Social Interactive

Abstract

Technology is at an all time high in the ways that it is a part of our lives. Our cellular phones, computers, laptops, cars, and television have all now become a necessity rather than just a commodity. It is hard for the present day person to go a day without needing to use one of these modern day technological tools. There seems to be a lack of this technology integrated into the built architectural environment. Computers and other digital tools, have already replaced the trace paper and pencils and drafting boards in terms of how buildings are designed and construction documents are prepared. Technology makes life easier, more convenient, and if used properly, more interesting. The world we live in right now experiences places and spaces through this technology. We communicate and exchange thoughts with the architecture that we see and explore on the screens of our televisions, phones, and computers. This is how we as people have learned to research, to explore, and to experience things we have never seen without having to be there. This is how technology has allowed us to communicate with the architecture. But how can architecture communicate with us in a way that it could actually tell you something? To be useful rather than merely an aesthetic and interesting part of the building. Architecture brings awareness to social problems and social interaction through installation projects that temporarily provide an answer/idea about how it can be solved or illustrated architecturally. The speed that technology is changing and growing is something we hear about but can never experience these technologies, especially not in built environments. We have heard of Google's glasses but we have not actually experienced them. This thesis is proposing spaces that allow for interactions with these technologies. That in itself can influence the social life of the building; the implementation of a technology that no one has experienced like touch sensitive walls and appliances. But then we can take these technologies to respond to our presence, touch, or allow them to distort and impair our judgment or allow us to experience something that can't be seen. These spaces designed as a network can encompass the city in areas where certain demographics may be targeted or existing social liveliness is celebrated and become connected as social nodes in the city that are constantly alive and changing.