Local Cultures – Global Spaces

Abstract

In 1999, the Dutch architecture practice MVRDV considered Datatown (Maas, 1999), a utopian place that is purely based on data. A place that wants to be described by information only; a city that knows no given topography, no prescribed ideology, no representation, no context. The conference contribution maps recent advances and industry developments that led to an abundance of raw data for architecture design decision making. With growing pressures on climate change, increasing needs for food production, lack of affordable spaces, cultural sensitivities, and increased awareness of localised ecologies, the proposed presentation reflects on the aforementioned theoretical framework and explores how data driven approaches to architectural designs may improve spatial and performative responses as well as communicate cultural perspectives. By discussing the growing level of critical data available, the presentation explores how software and hardware tools and regulatory information can help inform design decision making. Since oversupply of information and competing values have become barriers to effective decision making in architecture context, the presentation also explores how industry and academia struggle to process and leverage data in effective ways. Ultimately, the presentation questions how segmented data may inform and impact on people and politics and considers how creative practice methodologies (Skains, 2018) may help to help our building industry as well as architectural pedagogy. While exploring insufficiencies of tools available to planners, the authors also explore data that has the potential to inform and foster national identities and global business conglomerates.