Making another, perhaps more important observation, buildings, and even whole cities, have become infrastructural technologies….

“Making another, perhaps more important observation, buildings, and even whole cities, have become infrastructural technologies. From the fields of repeatable suburban houses and traffic-engineered highways of the mid 20th century to the malls, resorts, golf courses and big-box stores of contemporary culture, repeatable formulas make most of the space in the world. These buildings are not singularly crafted enclosures, but reproducible products — spatial products. The discipline of architecture is only responsible for a trickle of the world’s spaces while a fire hose blasts out the rest. A familiar confetti of brightly coloured boxes nestled in black asphalt and bright green grass tells elaborate stories about Starbucks coffee, Beard Papa cream puffs and Arnold Palmer golf communities. This all too visible cartoon of abstract logics shapes most of the space in which we are swimming. Now not only small communities and resorts but also entire world cities are constructed according to a formula, usually a formula that replicates Shenzhen or Dubai anywhere in the world.”

–Keller Easterling, The Action is the Form, Victor Hugo’s TED Talk (viainthenoosphere)