provide an analysis of this neighbourhood, research the impacts using personal digital devices have on the use of these spaces, and how to deal with these changes. The results of the analysis will be translated into urban design interventions which have the ultimate goal to find a new synergy between the different uses of public space. With reflecting on these interventions and proposals, a matrix will be produced to show how certain interventions are connected to different types of use and user roles. This will show how the design interventions could be integrated in other neighbourhoods or cities.