Architecture Online

It is a foregone conclusion that Architecture; both its built form and the process behind its making, is evolving into a totally new creature. With all the rave of web 2.0 and how it will affect our daily lives, surely we will see an impact on the architecture profession. But how EXACTLY will these online technologies affect architecture? What frameworks will be challenged? And what will this mean for architecture firms, architecture schools and the architecture fraternity itself?

The impact of the Internet is already obvious today but what makes this even more critical is the fact that the next generation of architects will be the most Internet savvy generation ever. This generation also known as the Net-Gen, born between 1977 and 1996 numbers approximately 2 billion people and will inevitably dominate the future. And considering that most of this generation will be from Asia, it is clear that the impact of this paradigm shift will be most felt in this region.

This generation will not only be responsible for the design of the built environment, but they will also be the ones who will probably commission the buildings and most importantly, the ones living in it. Therefore, it will be foolish to ignore the impact of the Internet and how it will affect architecture.

The growing success of sites like Facebook and Flickr is testimonial to the changing dynamics of the world where unsurprisingly, the dominant age-group active on these sites are from the Net-Gen. This generation are not mere passive recipients of mass consumer culture but grew up with the Internet and loves it, seeing the Internet as an ongoing, massive collaboration. The Internet is also offering a plethora of tools for the designer, Google Earth with its satellite imageries, Gmail and Yahoo Mail for email communications, yousendit.com for the transfer of large files and MSN for instant messaging among others. Given such conditions,

How will we make architecture in the near future?

Similarly,the Internet is probably already our main source of information today. Blogs, portals, forums and online magazines such as the very one that you are reading now are beginning to emerge but there are still doubts about publishing on the Internet. Many still ask,

“Can we take online magazines and blogs seriously?�

It is believed that due to the low barriers of entry to the world of Internet publishing, the quality of information are questionable. The opinions of these online journalists and critics are also almost always taken with a pinch of salt, with many still skeptical of the qualifications of these authors. However, is this a misguided opinion or are online magazines and blogs the medium of the future? Is the democratic power of the Internet community powerful enough to filter out the ‘real’ stuff from the rest?

It is these burning questions that Five Foot Way Magazine aims to explore in this month’s issue. We will be presenting articles that we hope, will allow you- the Internet savvy person, to decide what will be the future of architecture as it goes online.

Images: All logos and images used in the montages are for illustration purposes only. All copyright belong to their respective owners.

Adib is the co-founder of 5ft Creatives and he loves to walk on the FIVEFOOTWAY.