From “Toward the Sentient City” by Mark Shepard:

Q1:

Shepard discusses (pgs 20-21) the difference in how the “informational ballet” of the city street is described, showing the contrast between the very much visual, haptic, contextualized and ‘eventful’ description by Jane Jacobs, with the more ethereal, ‘behind-the-scenes’ look of Dan Hill’s description of street interaction driven by non-visible data. Will this ‘invisible layer’ of data invalidate the typical perceptual way of understanding the streetscape? Currently, it seems as though ‘data’ and networks simply stand as a new layer of urban fabric; if ‘formal geometries’ and ‘material articulations’ are becoming less relevant, is it possible that these will become almost completely irrelevant to the street? Where will architecture lie within the hierarchy of importance to the urban environment in the future?

Q2:

At the end of the chapter, Shepard mentions that for architects to address new and emerging kinds of space, they (and their clients) will need to see these new spaces as valuable, predicting a future need for (and encouraging the use of) more ‘program-agnostic’ spaces that embrace emerging technologies ( being “open to architectural imagination”). Are they not be perceived as ‘valuable’ to clients because they are currently seen as risky and niche luxuries, rather than things that meet their current spatial need?

Q3:

I am not sure I completely understand the correlation Shepard makes between the architectural program of a house, and planning and zoning laws of a city (pgs. 22-23). Homes typically function the way that they are used based on the desires of the inhabitant, in addition to the formality of the generic function. Zoning and land use policy restrict this (for better or worse) at the city scale. Is the loosening of programmatic specificity (in terms of zoning regulation) within the city the point Shepard is trying to make?