Dominique Rouillard, Denise Pumain, Laurent Perrin, Carlo Ratti, Daniel Berry, David Gerber, Gerhard Schmitt, Jeffrey Huang, Muriel Waldvogel, Valérie Châtelet.
In response to the increasing complexities of the physical metropolis, interactive cities are gradually being mapped out. Endowed with an invisible digital infrastructure, these cities thrive at accelerated metabolic rates and in real time. The emergence of Smart Mobs, the Open Source movement and mobile telecommunications have enable citizens to appropriate public space, in confrontation with market and government interests where technology is often used for surveillance and commercial purposes.
In this context, what is the role of urban planning ? How do architects and urban planners position themselves with respect to the institutions commissioning them for projects, private business partners and the new breed of city-dwellers ? How do planning strategies capitalize on improving capacities to calculate and network information?
