”The tale of two smart cities”

Abstract

Ante Scriptum: Every leap of development or revolution in the history of human civilization had as its preamble a period of theoretical searches and confrontations, which were the catalysts of the respective shifts in the historical paradigm. Theorizing has its purpose, and the aim of this paper is to pave the way for an adaptation of architectural theory to new concepts related to the smart city model. We also investigate the predictability of the destiny of the smart city organism and the possible directions of morphogenesis. This article was translated from Romanian by the author. The study is based on revisiting the concepts of place and limit with new connotations developed by technology that has a mediating role vis-a?-vis the individual and communities. By redefining them, the concepts acquire characteristics of variables or mathematical functions, which can effectively study or generate future behavior patterns of smart cities, these dual territorial entities, with body and, here, an artificial intelligence AI (IoT, applications, cloud, software). One of these models is the theory of catastrophe, which can predict the limits of acceptance of phenomenological saturation (in the philosophical sense of Jean-luc Marion) by the individual, or in extremes, by society. We will describe how the theory of catastrophe can be applied using notions of quantum architecture theory, and how the philosophical system of donation described by Marion can help draw the boundaries of the existence of the smart city. The approach is theoretical using inference, observation and exemplification through case studies. The research methods can only be of an eclectic and interdisciplinary nature, linking the theories of architectural atmospheres, of the donation of phenomenological philosophy and of appliedmathematics. The method of translating into quantifiable variables the values of place and limit, is based on the loading of the notion of place of Christian Norberg-Schulz, with valences connected to the specificity given by the mediation of technology between individual and place. The results are models of behavior of a bivalent nature, philosophical and mathematical, to describe a new theory of architecture, a theory of the smart place. This type of architectural place with its set of parameters, is a new element of study, in continuation of research in the field of architecture aimed at reducing risk and preventing losses from hazards that threaten this smart city, either anthropogenic or natural.