New Place Designs with Emerging Technologies

The emergence of digital and computing technologies is arguably the force of the century for innovation in all domains. In design, researchers and practitioners have shown an increasing interest in predicting and examining the effect of these technologies in transforming our everyday life and surroundings. Built environments as an essential part of our holistic living environment have played an important role in this revolutionary process. While many have laid out the vision, we are now looking for the integration and extension of this vision with respect to our traditional notions of place. Rather than seeing the future of built environments as a more confusing array of computers and cables, this paper presents three different types of digital and computing technologies and discusses their applications in defining new place designs where the digital and computing technologies become design elements suggesting exciting new resources and languages for exploring built environment designs. For design education, the further understanding and application of these new technologies in design will provide opportunities as well as challenges for future teaching curriculum. The integration of teaching these technologies as new subject areas will prepare the future generations of designers to develop the understanding and skills of designing with and for the new technologies.