Norbert Streitz - Cities Of The Future

In the 10th Namahn interview, a series of talks conducted with leading personalities in human-computer interaction, Namahn’s Joannes Vandermeulen explores the city of the future with Dr. Dr. Norbert Streitz, founder and scientific director of the Smart Future Initiative (SFI).

Why are cities so important? Because in some 40 years, almost three-quarters of the world population will live in them. We’re steadily moving towards the urban age, and there's little doubt that computers will feature strongly. Will we still be carrying them around as physical devices or will computers as-we-know-them-today disappear? And if technology disappears, how can we see and control what's going on?

Namahn poses these and other questions to Streitz, who argues that although in the 'smart' city of the future computers will be embedded in our environment, rather than dictating what we do, these smart spaces will make us smarter, empowering us and helping us to make more informed decisions. But in such an environment, are we not in danger of sacrificing our anonymity and privacy? Streitz explains the key role designers will play in preventing this.

As well as centers for decision-making, cities are also social spaces. What positive impact can technology have on this fundamental human social need? Streitz suggests that by taking some functionality from the virtual world (e.g., online social networks) and transferring it to the real world, information becomes experience. The challenge will be to design for intuitive understanding. So-called 'Informative art', a new collaboration between artists and designers already points the way forward.

But Streitz insists that to build the foundations of any city of the future we must keep the human in the loop, every step of the way…

Download the interview (mp3, 18:40, 21.8MB, April 2010)