Can Our [New] Cities Survive?

Abstract

The developmental growth of home-improving devices and equipment has ceaselessly progressed from the Industrial Revolution until the present day. From heating systems to lighting equipment and air conditioning, we have now reached the Smart house age. However, in order to be efficient, such a kind of home demands a new city: A Smart City, with devices, networks, and infrastructures that would be fundamental requisites for its functioning. That is why the ancient cities, on the way to becoming an inconvenience for the development of the brand-new ones, are going to find their place in a desert, in a "tabula rasa" devoid of relics, ruins, and debris of their history. This contribution investigates the challenges that architects must put forth in trying to overcome such a condition of exclusion from the process of building a new human landscape.