1 Introduction

Climate change has been a pressing and intractable problem for a long time, which is one of the results of all the environmental degradation caused by human beings, especially after the Industrial Revolution. The unprecedented environmental crisis will certainly produce great negative impacts on human lives. Transformations are stimulated amid this period, in order to mitigate the damage already infliected in the environmental and further avert natural disasters.

Human activities constitute the main cause of the current predicament, and the applications of technology accelerate the deterioration. Meanwhile, with the great tendency of continuous degradation, technology has also become a powerful tool for human beings to reverse the situation. Underneath the causes of the environmental crisis, as well as possible technological solutions, there is the impression that human beings became increasingly separated from the natural world. However, the boundary between the two realms has been blurred actually, and now, we can no longer afford a strict separation between the two of them (Ratti and Belleri, 2020). The convergence is happening in both directions: that the artificial world is getting more natural while the natural world is getting more artificial. Technologies facilitate this convergence, especially for the latter one, by animating the unanimated entities such as buildings, infrastructure, and even the whole city. The idea of convergences has also been mentioned by Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of the MIT Media Lab, during the MIT’s Being Material symposium in 2017, that he “believes we’ve now reached a stage when the natural and the artificial have blended” (Howarth, 2017). He specifically referred to the rise of biotechnology, with the trend of incorporating living systems and organisms in the development of products.

However, with only applications of technologies, it may not result in a positive end. “The two realms will either save or destroy each other, and designers have a critical role to play in deciding which future will come to pass.” (Ratti and Belleri, 2020) The two realms that destroy each other can be demonstrated by our current situation if we don’t take any actions to change, and the saving part would be in the discussion later as the main content of this paper. Cooperating design and technologies properly would be the tool for humans to achieve the necessary harmony between the two realms.

The environmental problem asks for interdisciplinary approaches, which integrate experts from different fields and form synergy to cope with the problem more effectively and sustainably. The combination of design and technology can therefore help human beings see the environmental crisis from different angles, and seek the optimizing solutions. In this paper, two essential concepts play the guiding role in the discussion: the hidden connections and sentient city. After discussing both concepts, the paper will give examples projects at different scales as case study to see how ubiquitous the combinations is in our lives and the roles they play in achieving a sustainable future.

2. Literature Review

2.1Hidden Connections

Technologies are not only providing the hardware or physical solutions for the environmental crisis; it also explores the relations between humans and other entities around us.. Although these relations usually cannot be noticed directly, they could provide clues or solutions to the problems human beings are facing.

The hidden connections are embedded in everything around, since “no organism can exist in insolation” (Capra, 2011), meaning that there are inevitably connections among different entities. In The Hidden Connections, Fritjof Capra suggested looking for and then study the simplest system that displays these characteristics, to identify the defining characteristics of life. By discovering the same type of structure throughout the living world, the clues about the origin of life are disclosed. Through examining the molecular structures, cells, and metabolism, it’s concluded that for the definition of life, we need to look at “the patterns of relationships between macromolecules”, or in our lives, relationships between people, non-human objects, and cities, etc.

Discussing the idea of hidden connections, one important example can be traced back to the 1850s, when there was an outbreak of mysterious new cholera in London. In an environment where sanitation was extremely poor, the rumour that the disease was spread by the miasma emitted by the pestilent corpses from the plague burial grounds was believed by a majority of the residents in that neighbourhood (Johnson, 2007). Cooper was an engineer who first used mapping, he invented this pioneering method to create possibilities to explore the real cause of the outbreak. While Cooper’s maps included too much information and could not make sense to explain the true cause, the physician John Snow created a similar map, with less information but the striking visual effect. Snow mapped each case of cholera, adding them up in bars to give an idea of where most cases were occurring, and also mapped the public pumps people took water from. Snow found a pattern that elucidated the origin of the cholera epidemic in London. Another character had done a contribution as significant as Snow’s, the reverend Henry Whitehead, who provided local knowledge with his social intelligence, empowering the map to have that achievement. Although John Snow didn’t invent the mapping method itself, his map let the progressive information design meet with the scientific theory of cholera’s transmission. “It was not the mapmaking technique that mattered; it was the underlying science that the map revealed” (Johnson, 2007). The significance of combining technology and design was also revealed here. With all the unclearness created rumours, this combination of technology and design was actually penetrating the fog, looking through the surface, and eventually, discovering the true cause of the disease. It’s thought-provoking that Snow was not seeing the bacteriawhich was still invisible at that time with his eyes, instead, he saw them through the hidden connections

Today, with all the technologies we have, the process of finding hidden connections could be more efficient and can be done on larger scales, with multiple different intensions. Sensing technologies play the role of Henry Whitehead, providing local data. However, it doesn’t demand labour force and massive connections with people but makes use of robots or cyborgs, and therefore can provide information from more diverse sources, helping us overcome the difficulties that were insurmountable in the past. The hidden connections could be among different entities, including people, non-human creatures like microbes, buildings, and whole cities. As what happened in the 1850s, the hidden connections will give us insights into the problems, peeling off the layers that covered the crucial patterns, and actually facilitate the construction of sustainable cities.

2.2 Sentient City

Urbanization is a process that creates a lot of pollution and exploitation of natural resources, and the cities’ extension, more precisely, urban sprawl, causing problems of degradation. Nevertheless, urban areas, with relatively sufficient resources and better developments, would be the starting point if we think of reversing the current situation. Besides, because of the characteristics of cities, the huge inhabitant population, cities’ role in achieving sustainability becomes more significant.

Responding to the issue, there are many imaginations of the future cities emerging. Sentient city, which is one of them, is also a main concept that will be discussed here. This concept originated from a symposium organized by the Architectural League of New York which was further presented in an exhibition, and got to be known more widely because of Mark Shepard, in his book Sentient City: Ubiquitous Computing, Architecture, and the Future of Urban Space (2011); but there have been some envisions of this idea in earlier literature. The city is considered to be sentient, with the ability to remember, correlate and anticipate, in which the dwellers’ living experience will be further explored. This matches that convergence, that it actually animating the city, giving it the ability to respond and live with the dwellers. Not only about the city model, but also provides a platform for interdisciplinary collaborations and also stimulates architects in this age to be creative and responsible to deal with climate change. 

In fact, there were some similar ideas or imaginations of the sentient city in the past. In Being Digital (1995), Nicholas Negroponte raised that the world in which digital technologies were getting ubiquitous at an astonishing rate; and here, bits are used to represent the digital world while atoms are known as the basic component that makes up of the natural world. It is the time to witness the transformation of the world, from natural to artificial, with the rapid revolution of technologies, and also to envision the possibilities of those technologies’ applications in the future. In City of Bits (1996), William Mitchell pointed out that more and more of the instruments of human interaction were being miniaturized, dematerialized, and cut loose from fixed locations. With the ongoing digital technology revolution provoke reimaginations of the future city, and the emerging civic structure and the spatial arrangement, which would also associate with new kinds of architectural design, can have a profound effect on our lives from all aspects. Under the great transformation, we are not passive but have the chance to comprehend the immediate situation and to seek more options for our future. As human beings are getting to merge with cyborgs, buildings are also going through a transformation, “increasingly, telecommunication systems replace circulation systems, and the solvent of digital information decomposes traditional building types. One by one, the familiar forms vanish. Then the residue of recombinant fragments yields up mutants.”(Mitchell, 1996, p41) For architects, it’s also time to be open-minded and design for the new conditions.

In this paper, we will look into three scales of combinations of technologies and design, which are: personal scale, architectural scale, and city’s scale. Sensing is an ability that the majority of them have, while they are also expected to actuate and adjust the environment according to changes, in other words, being reactive at the same time. The analysis of the projects here will be guided by the two concepts discussed above (hidden connections and sentient cities). The connections of the projects with the concepts may vary, some of them address the environmental problem, others may have the potential to highlight the power of the two concepts while they are not directly linked to sustainability. Within the personal scale, the devices can be wearable or can be carried by human beings; for the architectural projects, it will explore the interactive architectures and also the interdisciplinary cooperation and innovations; to the city’s scale, the exploration will be carried out based on the infrastructure and transportation that lead us to find out the city’s networks behind them.

3 Examples in three scales

3.1 Personal Scale

3.1.1 MindRider

Transportation is an essential aspect to achieve sustainable cities—and cycling is a typical way of sustainable travel. Though it has been promoted by many countries, there are still many obstacles in the path of achieving behavioural changes in most parts of the world. The safety issue is one of the concerns, especially riding with the massive traffic flows nowadays. In 2014, Arlene Ducao, at the Media Lab of MIT, developed such a helmet that can sense the psychological states of the riders, and visualize them through lights embedded on the helmet. The invention is called MindRider, and what empowers it to read people’s mind is EEG sensors embedded in its helmet’s foam. Through sensing, the information is then indicated by LED lights with colour changing based on the states of the biker’s mind (calm, apprehension) and sent to the rider’s phone with the corresponding app. The data visualized in the app also provide information about the mental conditions with respect to the streets and geographical locations, which is a map of “psychogeography” that the inventor Ducao called it. (Strickland, 2014)

The device was designed to accompany the users during their journey without any disturbances or interventions on themselves, while the technology applied to enable the extraction of information. Connections of people and cities can be demonstrated as well, as the users passing through different regions and showing varied colours of lights. These connections are crucial for better road designs in cities and even drive for policy changes, in a way that will promote sustainable travel eventually. At the same time, the colour itself also helps improve the traffic conditions with the visual communications on roads. All of these are building up a kind of connections, contributing to a safer and more liveable city.

3.1.2 One Country Two Lungs

Deteriorating air quality is one of the main concerns of environmental degradation, which has drawn attention from the public many times in history. The intimate relation between air quality and public health renders the problem even more prominent. One Country Two Lungs, launched by Senseable City Lab of MIT, was a project that makes use of “an array of sophisticated human-borne sensors”, with the level of Particulate Matter, Carbon Monoxide, and Nitrogen Dioxide as measurement, accompanied by the spatial and biological information on a personal scale, to conclude patterns of the air qualities varied with locations for the two cities——Hong Kong and Shenzhen. As in MindRider, colours are used commonly to present different stages, which were also used to demonstrate the air quality level here, and a dynamic map was drawn through integrating all the information collected ("One Country Two Lungs", n.d.).

With the use of wearable devices, the provision of data on a human level is one of the highlights of the project, that the information will be more precise and closer to everyday life, therefore more practical meaning. Another advantage of this sensing process is its final presentations, that it’s easier for the audiences’ interpretation, and eventually for them to take action. The setting of this experiment is also imaginative, by using allusion to the One Country Two System policy, while the choice of the two cities is also meaningful. The constitutional principle denotes the system is the distinction, but when the economic development of the mainland city got to catch up with the Special Administration Region (SAR), what differentiates them becomes the air quality, though the atmosphere was thought to be the connection between the two. Hence it was given the power to draw the government’s attention, to focus on the environmental problem, and construct a liveable city with new thinking on city designs.

3.1.3 WearAir

With the similar function of sensing air quality, a project called WearAir featuring a T-shirt designed and prototyped by Sunyoung Kim, Eric Paulos, and Mark D. Gross at the Carnegie Mellon University, empowers citizens to be the experimenters who sense the air in person and allows the instant information to be shared with people passing by. Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are selected as the indicator of air quality measurement, and a VOC sensor and the main board are used to form a circuit with other related parts embedded in the clothes. Sequenced LED lights demonstrate the air quality, with varying in numbers and lighting modes according to the environmental conditions. Its understandable principle and apparent presentation eliminate the barriers for utilization among laymen, at the same time, the introduction of the DIY hardware platform extends its scope of users (Sunyoung Kim, Eric Paulos, and Mark D. Gross. 2010).

The communication strategy here is powerful, since it may cause an immediate change in behaviours of pedestrians, through the visual interactions among the daily flow of people, which is an efficient and effective way to improve air quality on an individual scale. A special bonding is built among people and also between citizens and cities, as the wearers going around the area. Comparing to the above-mentioned project, this design has its distinct advantage of stimulating the surrounding people to take action, making adjustments and corrections in a short time, but spreading extensively. Its profound influence can also be seen by cultivating and strengthening the environmental consciousness of the public. Nevertheless, as it’s still in its prototype stage, the design of the T-shirt may not be accepted substantially in terms of its aesthetics. In addition, to optimize the impact, its function should also be known by the public.

3.1.4 Airtomo

Though WearAir created a possibility to empower the masses of people, the actions are taken by humans eventually. Here, another combination of design and technologies is animating the device itself to respond to the environment. Airtomo was designed as an air purifier, and it has the ability to sense the air and remove polluting particles through using water vapour. Apart from wearable devices in the form of neckbands or that can be attached to shoes and bags, Airtomo modules are also developed to be placed on the walls in underground stations to employ air quality, which employs passive infrared sensors and gets information through the Internet connection (Englefield, 2021).

The project further extends the function of the air sensor, which is to purify and actuate the real-time surroundings, showing the idea of the sentient city and also forming the connections between humans and the infrastructures. The employment of biomimicry is also considered as a way that the above-mentioned convergences proceeding. As a project that involved Royal College of Art and Imperial College London, it can be an epitome of the combinations between design and technology, and the clean and fashionable appearance would attract a wider range of consumers.

All these projects can be a good representation of the two guiding concepts, and also have their own contribution to solving the environmental crisis. In addition to forming intimate relations with the users, their significance also lies in the bonding that they built between the users and the city.

3.2 Architectural Scale

3.2.1 Photo.Synth.Etica

In response to the environmental crisis, reducing carbon footprint has become an issue that was frequently discussed in many realms. There are many innovations of materials used in architecture, the phenomenon in which interdisciplinary cooperation can take place freely is exploring the possibilities to cope with the environmental issue and attempts towards sustainability. In this case, biotechnology plays an important role as an emerging field of research, as mentioned previously,

The algae curtain developed by an architecture office EcoLogicStudio, called Photo.Synth.Etica, harnesses the strong ability of photosynthesis in algae which removes pollutants and carbon dioxide from the air. Combined with the bioplastic wrapping, the algae are able to grow with the light and air. The wrapping also provided a path for air to travel through, from the bottom entrance all the way through the tube, and eventually produce oxygen released from the top of the installation. Furthermore, the installation is also a platform for the designers to express their thoughts, that they used a metaphor of “trading data chart” that alludes to the collaboration behind the project. "The message is one of spatial convergence and connectivity between the financial marketplace of cyberspace and the relative organic molecular transactions in the biosphere," said EcoLogicStudio (Aouf, 2018). This thought brings up a point that is related to the convergences mentioned previously, on the similarity between the natural and artificial systems.

The Photo.Synth.Etica prototype evolved into a more comprehensive set of products, showing in the Bit.Bio.Bot exhibition in 2021, further consolidates the connections with nature, by combining architecture and microbiology. Besides the living cladding that has been developed a few years ago, there’s another bioreactor presented in the form of a vertical garden for algae farming (Aouf, 2021). The office also further explores the field of culinary.

 “EcoLogicStudio's projects conceive architecture as a symbiotic organism, one where human and non-human organisms live together” (Aouf, 2021). The studio is actually holding the same view on the relations between the nature and the world of artifacts as what’s previously suggested, that rather than drawing a clear boundary between them, they combine and incorporate the two realms into each other. It also demonstrates the idea of the convergences in another way, that algae can be treated as a sensor, at the same time, living organism, when it was employed in the curtain. Hence, It reveals another aspect of sentient city: not only artificial devices are serve as sensors to help mediate the pollution, but also the living organism can also be the indicators and further, actuators. There are connections here, that through understanding the information delivered by plants, residents can perceive the situation of their city which is a cognition process, while the city works as a habitat for the two. Combing technology can further harness the plants, and become an effective tool for improving air quality.

3.2.2 Dancing Pavilion

There are numerous imaginations of the future city made by scientists, geographers, and architects, etc. Evolving from previous prototypes, the focus of the cities is switching from blindly pursuing high efficiency to the living experience of the cities as interactive organisms, with the goal of achieving a more liveable city. The sentient city is such a concept, that incorporates cutting-edge technologies into animating the city through building interactions with people.

During the Rio Olympic Games in 2016, a Dancing Pavilion was constructed to host music, parties, and shows. To match and even extend its function, architects from Estudio Guto Requena made a kinetic façade for it, by applying scattered sensors that capture the beat of the music and direct the mirrors on it. The turning mirrors can create different effects on daytime and night. This provided an immersive experience to the visitors that the building ‘dance’ with them, also produce a special phenomenon, that “weaving together our concrete and virtual worlds, using sensors and interactive technology to transform our perception of space and sharpen our sensoriality.” (Cardenas, 2016)

3.2.3 Digital Water Pavilion

Digital Water Pavilion is another example of interactive architecture, designed by Carlo Ratti Associati for the Zaragoza Expo 2008, in which the theme was Water and Sustainable Development. It is a “flexible and multifunctional space” (DIGITAL WATER PAVILION, 2008). Integrated sensors were used to ensure no one got wet when they entre or exit, and the water curtain can be switched on or off freely with the employment of “a row of closely spaced solenoid valves”, which is controlled by a computer. Water was recycled and used as not only exterior walls for the pavilion, but also a tool for interactions, that it was able to display messages or pre-programmed graphics with the control of the computer

The innovative structure of the pavilion: without physical exterior walls envelope the space, “the only material elements are the two boxes and the roof” (DIGITAL WATER PAVILION, 2008), in which the position of the roof can be adjusted according to different needs and can be lower to ground level, making the architecture disappear. It is also a pioneering exploration on the spatial egression, at the same time, also serve as an entertainment facility for the local. The function of architecture is shown, being the bridge that brings citizens and the city that is animated together, and enrich their living experience.

Though the two projects above are not considered as an approach that implements the principle of sustainability or directly pursue efficiency, they are the inspirational projects, as representatives of sentient architecture, provoking the public to rethink the city life, not even in the future, which is actually almost around us.

3.3 City Scale

3.3.1 Subway Station

City’s networks are facilitated and supported by the infrastructure, especially those which undertake massive flows transiting every day, such as transport systems and sanitation systems. They, therefore, contain a large amount of information that the public may not see. A group of scientists, who spent months swabbing subway stations to find out the microbial world that we are living with. Led by Christopher Mason from Weill Cornell Medicine, the team had swabbed all the subway stations in the New York City, and 60 others from all around the world, and eventually found out what cities look like under a microscope, the biology that’s there but hadn’t been noticed by the majority of citizens. Turnstiles, kiosks, and benches are the three services they swabbed in stations. Besides the finding of “nearly 11,000 viruses and 1302 bacteria were new to science” ("Cities have their own distinct microbial fingerprints", 2021), they also discover microbes that consistently appear in most of the samples, like commonalities that cities share, while there are some species unique to specific cities, as if the cities’ fingerprint enables scientists to find out where a person comes from by swabbing their shoes. Moreover, the findings of biological functions have a significant contribution to the developing of medicine. In this way, the ecosystem of life was unveiled, and provide us with a new perspective to look at and comprehend the living environment. 

Though the data indicate the subway stations as highly trafficked areas, “show strong evidence of bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics and some presence of potentially pathogenic organisms”, the stations are still safe in general (Afshinnekoo et al., 2015). There are many potentials in the data: some DNA indicates the species that may live or pass through a place, but not necessarily prove they are alive, and they’re possibly carried by humans; It can also indicate certain events that have affected the stations; they can also serve new forensic applications and contain the ancestry-informative markers. Here, “hidden” was reflected by the invisibility of the microbes which give us clues on epidemiology, for example, in terms of virus tracing.

3.3.2 Underworlds

The sanitation system in a city can also supply us with numerous information that we may not perceive in daily life, and the sewage system as an essential part of the general system contains valuable resources for us to explore. MIT Senseable City Lab launched a project called Underworlds, started in 2015, proceeding with the evolution of measuring robot prototypes, made use of the information carried by the sewage water, and contribute to public health surveillance profoundly. The aim is to recognize diseases that are still in the incubation period through biological data, and from chemical data, to measure non-communicable diseases. The project employed a variety of technologies which include biochemical measurement and communication methods were integrated into the sampling robot prototypes, from Mario to Luigi I, and then Luigi II, finally Yoshi. Employing Geographic Information System, the data can be documented with their geographical identities as a database for urban health analysis. Besides, the 16S r DNA enabled the analysis of real-time data. Visualization enabled the results to be transferred into the improvement of urban planning or in terms of policies. 

The resources are invaluable, and with the ability to interpret them accurately, the value of them is able to be harnessed, it is possible to get insights of population health and diet. In comparisons among data from multiple geographical locations, the results indicated that, like what were shown in the previous project, each neighbourhood has their own unique microbiome signature (MIT Senseable City Laboratory, 2019). Looking through the project, like what John Snow had done centuries ago, the connections were found by organizing the existing data, which are not be noticed, and the two are both associated with epidemiology. Underworlds present to the public the possibility of finding the hidden connections with the help of state-of-the-art technologies.

3.3.3 City Scanners

As in the Personal Scale section, three projects on air quality that feature individual devices have been presented. Here, there’s another project that explores the sensing on the city’s scale, called City Scanner. Drive-by sensing refers to urban sensing using ordinary road vehicles. In their first deployment, garbage trucks were the chosen vehicles to which the portable sensors were attached. Sensors measured the concentration of particulates, temperature, thermal images, accelerometers (to detect road conditions) (Anjomshoaa et al., 2018).

As it combined various sensors, the vast amount of data creates numerous possible applications, and the urban phenomena which was described by them can therefore “be documented and understood more precisely” (Anjomshoaa et al., 2018). Potentially, the data can be organized and utilized to find the hidden connections between the city and the citizens’ activities.

Among the three projects above, there are similarities and also distinctions. All of them are attempts that discover the hidden connections in our lives, while the project of swabbing subway station still uses manpower to collect data, the automatic sensors are applied in the following two projects—and City Scanner further demonstrate the idea of the sentient city. With the sequencing technology, the microbial world can hence be revealed, and our understanding of the city extended to another scale. With the sampling robots, the information flowing through the city can be collected and organized to get insight into public health. With the existing sensing technology, accompanied by design, the sensors in City Scanner did not alter the original function or disturb the utility of the trash trucks in daily lives throughout the experiment, they are living with citizens and the city.

4 Conclusion

The immersion of combinations between technology and design in the current world where the concepts of the artificial and natural world are no longer separated can be well presented in the above projects. From smaller scale of individuals to architectural scale, and eventually turned to the city’s perspective, the combinations are found ubiquitous in our lives. The presentation of the two guiding concepts in those projects is one crucial essence of their significance with respect to enlightenment and inspiration.

Besides the highlights of those projects, there are still some questions left for further discussion.

Firstly, is it possible for citizens to use them? Though many examples from different aspects have been raised, many of them are still in the prototype phase, which means it’ll still be some time until they really come into service. The technologies employed are mostly the most cutting-edge, and the costs, as suggested in City Scanner, would remain as a problem. Nevertheless, as shown in some projects on personal scale, such as MindRider and WearAir, are applications of commercial sensors and cheaper materials, and the possibility of DIY also makes them closer to civilians. The visualization of results also enables citizens to be aware of the current issue. However, the question is not only about accessibility or affordability, but also in terms of the interpretations of the technologies, or in aother word, the ability to manipulate the technologies.

Secondly, can these designs cope with the coming problems in the following decades? It’s common sense that the future is not predictable, the current problem we face may have an improved situation or will deteriorate to an extent we cannot imagine. Apart from the physical aspects, the human aspects can also exert great influence on the future situation. 

Suggested by Mohsen Mostafavi in Why Ecological Urbanism? Why Now? (2010), based on the current context, there are still many challenges that remain for sustainable design. The significance of incorporate ecology and urbanism and interdisciplinary cooperation was emphasized for reversing the predicament.

In the field of science, new progress would be made more easily with a rich foundation or related works on that topic. All the projects above have become the attempts made in history, though they have the potential to become applications in the future. They witnessed the effort of the pioneers and innovators in the field that devote into seeking the solutions for the future cities to deal with the environmental problem. There was transformation that happened in the generation of those pioneers, with all the uncertainties, there was a tough process of exploration. Now, the generation Z, who were born with these technologies and haven’t experience the transition, standing on the shoulders of giants, is expected to play a crucial role in the construction of sustainability by combining technologies and design, following the steps of the predecessors.

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