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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.
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