" Smart cities use information and communication technologies (ICT) to be more intelligent and efficient in the use of resources, resulting in cost and energy savings, improved service delivery and quality of life, and reduce environmental footprint- all supporting innovation and the low-carbon economy." (Cohen, 2013)
Today I came across an article regarding "smart cities" @ The Conversation of Australia. The publication was addressing or perhaps celebrating at the same time about the 100th anniversary of the birth of Jane Jacobs, an American-Canadian author and activist's spirited defence of inner-city neighbourhoods inspired a generation of urban place-makers. ( Barns, 2016)
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| Source : http://www.streetline.com/smart-cities/ |
Arguably the biggest topic in urbanism right now is the "Smart City".
What these smart cities that we often hear about in the current society ? How smart should it be in order to sustain the global movement into sustainable development ? With little to none knowledge about smart cities, I profess that this serves an opportunity to expose and widen my understanding of the topic. As the global population continues to grow exponentially over the years, people would start moving into urban areas. In order to handle this large scale urbanisation, cities need to get smarter to manage such complexity, increase efficiency, reduce expenses, and improve the quality of life.
The juxtaposition within the article is that they argued that the theory or ideology she proposed back in the 20th-century is that "the city's structure consists of a mixture of uses instead of radical urban plans through appeals to natural or scientific principle" might not be relevant or useful. Coming from an architectural point of view, I do find myself stuck in between a dilemma between the ideology of smart cities as well as the underlying principle of space making for the community.
Evidently as the effects of climate change, smart cities are presented as an answer to managing as well as mitigate through a sensor-based solution.This, however, may be plausible but to what extend ? By mitigating and managing, it saves millions, no matter how negligible the problem, simply because of the scale of the system that will be monitored. (Koolhaas, 2014) By relying on the confluence of "smart city", creative and innovation are being suppressed by the idea of urban consolidation. By imposing such monitoring system, does it mean that to save the city, we may have to destroy it ? Rather than discarding the urban intelligence accumulated over the centuries of research and development, we must explore how and to what extent is today's smart city with previous knowledge in an innovative way.
It really fascinates me that a control room is able to monitor the entire city. But to what extent is being monitored by the people in this room ? The dilution between public and private of the community is being compromised. Every movement, every element in a space will be automated with sensors that track the inhabitant. Probably, soon the ironic situation where people would prefer living outside of an urban setting, a retreat from digital sensing and pre-emption.
Although the transfer of authority has been achieved in a clever way by calling city smart - and by calling it smart, our city is condemned to be stupid. (Koolhaas, 2014) Without a doubt, for the sake of the sustainability, it is clear that those in the digital realm and architects have to work together for a better future for the community.
Evidently as the effects of climate change, smart cities are presented as an answer to managing as well as mitigate through a sensor-based solution.This, however, may be plausible but to what extend ? By mitigating and managing, it saves millions, no matter how negligible the problem, simply because of the scale of the system that will be monitored. (Koolhaas, 2014) By relying on the confluence of "smart city", creative and innovation are being suppressed by the idea of urban consolidation. By imposing such monitoring system, does it mean that to save the city, we may have to destroy it ? Rather than discarding the urban intelligence accumulated over the centuries of research and development, we must explore how and to what extent is today's smart city with previous knowledge in an innovative way.
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| A Smart City Control Room by IBM in Rio de Janeiro. |
Although the transfer of authority has been achieved in a clever way by calling city smart - and by calling it smart, our city is condemned to be stupid. (Koolhaas, 2014) Without a doubt, for the sake of the sustainability, it is clear that those in the digital realm and architects have to work together for a better future for the community.
Resource :
http://theconversation.com/what-might-jane-jacobs-say-about-smart-cities-58278
http://www.archdaily.com/353281/without-architects-smart-cities-just-aren-t-smart
https://cities.dpmc.gov.au/smart-cities-plan
http://www.streetline.com/smart-cities/
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