The relationship of humans to architectural space has been affected by the intervention of digital technologies and digital space.
Architecture of the 21st Century must react to a new complex set of relationships between humans and physical architecture. The interface of people and digital technologies, i.e. video games, PCs, streaming video, projection, physically responsive technologies, and spectacle, has changed the needs of architecture particularly in the realm of education and the workplace. Our culture is constantly shifting towards an increasingly interconnected database of information, which can be accessed in any location, defying geographical boundaries, personal privacy, and physical capacity.
Taking notes from innovations and trends within the digital technology industry, architecture should make the same shift towards user accessibility, flexibility, personalization, efficiency, simplicity, quality, compactness, as well as overall awesomeness. We need to recognize the out-datedness of historical architectural typologies. In some respects this is occurring, school districts throughout the US have begun to remove their libraries in preference for better and more accessible computer clusters, or even giving computers for students to use. A library of books cannot compete with a database of information that can be housed through the Internet. Young individuals are more comfortable with digital interfaces anyway. Information can be gathered faster and is presented in a more interactive environment. Digital space is architecture without the body. In the digital realm there are boundaries and structures, but overall the user has free agency to arrange information, and control over their own experience. Architecture has the responsibility to be responsive to its users, allow for user controls, to begin responding to the needs of a database culture.
Designed by Pontus Hulten and Renzo Piano, this self-curated art experience allows visitors to the Moderna Museet in Stockholm to choose which art they would like to view at any point. There is a computer interface which allows the visitor to chose which artist, or type of painting. A robotic lift system chooses the appropriate tray and pulls it down from the stacks to the level of the viewer. When the visitor is finished they can chose another tray and continue their museum experience. This way of exhibiting art allowed a larger collection of works to be exhibited in a smaller space and directly responds to the idea that we are now living in a database society, where information can be streamed to us on demand. And in fact, we expect information to be presented to us as we please and are frustrated by inaccessibility.
