Buildings themselves will become computers – the outcome of a long evolution … They are getting electronic nervous systems – network connections, cabling in the woodwork, and information appliances. As the speed at which bits zip around a building approaches that at which they are moved inside today’s computers, as different sorts of specialized sensors and input devices harvest bits at arbitrary locations, as processors are embedded wherever they happen to be needed, and as all the various displays and appliances are integrated into building-wide, digitally controlled systems, it will become meaningless to ask where the smart electronics end and the dumb construction begins; computers will burst out of their boxes, walls will be wired, and the architectural works of the bitsphere will be less structures with chips than robots with foundations.
Predictor: Mitchell, William J.
Prediction, in context:In his 1994 book “City of Bits,” MIT computer scientist William J. Mitchell writes: ”Increasingly, computers will meld seamlessly into the fabric of buildings and buildings themselves will become computers – the outcome of a long evolution. Pre-industrial buildings were not much more than supporting skeletons and enclosing skins. With the Industrial Revolution, they acquired increasingly complicated mechanical physiologies; soon they were routinely equipped with water supply and sewage systems, heating and air-conditioning systems, electrical systems, safety systems, and more. Now they are getting electronic nervous systems – network connections, cabling in the woodwork, and information appliances. As the speed at which bits zip around a building approaches that at which they are moved inside today’s computers, as different sorts of specialized sensors and input devices harvest bits at arbitrary locations, as processors are embedded wherever they happen to be needed, and as all the various displays and appliances are integrated into building-wide, digitally controlled systems, it will become meaningless to ask where the smart electronics end and the dumb construction begins; computers will burst out of their boxes, walls will be wired, and the architectural works of the bitsphere will be less structures with chips than robots with foundations.”
Biography:William J. Mitchell was a professor and dean of architecture at MIT and the author of the predictive book “City of Bits: Space, Place and the Infobahn” (1994). He also taught at Harvard, Yale, Carnegie-Mellon and Cambridge Universities. (Research Scientist/Illuminator.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: Internet Appliances
Name of publication: City of Bits
Title, headline, chapter name: Chapter 7: Getting to the Good Bits
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-books/City_of_Bits/index.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney