/sites/default/files/styles/banner_image/public/default_images/inside-page-banner_2_1.jpg?itok=Er8q0C-3
Fellow 2010-11

John Charles Stallmeyer

Architecture

Stallmeyer imageInformational Urbanism: Information Technology Development and New Typologies of Architecture and Urban Space

To date the impact of information and communications technology (ICT) has been described most often in terms of economic development. In his research project, Professor Stallmeyer is taking a broader look at the role ICT plays in the global flows of culture, capital, images, and ideas, and how these influences affect physical and social spaces in the contemporary city.

This project extends Professor Stallmeyer’s previous research examining the transformation of architecture and urban forms within ICT enclaves in Bangalore, India, a principal node in the global network of ICT production and consumption. The new project extends the context beyond ICT enclaves and beyond Bangalore to encompass everyday environments in Hanoi and Saigon, Delhi and Hyderabad, Cyprus, Dublin, and California’s Silicon Valley.

During his Center appointment, Professor Stallmeyer will analyze field photographs, maps, aerial imagery, and master-planning documents from each of the cities studied, along with publications that contain discourse about sustainability, to answer the following questions:

  • Is there an identifiable ICT typology at both the urban and architectural scales?
  • In what contexts are such typologies present or absent?
  • How do planning documents facilitate the development of these typologies?
  • Are considerations of sustainability altering the course of urban development in these contexts?

Information technology, sustainability, and the urban future are among the defining discourses of our age. How these areas are connected, and the resulting physical and social implications, will be the subject of Professor Stallmeyer’s planned book manuscript.