Research Booklet

Social media applications have digitalized our public discourse. The emergence of digital platforms has fundamentally altered the traditional means of communication and relationship building, which were once limited by face-to-face interactions. These “digital platforms” are designed to replicate the ancient Greek Agoras, physical spaces where citizens gathered to discuss, perform, and deliberate on cultural matters.

In the past, Agoras played a vital role in enabling individuals to come together and share information, discuss topics of interest, and collaborate on projects. However, in the digital age, social media has become the primary medium for public engagement and community building. This has been exasperated in recent years by the covid lockdown, where our only means of relating was through digital platforms. As we return to a new normal, we must contend with how can our public spaces - parks, gardens, plazas - would support and deepen those digitally-bound new relationships.

It is impossible to imagine a neo-Luddite approach to civic and cultural life where we engage without these modern tools in the digital age. Instead, architects and urban planners have started to design public spaces and augmenting them with digital technologies in mind. This approach seeks to combine the benefits of traditional Agoras with the convenience and ubiquity of digital platforms. For Project II, students will hypothesize public and physical spaces that house and support digital communities.

In the first exercise, students will have the opportunity to work in groups of three to conduct research on a specific social media application. Each student will also individually select a unique digital community to focus on. The purpose of this exercise is to analyze and illustrate the themes of the selected digital community, and to examine how digital platforms enable these themes.

Students will be required to create an eight-page printed annotated report. Moving on to exercise two, students will use the annotated report created in the first exercise to generate ideas about the program, circulation, infrastructure, occupant, and representation of their chosen digital culture. Through this exercise, students will further develop their understanding of the relationship between digital community and its associated social platform, while also exploring the various aspects that contribute to the formation and representation of a digital culture. An initial template booklet will be provided to the students to ensure consistency throughout their work.