A traveling fellowship in Architecture

1999 Competition Overview

The placeless, formless electronic technologies are the manifestation of a new era. Their impact on our conception and use of space, on the nature of the city, is the question we face.

The Bay Area, as a focus of much of the technological development of the electronic age, is the location of the project. The intention is to explore the architectural potential of their new era through a building which will serve as a Central Headquarters for the Electronic Media. There are two aspects to the program of the building: a Data Center for a national Internet Service Provider (ISP) of 200,000 subscribers, and an Electronic Culture Machine.

The ISP Data Center will house and make conscious to the public the administrative offices, hardware and file serves that run the formless and invisible internet. It will give a presence in the city to the equipment which is the architecture of the Internet.

The Electronic Culture Machine will be a public exhibition space, workshops and laboratories to explore and develop the potential of these new technologies. It will be an electronic counterpart to SFMOMA.