“Sociologist William Whyte’s late twentieth-century clarion call for a “rediscovery of the center” asked us to reconsider centralized, dense public spaces rich with unexpected encounters and “maximum choice”. His appeal still echoes, but against radically different conditions. Notions of density, the public and private realms, and the experience of urban space have been re-inscribed in the purview of networked culture — the decentralized, layered, re-publicized and de-privatized conditions of virtual cooperation, coordination, and performance. The explosion of mobile media has transformed understandings and experiences of mobility and presence for technology users and non-users alike. Our social, cognitive, industrial, geographic, and economic experiences and systems have become severed or skewed from traditional anchors and re-oriented within network culture.”

from Rediscovering the Center…Again by Nepal Asatthawasi and Germaine Halegoua via the network architecture lab

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Photo: 80+1 building by Any-Time Architects

Rain in Linz. Doesn’t bode well for some of the outside events today & tomorrow. But light sprinkles and overcast skies last night didn’t deter Sternennacht, during which lights were turned off in Hauptplatz (the central square in Linz) in order to better see the night sky. This is a great cooperative idea for a city.

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