virtual dschungle 3

The formerly unified urban interface linking the act of shopping with the town is expanding visibly. Just as there used to be only small shops supplemented later by malls, so the euphoria of online location-free shopping has followed. A new era of shopping is dawning: virtual technology moving into the analogue corner shop means an enhancement of the shopping experience and a shift of the real location back into the centre of retailing.

This is producing zones of ambivalence between seduction and indulgence with interfaces of electronically sensitive materials. The threshold between buyer and vendor is the subject of discussion again, spaces are arising that awaken yearnings and flirtatiously and playfully incite people to buy. The first projects like this already exist, raising the question of the effect of media and digital lifestyles on the spatial and material environment and the demands these make of the planners.

The Panel

Mariusz Demner, Demner, Merlicek & Bergmann
Michael Gassner, xs42
Florian Pollack, head of Mobile Living ONE
Georg Petrovic, Petrovic & Partner Architekten (formerly, the unit)
Markus Schäfer, architect, Switzerland, former director of AMO
Moderated by: Oliver Schürer, Department of Architecture Theory at Vienna University of Technology, architecture journalist

sundays 152 on 05.12.04 is providing a guided tour to accompany the event “mixed reality 2 – design for communication”