HASSELL Architects Australia, Australian Design Office, Architectural Studio, FreeState
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Architecture Practice Australia – Merger News, Studio Awards, Events
25 Apr 2017
HASSELL News
De-smarting the city: HASSELL opinion
e-architect bring you news of a content hub that the HASSELL studio has launched featuring research, speculation and thinking on how to address the challenges faced by cities around the world.
Titled Urban Futures, the hub contains a range of thought-provoking articles exploring what will drive the future design of places people love.
One of the key launch articles is ?De-Smarting the City? by user experience design specialist Adam Scott at UK-based FreeState (which recently merged with HASSELL). Adam suggests the rationale of ?smart? as a means for improving, designing and building our cities has reached the tipping point of acceptability.
Designing, building and populating a city from scratch, as per the age of emperors, is preferred by some urban planners to create smart cities designed for their users? technological needs, however Adam believes it comes at the cost of the fundamental principle of what cities are about: the experiences of people being people.
The South Korean city of Songdo, the world?s so-called smartest city, is an example of the tipping point in action. In Adam?s view, Songdo is a clean, safe and predictable and unnatural city which mistakes people for ?categories of users and skillsets?...