Cybrids

The Cybrid Condition:

Implementing Hybrids of Electronic and Physical Space

Peter Anders

Emergent Spaces While many architects accept computers as extensions of existing practice, few accept that computers change the very foundations of their discipline. This is in the face of dramatic change in information technologies. For example, recent developments allow the creation of on-line work environments. These electronic spaces, called collaboratories, let researchers share technology to pursue common goals asynchronously, without the need for proximity.3 Also, the US military has funded study of overlapping physical and cyberspaces to provide briefing facilities for its personnel.2 Multi-user domains (MUDs) on the Internet are now viewed as promising social workplaces.3 4 Since many MUDs now incorporate three-dimensional graphics and sound, we can foresee new and compelling uses for these on-line spaces.

These spaces present clients with new means for achieving goals previously reserved to construction. Architects may find that portions of projects will no longer be implemented physically Indeed, such developments may be hybrids of physical and cyberspaces. Designers may translate the information-rich components of a building programme into flexible, dynamic data-bases using spatial references for orientation and ease of use. To varying degrees, these spaces may be linked to the physical architecture of the project as they relate to the building's and business's activities. These hybrids, here called 'cybrids', provide a model for responsive, physical and electronic spaces.

Extensions.pdf