The lecture explores how the internet of spaces influences architectural design generations. It discusses approaches to speculative design native to the virtual realm and how they are transforming reality.

By Prof Marc Aurel Schnabel

The fourth industrial revolution accelerated the integration of digital technologies into everyday objects, blurring the boundaries between physical and digital realms. Information technology and automation converge in innovative ways and change our surrounding environment. The physical domain is increasingly augmented by online connectivity, as we all experienced in recent months. We have “things” that measure and sense activities and changes, and broadcast them to the rest of the world via a network. We call this the “Internet of Things” (IoT).

While IoT is penetrating every aspect of our lives, we, the architects, are slow to respond to this challenge. Smart cities, smart homes and smart personal devices are surrounding us, but we have yet to create many examples of “smart spatial design” or “smart architecture”.
What would the world look like if walls, windows, building systems, building materials, spaces and surfaces were able to communicate with each other? How would this change the tradition of architecture? And what does it mean? What does it look like? What can it do? What can we, as architects, do?