A history of architectures of information [Talk + Drinks] September 16, 2010

A history of architectures of information

Are you a designer? Interactive maven? Web junkie? Do you love mixing up history and current events to find something interesting and new?

Join us at Adaptive Path for a scintillating talk by Web-guru and architecture expert Molly Wright Steenson as she shares her latest ideas and research on information, architecture, interfaces and the rich history that has evolved into the information spaces of today (and tomorrow!)

About this event

Today, we're used to the idea of informational interfaces melding with our buildings. But the idea of architecture made of information has a surprising history.

Starting in the 1960s, British architect Cedric Price created information architecture -- or rather, architecture made of information. He designed number of buildings that would be used to navigate information, that could learn from their users and respond to what they did. These included the Fun Palace, cybernetic buildings (1964); a proto cybercafe (1966) and sensor-enabled kits of parts that could get bored and rearrange themselves (1976).

These prescient projects show an architecture of information in the truest sense of the term -- information codified and categorized, computers specified for information management, novel interfaces for receiving content -- a full decade before Richard Saul Wurman coined the term "information architecture" in 1976.

Thursday, September 16, 2010
6:00pm – 8:30pm
At Adaptive Path, 363 Brannan St in San Francisco
(Between 2nd & 3rd)

Drinks and mingling at 6:00pm
Talk at 7:00pm

About Molly:
Molly Wright Steenson is a PhD candidate at Princeton, where she's writing a dissertation on the history of artificial intelligence, information science and interactivity in architecture in the 60s and 70s. Her design strategy and web career began 15 years ago and has included projects for Fortune 500 companies, creative startups, and R&D organizations. She was a professor at the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea in Italy (now a part of the Domus Academy), where she led the Connected Communities research area. Molly also holds a Master's in Environmental Design from the Yale School of Architecture. Online, she's at girlwonder.com.