Flow, Interface and Response (an agenda for architecure)

Architecture as Interface and flow
Architecture should be about creating interfaces and flows between people (both individuals and communities), the environment (both in terms of ecology and also the existing built environment) and through technology (both as hybrid digital space and as tool ). This should be reflected in the outcome where the built project is not seen as an isolated material object, but a mapping of social flows and techno/ecological systems. Instead the architect needs to be able to work in a way that responds and interprets to the many needs, desires and also tensions in a participatory manner. The involvement of any architect in this process is also one that is not complete once the project is completed, but which sees any built project as part of a life-long cycle. Out of this a new responsiveness is needed which sees architecture not as simply as focused on the design of the built world, but as an approach to responding to how we interact, act and structure our experience of the spatial world.

Materialising Social Practices and Ecologies
Architecture is about designing spaces that can be inhabited and create opportunities for social encounter and that are responsive to the local and global environmental ecologies. Architectural design and research should be able to capture, analyse and interpret the often intangible and changeful qualities of social practices and environmental ecologies and materialise these in a design approach. This means responding to patterns of movement, social encounters and tensions, technology practices and environmental ecologies using applied methods from related disciplines such as sociology, geography and anthropology. Overall the design process should be a dialogue and translation of these issues into a coherent and not a dominant or imposed response.

Responding to Technologies, Mobilities and New Urbanisms
The multi-faceted changing nature of the urban space means we need to adopt new strategies for how we respond to these issues as architects. These include new mobilities which cause us to reflect on the static and dynamic in architectural space, and the context of globalisation for understanding how the concept of the city pervades all aspects of design. A further key focus is digital technology, which becomes invisibly embedded in everyday things, even more activities become mediated, and networks extend rather than replace architecture. The field of interaction design reflects not only how people deal with machine interfaces but also how people deal with each other in situations where interactivity has become ambient. It shifts previously utilitarian digital design concerns to a cultural level, adding notions of premise, appropriateness, and appreciation. This calls for new approaches to the concept of materiality in the context of architectural design and a reassessment of the notion of aesthetics.