Voluntarily imprisoned

Abstract

The city is in a throes of a gigantic transformation
process, due to modernisation, globalisation,
technological innovation, urbanisation,
explosive population growth and climate change
(Brotchie, Newton, Hall, & Nijkamp, n.d.; Cohen,
2006).
Within a time of change, whereas technology integrates
progressively in our lifestyle, and
where man is increasingly designing its environment
according towards its own needs – the
development and future expansion of the city
is becoming a challenge. This lead to the main
problem statement: What is the new kind of future
habitat that can respond to the socio-technological
dimensions, recognising the uncertainties
of the future?
In order to answer the main problem statement,
the project will start with a literature study,
followed by a case-study / prototype design. The
literature study consists of two part: 1) Starting
with the technological revolution, the first
part will try to reveal the changing dynamics ofthe socio-techno system (within the global urban
context) and which consequences these changing
dynamics has on our lifestyle and on a broader
scope, 2) Secondly, the aim of literature study
is to expose the spatial implications of this
socio-techno transformation on the urban structure
of the global city.
Firstly, we have seen that technology is a part
of growth, acceleration and the expansion of the
city. Technology has facilitated us with increased
speed and a more inclusive network ever
seen. Users of this network, supported by communication
and information technologies, become
singular nodes, isolated but connected through
screens and the virtual world. For those connected
to the network, the concept of time and
place changes entirely.
The connected urban population is not just bound
together by the physical infrastructure of a
city anymore, but starts to merge with it, annihilating
time, and killing distance. In order to
protect oneself, from the increase in physical
and informational speed, man will increasingly
has the need to withdrawal in capsules. Blind to
the outside world, the capsular civilisation is
one of dualization of segregation of exploitation
and exclusion resulting in an implosion of
the polis of the common (Barney, 2013; ManuelCastells, 2000; Cauter, 2004, 2012; Graham &
Marvin, 2002).
Secondly, we have tried to reveal what spatial
(in the urban and architectural realm) consequences
this capsular society brings forth. We
have distinguished five mechanism of capsularity:
decentralisation, fragmentation, isolation, privatisation
and simulation. Together these characteristics
will increasingly lead to the encapsulation
of the urban and architectural realm.
The future city will not just be a collectives,
but rather a multiplicity of entities with their
own sociality, character, and own rights (Manuel
Castells, 2000; Cauter, 2004; Neil. A, 2018).
The coming age can be defined as an age of disintegration,
gated communities are the urban and
architectural models that give shape to this
order: an inside world of privatised publicness
versus a chaotic, unsafe and uncontrollable
outside world. We become voluntarily prisoners
(Cauter, 2012; Davis, n.d.; Eckardt, 2017).