Disrupting Urban Social Structures:
Interface and Face to Face Physically Manifest through Play
Hypothesis:
Social Networking Sites facilitate social interaction by diminishing or altogether eliminating barriers within the social structures of the physical world. The manifestation of these elements from the virtual world into a spatial experience work toward the realization of cities as places of inclusiveness and breaks the dichotomy of cities in which people are close in physical space but feel alienated in nature. The insertion of participatory interventions in which users control the location, duration, and activities in a manner resembling the spirit of Situationist activity aims to remedy this by promoting social interaction between people that do not usually interact.
Precis:
Our growing integration with and dependence on the virtual world in the 21st century is juxtaposed with our increasing sense of alienation present within the cities of the physical world. While our archaic social structures and misused public spaces discourage social interaction, Social Networking Sites (SNS) promote social cohesion that consequently calls into question the potential obsolescent redundancy of architecture’s social function. The ability of SNS to diminish or eliminate many of the barriers to social interaction may fundamentally alter the social structures of life within cities and change prevalent feelings of alienation toward one of inclusiveness. Already, it has been used as a social tool that augments existing social practices and informally aids the creation of underground environments conductive to social interaction.
