Information and communication technologies and the built environment

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have made radical progress through the past decade, affecting all fields of science and expanding knowledge and opportunities in ways that were once impossible to imagine. Amongst others, ICTs have had a slow, but steady impact on the way we conceive and move within built space, as well as the way we tend to design urban spaces, enhancing them with digital functions. Workspaces have become information intensive clusters and homes have become nodes of social and commercial connectivity. Transportation, once a decisive factor for the form of the urban environment, thanks to sophisticated monitoring systems is now much more flexible and predictable, whereas public spaces are augmented with wireless technologies and information nodes, giving new meanings to leisure and social contact. This complex situation of augmented information flow leads us to user oriented and responsive urban environments, where boundaries between public and private, or between home, work, consuming, services, and vacation sites tend to lose their original meaning. Finally, it raises a question of how the human environment should be addressed in the future by professionals.