Building Knowledge into the Environment of Urban Public Space: Universal Design for Intelligent Infrastructure

Abstract

The emergence of interconnected networks which include an intelligent lighting infrastructure is creating urban spaces possessing ambient intelligence in the form of smart sensors, embedded microprocessors, and cybernetic feedback systems. In his paper, Architectural Relevance of Cybernetics (1969), Gordon Pask envisioned an adaptive cybernetic system wherein the architecture becomes an electronic interface. Pask's approach has powerful implications for the universal design of “smart” urban infrastructures. New intelligent infrastructure systems are described within the context of interconnected cybernetic networks to consider the universal design of more equitable, sustainable, and secure urban space.