Refabricating the City

Abstract

Chapter 4 considers how, contiguous with the rise of automated machines, systems, networks, algorithms and circuits, technology is weaving new fabrics into and between cities. It then discusses ways in which computational models increasingly suggest or proscribe contemporary urban formations. Technological methods for appraising and sensing the city are now dominant and, through the use of simulations and games, offer both new limits and affordances for how the multiple dimensions and domains of unfolding urban fabrics can be rendered visible. The chapter further proposes the methods of crafting software itself suggest ways of opening up these urban fabrics to refactoring and reweaving.