Bangalore

Abstract

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The ‘City as a Service’ sets in motion a web of recursions, infinite loops and endless binaries: cities on the cusp of a singularity. It is a zeitgeist of runaway reactions, where the systems of the city are overcome by technologies that surpass the capacity of regulatory frameworks. Cities are shaped as much by humans as by algorithms, machines and autonomous systems. New economies, platform technologies and real-time data have accelerated economic extraction and speculation. These variables fall outside the domain of architectural practice. Urban and statutory planning seem hopelessly retrospective. There are physical implications to virtual agreements that are apparent in the operations and behaviours of cities. Transactional exchanges and services augment and interfere with the source code, the inputs and outputs and didacticism of the city. This paper will present a survey of methodologies, dispositional practices and speculations through static and real-time data accumulated from transactions to comprehend the systems and forces at play. They provide a critical understanding of the implication of techno-cultures with an aim to influence the direction and interactions in future cities. In utilising and hybridising data as generative device it offers a critique of top-down ‘Smart Cities’. In an ostensibly infinite, procedurally generated world; a staging ground for the post-urban and post-critical, architecture is a fundamental force and resistance in the agency of cities. The research is concerned with the impact disruptive; platform technologies and new economies have on the behaviour and form of the city and its architecture. How do emergent conditions and disruptive technologies cohabit the incumbent city?