William J. Mitchell
Linda Stone
Peter Bosselman
Immo Teperi

Clockwise from bottom right: Linda Stone, Arlene Kisiel, Immo Teperi,
Grant Gustafsun, Ed Lawowska, William J. Mitchell, Nils Finne, Peter Bosselman

William J. Mitchell

William Mitchell is Professor of Architecture and Media Arts and Sciences and Dean of the School of Architecture and Planning at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

WM began by reflecting back on his last publication City of Bits. The premise of the work is that developments in digital technology must influence city form. City of Bits was a "wake up call" to planners and designers. A critical evaluation of new issues is needed based on technological changes driven by:

• cheap computation
• increases in digital storage capacity
• telecommunications networking.

When City of Bits was in progress, the World Wide Web barely existed. Now, five years later it is ubiquitous. City of Bits was conservative in its predictions of change.  "What will happen in the next five years?" Coming changes are complex, rapid, and radical in nature.

WM's upcoming book will address the relation of the digital world to the physical world, as the two become more and more intimately interconnected:  Etopia, Urban Life, But Not as We Know It.

Looking Back

Historically, city form has always been influenced by the systems of infrastructure which support them, e.g., Rome and its network of roads and aqueducts, Chicago and the railroads, Los Angeles and the freeway. The new network infrastructure will do the same.

Points of connection on the infrastructure are traditionally important places, e.g., the water well in the town center, transportation terminals, the oasis in the desert. The digital infrastructure will generate "smart places", oasis of bits. The city will be defined by a collection of smart places.

Traditional building types will fragment and recombine in new patterns. The traditional glue holding cities together will dissolve, pieces will float free, and recombine, creating new problems and opportunities, not unlike the effect of the industrial revolution on 19th and early 20th century city design.

Chandegar, India

An in-depth presentation followed regarding the effects of digital infrastructure development in this region. The significance of spatial adjacencies are replaced with electronic connections and new temporal relationship possibilities. The effects are more dramatic in an area such as this, really like an oasis in the desert. Nevertheless, the effects are profound everywhere.

Smart places compress distance, two distant places become glued together, creating a new spatial entity.

What Does It Mean?

Activities need no longer be place-based. Horse racing in Hong Kong no longer takes place only at the race track. The digital infrastructure decentralizes the activity. The activity is transformed, fragmented, redistributed.

ATM machines have changed the social and architectural nature of banking. Banking is becoming fragmented and recombined. With the advent of home banking, digital cash, What Is The Bank?

Online bookstores, telesurgery...

What Does This Mean for Cities?

There are new rules, new logic. Architecture must include both the physical and the virtual city. Traditionally city form derives from adjacencies and transportation connections. Now, city form will derive from a triad also including the digital telecommunications.

For example, in the pre-industrial age, the home and work were interconnected physically. In the industrial era they were separate, incompatible uses. In the information age smart places networked with digital telecommunications can reintegrate home and work. Local services that support the 24-hour neighborhood will thrive (e.g., day-care, health clubs, restaurants). Activities that still require face-to-fact interaction, rather than virtual interaction, will be privileged, and will drive 21st century city design.

Conclusion: Five Points for a Sustainable Cyber Architecture for the 21st Century

1. Dematerialization (is physical construction necessary, do we need that book...?)
2. Demobilization (is this trip necessary?)
3. Destandardization (Old: produce, then distribute; New: distribute, then produce; e.g., individually customized newspapers distributed digitally and then printed in the home)
4. Intelligent Control
5. Soft Transformation (Repurposing the existing urban fabric will be less disruptive than in comparison to the industrial era)

Linda Stone

Linda Stone is Director of Microsoft's Virtual Worlds Group.

Her presentation was entitled "Virtual Worlds at Microsoft: Some thoughts and a Case Study."

The speaker is generally interested in how technology can enable creativity, communication, and collaboration. She comes from a background of psychology and library science, and believes that we have a choice in how technology develops. We can be passive, and let technology "take its own course," or involved, thinking actively about how technology should be used to enhance our lives.

The mission of the Virtual Worlds group at Microsoft is "To research and develop social, multi-user, multimedia technologies that enhance Microsoft Internet products and services"

Microsoft's focus on the Internet had been very asymmetrical -- all downstream, and little upstream. Stone's focus is on symmetric communication technologies, where the users are active participants. She used the analogy of cable television versus the telephone network. Just because cable TV offers a wide variety of prepackaged content, it does not mean that people aren't going to want to talk to each other.

Virtual Worlds Basic Premises: * People like to talk to each other * Internet is a useful medium for personal interaction * Self-expression, end-user interaction and contributions develop a sense of community. Stone used the analogy to a physical neighborhood -- you do not feel like you are a "part" of the neighborhood until you begin to participate in it, by doing volunteer work, socializing, or making charitable contributions, for example.

With new technology, we "imitate what we know" -- immediately trying to reproduce analogues of existing behaviors. We have to ask ourselves, what are computers really good for?

Initial Efforts at Virtual Worlds: * Text Chat * MUDs (Multi-User Domains) -- These have persistent state, and thus can be "returned to" by a user who goes offline. * Graphical Chat -- Here we must ask ourselves "what adds to the user experience?" Do graphics add? 2D, 3D? Audio?

Shared Virtual Environments Provide: * Graphical context for interaction * Users see and can directly interact with each other * Elements of the environment can facilitate interaction and maintain user interest

We will see a convergence of text, audio, graphics and video.

Virtual Worlds can be used in a variety of scenarios, from the entertainment to business domains. On the entertainment side, fictional social environments such as the types found in role-playing, multi-user games are a typical application. On the business side, collaborative work environments can be done in virtual worlds. Somewhere in between is the idea of special environments for interest or affinity groups, such as political or community organizations.

What are the components that make good virtual communities? * easy user-to-user communication * self-expression * end-user creation * in-world tools for self-governance (in support of user-generated, user-maintained communities -- a need for scalable mechanisms here)

Virtual Worlds @ Microsoft: * Extensive communication features (whisper, page, buddy lists, etc.) * Ability to create and maintain interaction content w/ scripted behavior * Support for end-user content creation * Flexible user interface

While progress is being made, there are still more questions than answers: * Do graphics enhance the experience or challenge the user? * Should graphics be literal, or abstract? 2D? 3D? Video? * What about avatars (representations of users in the virtual world)? 2D? 3D? Photographic? * What applications make sense for virtual worlds...

The speaker then described a case study of a collaboration between Microsoft Research and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center ("The Hutch") to create a virtual community to support cancer patients who are undergoing care and their friends and family. The project had a lot of personal relevance for the speaker, who has had very close friends with cancer, and her own personal health issues.

Microsoft donated money to the Hutch to help cover their costs in supporting the project.

For Microsoft, this project represented an interesting and important application for cutting edge technologies. For the Hutch, this was an opportunity to enhance services for their patient community.

First, the audience had to be defined. It was decided to target the friends and family of patients first, and then, as things became more stable, to introduce patients into the community. Friends and family are often an undeserved group during the treatment process.

Then, the content had to be defined. Content experts at the Hutch were found (caregivers, social workers, nurse educators), and much communication was required between the technical folks and the content experts to understand each other's domains. The team found they had to scale back some of their grander ideas, people wanted basic information about Seattle while a loved one was undergoing long-term care.

Some more design issues: * Make the community imaginative or like real life? * Include medical information? * Open or password protected? -- it is not just enough to provide software -- you need to actively protect the community.

A videotape featuring a designer at Microsoft explaining and demonstrating the system is shown. Some of the features of the system are:

* The virtual space models the real space. You enter the space and see a receptionist, just as you would when you enter the real hospital * Photographic Avatars for people in the world. The avatars can have different moods * Users can post sayings and artistic scenes for inspiration to others * A mailroom for users to deliver things to each other * You can give people virtual flowers and gifts * Private and Public conference rooms for chats and celebrations * An auditorium for presentations * A special section for the Hutchinson school for children with cancer

The speaker then showed another, shorter videotape of a distance learning / virtual town meeting application that Microsoft was working on.

Some of the features of this application were: * Customizable User Interface * Live information delivery and audience feedback * Presentations and Interactions can be saved and played back. * Questions can be ranked by the audience so the speaker can answer the most popular ones.

The speaker and the moderator then finished up with a brief discussion of ICQ -- an internet chat tool from an Israeli company that was recently bought by America Online. The technology is very simple, and the application has become widespread. Sometimes, the simplest ideas are the most successful.

Noah Breslow Teledesic LLC 425.602.6640 noah@teledesic.com

Peter Bosselman

Summary of Peter Bosselman's presentation "Representatives of Plans, Reality & Realism in City Design"

Peter spoke of the need, seemingly not encouraged much these days, for designers to imagine utopias in the digital age.

• Talk focussed on two areas: 1) the spatial transformation of cities (sense of scale, layout) 2) tools for designers (vital for communicating)
• Not just architects and urban planners but many others -- politicians, civil engineers, business leaders, etc., who have no experience in design -- make decisions about cities and development.
• Cities spatially transform in dramatic ways with the introduction of technology -- automobiles, communication tech.
• The transformation of the population "center of gravity" in the S.F. Bay area occurred with the growth of the semi-conductor industry. New jobs meant greater wealth; people desire more space so they move out into suburbs (east Bay) where they get more for their money. Consequence is massive commuting. Now San Jose is the most populated city, and a satellite image of the area shows a wide ring of development spread around the entire S.F. Bay.
• What about telecommuting? Surveys taken over past several years in the Bay area show no great movement toward telecommuting for east-Bay residents, esp. for residents of "newer" neighborhoods. Workers of I.A. desire to work near their supervisors. However, telecommuting has recently emerged as a growing trend in established neighborhoods of San Francisco, where there is a better support network (informal) -- i.e., if one job doesn't work out there's always a neighbor who knows about other work.
• What if we compare the SF area to other cities in the world? Esp. cities where modern transportation and communication technologies have not yet been introduced. There is much talk these days about the potential new markets in developing nations, but what might that mean for development and growth in cities? Dr. Bosselman compared satellite images of several large cities on the same scale as the satellite image of the Bay area. The visual impact of these comparisons was stunning, and he reported that his colleagues have also been surprised (even temporarily disbelieving) at this dramatic use of basic information. Summary:

City population comments San Francisco 6.4 M basis of comparison Hong Kong 6.4 M fits in less than 1/2 of SF city limits, about 10X population density Bombay 13 M fits in about 2/3 SF city limits, about 17X population density Shanghai 17 M about the area of SF city

(note that the numbers in 'comments' above are very rough -- mainly based on eye-balling the images, and are given just to provide a sense of scale)

• We (western world) are gearing up to serve these markets with cars, appliances, etc. This is likely to have serious spatial consequences as people move to "suburbs." Many cities are destined to be transformed.
• Next, he discussed the other extreme of scale: a walk through Venice. He timed and paced off a walk through Venice that he'd taken years before: 4 minutes, approx. 1000 ft. In his memory it had been a much longer walk. He superimposed this walk on many urban plans: UC Berkeley campus; Portland, OR; New York City. When asked, most said this walk should take much less time. We are misled by our conventions.
• Our sense of time is very influenced by the scale of a city. This walk in Kyoto, a very dense city, covers only 2 blocks. In Rome, it gets us across Piazza Navona. In Irvine, CA, we cross part of a shopping center parking lot.
• Architects have the power to arrange objects in space so time passes slower or faster.
• Architects have 2 ways of communicating space 1) The way we actually experience space when we are in a place 2) The conceptual way (for understanding overall layout) It's important to combine both ways for successful design. This is where modern computer tools (3-D graphics, rendering, etc.) come in handy.
• Example of using both methods of communicating space: he showed the 2 views for 4 different densities of housing units/acre -- 12, 24, 36, 48. View 2, conceptual way, looked quite a bit different for the 4 views. View 1, experiential (computer simulated), didn't seem to be too different for the different densities, with the exception of the back yard areas, which did shrink as unit density increased. But "experiencing" the neighborhood, complete with corner grocery store, by "walking" down the streets, provided an entirely different picture of the design than the 2-D plan view. Dr.Bosselman's point, however, was that both views provided very important information.

• Summary: Conventions change slowly. Computer tools available to designers are important communication tools. Serious issues arise in connection with transformation of Asian cities in the future.

Immo Teperi
Change of City Concept

Immo Teperi is an urban planner and architect based in Helsinki, and the founder of Arcus Software. In the past, Teperi used traditional 3-D models of the city to illustrate his urban designs and plans. However, his wife got fed up with the tedious and inefficient process of making his models. This led to his exploration of different ways of modeling cities. He realized that the computer could be used for complex 3-D modeling, but found that there was no software to make large city models. This need for models of existing cities as well as plans for new cities inspired Teperi to found Arcus Software.

Throughout his career, Teperi has been involved with the exploration of urban forms and the meaning of "city". Historically, cities originated as places for commerce, and the primary inhabitants were traders. The name for "city" in Finnish (and other languages) comes from the name for marketplace. Due to the concentration of people, cities became places for exchanging ideas as well as goods, and gradually evolved into the cities we have today. Teperi is exploring the definition of "city" in his current work and is posing these questions:

• What is the concept of the city?
• Is a city just a physical place or does it include the virtual or imaginary?
• How do new types of cities fulfill the oldest concepts of a city?

Teperi has defined three types of cities: 1. The Material City. This is the physical city, that is locally based. 2. The Imaginary City. This is a global type of city. 3. The Virtual Real City or Citynet. This looks like the real thing. It is mostly for local people and can do most of the same things you can do in the real city. Many elements are service and business oriented. However , one element is globally-oriented for people who live elsewhere but want to visit. Architects have an important role in creating these cities since virtual cities need a master plan and buildings need professional design.

Teperi is building a "virtual real city" in his Helsinki Arena 2000 project. The project is being funded and made possible by the telephone company. Now that one-half of all people in Helsinki own a cellular telephone, what function do the old copper wires have? In order to prevent its own obsolescence, the telephone company has digitized and can now provide a fast multimedia network, obtaining "miracles" from the old copper wires. In addition to providing very fast internet access, the company needed a "big thing" to sell this idea of multimedia network and decided that making an entire metro area 3-d model would be the thing.

The Helsinki Arena 2000 project is designed to get as many things happening in the virtual city as happen in the real city. Universities, community services, shops and businesses, theaters and public meetings will all be accessible. Cameras can be installed everywhere providing live sound and video. Anyone can have their own TV station since live video can be sent to as many people as one chooses.

Visually, this "virtual real city' will change with the weather, seasons, and time of day. It will look like the real city but people will be able to move quickly, either walking or flying above the rooftops, orienting themselves by familiar landmarks as they move. (Teperi showed a video, demonstrating the Helsinki project.)

The city can further be explored in another dimension by including time in the database. In this way, people will be able to see how the city was built and see its future.