UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI Date:___________________ I, _________________________________________________________, hereby submit this work as part of the requirements for the degree of: in: It is entitled: This work and its defense approved by: Chair: _______________________________ _______________________________ _______________________________ _______________________________ _______________________________ Digital Mobility An Architecture for the Digital Lifestyle A thesis submitted to the Division of Research and Advanced Studies of the University of Cincinnati in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARCHITECTURE In the School of Architecture and Interior Design College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning 16 May 2007 Mark W. Chachula Bachelor of Architectural Engineering The Pennsylvania State University Committee Chair: Jay Chatterjee Committee Second Chair: Elizabeth Riorden Abstract Being mobile means having the ability to easily access goods, services, information and people from other physi- cal locations. Traditionally this meant traveling from place to place or building to building. With the computer and the internet, however, it is possible to do these things all from one single location regardless of where we are on Earth. This is Digital Mobility. Today with the internet this takes place through a screen using a mouse and keyboard as opposed to through experiencing a variety of buildings and spaces. Architecture for the digital lifestyle will merge our digital experiences with physical experiences by providing a reconfigurable environment that allows us to truly inhabit the internet. Instead of experiencing the internet through the screen it is experienced through the building and the space we inhabit. In this way there is access to many dif- ferent places and environments from one single location. It is architecture that embodies digital mobility. INTRODUCTION Objective Mobility MOBILE ARCHITECTURE History Trends Summary DIGITAL MOBILITY Mobility and the Internet Digital Mobility and Existing Architecture Virtual vs. Physical Tasks Digital Mobility THE DWeL NETWORK The Network Components of the Network CONCLUSION The DWeL Network and Digital Mobility APPENDICES The Systems of the Server Building Precedents Research BIBLIOGRAPHY TABLE OF CONTENTS Where did you “go” today? Did you work, shop or meet with an old friend? How many “places” did you visit? Did you leave your home in the process, or did you do all of these things on the internet without ever getting out of your chair? Perhaps you accomplished these tasks from a coffee shop, an airport, a library or even your car? The ability to access many places with a computer and through the internet from almost anywhere is one of the hallmarks of the Digital Age: Mobility. INTRODUCTION Mobility refers to our ability to access different things that are located at different geographic locations from where we are. We need to be mobile in order to go access information, goods, different activities, people, cultures and recreational opportunities. Where we go to do these things says a lot about who we are. We associate these places with our specific lifestyle and identities. Traditionally, going places has meant that we would travel from one location to another to take part in the tasks listed above. We move our bodies from the building we were in to other locations and buildings that were specifically designed to accommodate these tasks. Once there we would perform our task then move on to the next location, the next building and the next task before returning to the building where we reside. Mobile Architecture typically meant a portable environment we would take with us from place to place to accomplish these tasks. Today we can “go” many places by using the computer and the internet. We can use these tools to access people, activities, services, communities, information and even goods from anywhere on earth1. In this manner the internet has allowed us to become mobile by allowing us access to these many different tasks that we used to have to travel to accomplish. In this way it has also begun to replace some of the activities that buildings used to house2. The more we have taken part in these internet tasks and the more they have become part of our life the more mobile we are becoming. As we are increasingly able to “go” anywhere in the internet we are also able to locate physically in a wider variety of places because many of the buildings we used to 7 locate near because we used them frequently are being virtually replaced by the computer and the internet3. In this manner we are experiencing and benefiting from a new form of mobility that is made possible by the computer and the internet. Digital Mobility. Digital Mobility thus presents us with two main characteristics and forms of mobility. The first is the ability to “go” many places digitally and procure services, meetings and goods that we used to need to physically travel for. The second is the increasing detachment from location afforded us by the ability to perform many tasks online. No longer do we need to live close enough to offices, stores, schools or people to be able to travel to them everyday because we can perform many of these tasks through the Fig 1. Computer and internet become our buildings. internet from anywhere in the world. Today our digital mobility is manifested in the places we can “go” and the tasks that we can accomplish through the computer and the internet. This sort of mobility provides us with many opportunities to connect with people and resources and to do some from an increasing number of locations, but it leaves much to be desired in the actual experience. It is not uncommon for many people today to spend most of their work day and a fair amount of their time at home behind a computer screen and navigating and inhabiting the environment of the internet. Research shows that 73% of Americans have access to and use the internet. In the demographic that is most likely to be digitally mobile, about 85% of those making over $30,000 per year (annual Fig 2. We can access all these places from anywhere. household income) are online. The percentage increases as the average household earning does4. 8 The things that we do online are more and more replacing our trips to buildings with quick trips to web sites that have little to do with the actual environment we are inhabiting, such as our office, home office, coffee shop etc. As more of our life is lived in the computer and the internet we need to question how we inhabit and experience this environment. We need to ask if there is a better way to interact with the people and places of the internet than through a screen with a mouse and keyboard. If we spend so much of our day “in” the environment of the internet, is there a way that we can actually inhabit this digital experience? Is there a way that we can “go” many places and experience them through the internet that is more associated with how we are used to experiencing people and places? This thesis proposes an architecture that allows us to live our life in the computer and inhabit our digital experiences. Once we do, we can truly begin to take advantage our digital mobility. The objective is to explore and understand the parts of the digital revolution that are disassociating us from place and allowing us greater freedom to be mobile. With this understanding, a design will be explored that will illustrate these opportunities with a new building typology that facilitates our digital mobility. First the thesis will look at the history of mobile architecture. This exploration will reveal trends in architecture relative to why we take our environments with us, what they provide Fig 3. The environment where we spend large portions of our life. 9 and what a digital architecture can provide. Next it will explore our lifestyle as affected by the digital revolution. This will include examining how we use the internet, how this affects our relationship with the built environment, and how it has enabled us with two forms of digital mobility. Finally it will propose a design that we can inhabit digitally, that facilitates both traits of digital mobility as well as those learned from traditional mobile architecture. This thesis is about mobility and opportunity but it also looks at how we live our lives in the wake of the digital lifestyle. Our lives have changed, they are lived increasingly online and our buildings are not designed to accommodate this lifestyle. This thesis examines what we do in a virtual world and what we still need to do in our physical realm; and asks if there is a way to merge these experiences in a physical environment. By investigating how our lives have changed we can better facilitate them and a built environment that is relevant in the age of our digital mobility. Fig 4. With digital mobility, we can go almost anywhere from almost anywhere we choose. 10 introduction - end notes (1) Siegal, Jennifer. Mobile : The Art of Portable Architecture. 1st ed. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2002., p.14 (2) Mitchell, William J. City of Bits : Space, Place, and the Infobahn. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1995., p.47 (3) Mitchell, William J. E-Topia : “Urban Life, Jim--but Not as we Know it”. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999, p.71 (4) Day, Jennifer Cheeseman, Alex Janus, and Jessica Davis. “Computer and Internet Use in the United States: 2003” US Census Bureau Oct 2005. <http://www.census.gov/prod/2005pubs/p23-208.pdf>. (5) Madden, Mary. “Internet Penetration and Impact” Pew Internet and American Life Project April 26, 2006. <http://www.pewinternet.