Saturday, April 20, 2013 - Download Poster
Princeton University School of Architecture, Room N107
Organized by Mario Gandelsonas, Justin Fowler, and Evangelos Kotsioris of Princeton University's Center for Architecture, Urbanism, and Infrastructure
Not Smart Enough is an attempt to radically rethink the physical as well as immaterial aspects of digital infrastructure and its trans-scalar effects on planning, the configuration of urban form, and its manifestations in architecture.
The term ‘infrastructure’ casts a wide, but ambiguous net. To engage with issues of infrastructure is to assume a host of historical suppositions about scalar logics, material investment, and organizational efficiency. Far from shying away from these defining characteristics, Not Smart Enough argues that we should both expand what can be thought of as infrastructure and seek to become more precise in our delineation of the virtues of specific infrastructural components and operations. The arrival of ‘smart’ technologies and cities has not rendered the divide between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ infrastructures obsolete, nor dissolved the boundary between top-down and bottom-up processes, but rather demands we examine and leverage the particularities inherent in each so as to design infrastructures that are adaptive, resilient, and accessible. Infrastructural design must be positioned to encompass a variety of roles, from programming social interactions, ecological processes, and resource mobilizations to translating operations present across a range of scales, audiences, and material languages. Toward these ends, Not Smart Enough brings together architects and urbanists with digital artists, designers, theorists, and media experts to discuss how new developments in information technology can inform the future of the infrastructural project.
SATURDAY, APRIL 20, 2013
9:30–10am
LIGHT BREAKFAST & COFFEE
10:15am–10:30am
WELCOME ADDRESS
Mario Gandelsonas, FAIA, Princeton University and Center for Architecture, Urbanism + Infrastructure
10:30am–12:45pm
PANEL 1: STAKES
Introduced by Justin Fowler, Princeton University, School of Architecture
Moderated by Molly Steenson, University of Wisconsin-Madison, School of Journalism and Mass Communication
Daniel Barber, Assistant Professor of Architecture, PennDesign
Sep Kamvar, Director, Social Computing Group, MIT Media Lab
Nicole Starosielski, Assistant Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication, NYU Steinhardt
Anthony Townsend, Research Director, Technology Horizons group, Institute for the Future
12:45–1:45pm
LUNCH/COFFEE BREAK
1:45pm–4:30pm
PANEL 2: DIRECTIONS
Introduced by Evangelos Kotsioris, Princeton University, School of Architecture
Moderated by Axel Kilian, Princeton University, School of Architecture
Mark Collins, Director, Cloud Lab, Columbia GSAPP
Zeynep Tufekci, Fellow, Center for Information Technology Policy (CITP), Princeton University
Janet Vertesi, Link-Cotsen Fellow, Princeton University
4:30pm–5pm
CLOSING ADDRESS
Dana Cuff, Professor of Architecture, Urban Design, and Urban Planning, UCLA
