︎

Architectural Future(s)

Architectural Future(s)
More Essays:

Dis / Replacement: Processes Of Displacement And Replacement During Periods of Transformation At The Barrington Recovery Site

Euston Town: retaking the city in the wake of HS2

Order and Dis-Order Within the London Food Landscape: Exploring the Street Party and Structures of Social Eating

Pamphlet for a Humanized Architectural Future Conserving and Celebrating Local Communities through Relicfication

Reimagining Solidarities and Spaces in the Era of Industry 4.0: Exploring the case study of Battersea as a Microcosm for a New Industrial Urbanism

Transient Homes: The Sense of Home in Woodberry Down Estate Regeneration: An Exploration of Social Housing Precarity and Temporary Housing Provisions
The Dialectic Relationship between the Peak District and Manchester, An enquiry into the perception, reality and politics of industrial innovation on the Derbyshire Moors

Gazing and Glancing: Moments of Queer Mutuality in Public Spaces

Fragmented Cognition of City’s Image: Distractions from Technology

The Desire for Dragons: A Critical Study into the Application of ‘Concrete Fantasy’ and ‘Parafiction’ in Our Architectural Future(s)

Zhang Jun
Fragmented Cognition of City’s Image: distractions from technology


People’s optical unconsciousness about the building environment is because these buildings are often passively accepted by people in a distracted way. Hence, the cognition of the image of the city becomes fragmented and chaotic. The city experience affected by technology is fast and constantly changing and passively accepted by people, which makes people feel overwhelmed and unable to immerse themselves in actively building their own cognition of the image of the city.

People's interpretation and imagination of space have always been influenced by technique and method. As a rapidly developing city with a large amount of investment, London is becoming a high-tech city. However, this essay identifies that new technology is encouraging the city to be experienced by people in a fragmented and distracted way; the emotional connection between people and the urban environment is being weakened and disturbed by these technologies. Buildings are fading into the backdrop of people's daily lives, which causes the 'optical unconsciousness' mentioned by Benjamin.This essay focuses on exploring how information technology and transportation systems affect people's cognition of a city's image. Using these technologies has become an inseparable habit and experience in people's daily lives, affecting how they observe the city and filter information to build their cognition of images.



Transportation system technology and fragmented city experience
Photo taken by author


Next Page ︎︎︎