03 : Tutorial : Virtual

Create stories that describe your ideas with specific contexts, users, situations and strategies. We will call them architectural fictions.

Within the 'Virtual' theme, my group discussed a lot about how a virtual layer can impact different areas of society.  As one of our group members was from Singapore, she explained how important and well organised the public transport system is within the city.  One of the reasons for this is that there is a high level of accessibility to public transport, with a station located approximately every 400m. Access to infrastructure is often a key component on how 'livable' a city is (Economist Intelligence Unit, 2011), so how can a 'virtual' layer improve a situation a capital city in Australia?

This whole discussion started when a group member posed the question "what if the government was to ban private transport?" I think that if people were more reliant on public options, there would have to be a variety of different types of transport options available.  Future cities will have to coordinate this type of network successfully by suggesting that there is a type of service dependent on the type of journey required.

References:
Economist Intelligence Unit. (2011). The Liveability Ranking and Overview February 2011 accessed 15 August 2011 from http://www.eiu.com/public/topical_report.aspx?campaignid=Liveability2011

02 : Tutorial : Virtual

This weeks tutorial allowed for exploration in groups about of the four different themes (Virtual / Flexible / Mobile / Distributed) and how they benefit an Australian Capital and its agents.  Naturally, some were easier to explore than others.

Virtual was the most difficult, as there are so many connotations with the Information Technology world.  I'm not naive enough to think that virtual technology won't increase in the future.  Instead I believe that there is a place for both physical and virtual areas to interact.  I'm particularly interested in how places can be designed so that they can have a psychological effect such as trigger memories.  This may be useful in places where you are adding a new layer on something that is not used anymore?  In this way virtual is defined as an unidentifiable and untouchable place, and rather in the mind.