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| "Digital Cities - Urbanism in the Infoage" |
For the architectural-urban field, VRML offers the possibility to render digital city structures. Such networked systems of three-dimensional geometries with communication functions are currently being discussed as metaphorical "Digital Cities" in the architectural community. Existing implementations, like the "Internationale Stadt Berlin" or the "Digital City Amsterdam" with some 50 000 inhabitants at the end of 1995, let users communicate with each other, yet they are conceptually three-dimensional.
According to the laws of networked systems, which state that with a common descriptive code (VRML), massively global access (Internet) and the possibility for non-hierarchical, associative linking (Hyperlinks), these cities will grow rhizomically. In the near future, we expect the rise of a seemingly-urban relational mesh of networked three-dimensional digital architectures. For the architectural profession, this means a chance to participate in the concepts and implementations of these immaterial architectures and to explore these fields of new urban activity.
Using VRML as a development platform, we are investigating, in various experiments, the possibility to convey functions, contents and concepts in digital architecture. Entitled "Babylon_S_M_L_XL", the results were presented as an interactive installation in the exhibition which accompanied the international symposium "Telepolis - Stadt am Netz" in November, 1995. Following this mode of research, the previously-developed methods were tested with a large number of networked participants in the workshop "Real Fiction - Virtual Realities", in collaboration with the professorship of Prof. Marc Angélil. The results were exhibited in "!Hello World?" (Museum für Gestaltung, February - March, 1996), which was realised by the professorship in collaboration with the Architectural Space Laboratory (ASL).
3dweb Babylon_S Babylon_M Telepolis Hello World!