Urban Public Space in the Digital Era

Cities are built over time with layers of history, cultural systems, beliefs, religion, political statements, and people. They have been a debatable construct in sociology as the concept is complex, imprecise and charged with specific historical and thereby variable meanings. To understand it, parametric analysis of built vs open, land use patterns, transportation strategies should also be overlapped with complementary studies tracing the history, cultural influences and the social structures the city has seen during its existence.

Architecture in cities give us a glimpse of its political and social fabric as well as its historical influences. While a building's design language talks about its historical context, the intended purpose narrates a story of its social hierarchies, cultural beliefs and various other human interaction patterns. The word architecture here comprises both buildings and open spaces. John Ruskin proposes that we seek two things of our buildings- first to shelter us and second to speak to us. Just as with buildings, traditional urban public spaces serve two social functions in a city - instrumental and expressive. While the former refers to the physical link, the latter talks about the interactive link and both are required to deliver a complete experience. All these spaces are a reaction to the core need for humans to interact, be it ancient religious complexes, modern city squares or contemporary urban streets.

Globalisation and digitisation have made the boundaries of cities more fluid and are redefining the sense of urban public space as we know it. Being a 21st century resident, it is hard to avoid the influence of the rising number of personal devices and access to artificial intelligence. Digital today forms a vital part of our lives affecting social, cultural, political and economic movements.

Our choices and decisions now rely heavily on the internet and smart content. Through every location check-in, GPS navigation, online shopping and many such digital interactions, we often unknowingly contribute towards global digital data, leaving a digital footprint. Data processors use this footprint to analyse and create patterns which in turn are used to recommend further consumable and 'personalised' experiences. This digital space today acts as a public space where users interact with each other as well as with the "anonymised" data.

Design of any product, service or space, emphasises on empathy with its users. In this age of information, everyone promises to deliver artful experiences using creative process to craft customised services. In spite of this process being iterative and fundamentally 'human', it is grounded in data and patterns. How does this curated intelligent content found in patterns, and customised to your needs, affect your experience of the physical urban public space? As the world gets smarter and AI becomes a norm, what happens to the public space and what interactions does it promote?

Historically, public spaces were centres for new trends, initiating new social norms that everyone would follow. With artificial intelligence, there has been a shift wherein digital media doesn't just influence users to use a certain space but also plays a key role in elevating the status of a place. For example, event advertising has moved from print to digital media and combined with location services, particular places in a city get 'tagged' as popular. These spaces thus attract other users who in turn attract event producers and thus a vicious loop emerges which becomes a pattern. This trend has led to a co-dependant model between the physical and digital social space- each actively encouraging the other.

As the definition of public space changes, this research intends to look at how intelligently customised content delivered to your personal devices affect the urban landscape. What is the co-dependency between the two and how user's choices are impacted by technology?