NTT Docomo's Keitai City ideas competition

'Keitai' City

iPod owners may disagree with this statement, but the keitai (Japanese term for, and hereafter, "cellphone") is undeniably the indispensable portable device of the past decade. NTT Docomo, the top mobile operator in Japan, organises an annual architectural design competition, with slightly varying themes, focusing on how (in my interpretation) the cellphone can be thought of as a tool for one to interact with others, and with his own space.

(I interpret the term 'keitai'/cellphone as 'convergence devices' - PDAs, blackberries, handheld PCs. For the sake of convenience, they will be referred to as 'cellphones' in this post.)

The 2005 competition website poses the rather general question:

"How is the city, our immediate environment, developing under these circumstances [presented by the ever-emerging use of the cellphone]? In times of great change, the city, in keeping with, or in critical reaction to, that change, has also undergone changes of guise or structure. What sorts of conditions will the city generate in the future, as the [cellphone] becomes an integral part of our lifestyle?"

In a discussion (full article here) between Kiyohito Nagata, Vice President of NTT Docomo and Managing Director of its Product Department, and Kengo Kuma, world-renowned architect, recurring themes of blurred boundaries between real and virtual architectures and infrastructures persist. Some interesting thoughts:

"Recently there has been a great deal of discussion about how to prevent leaks of personal information. If you drop your [cellphone], then you lose an enormous amount of personal information. This is the kind of problem that might be solved if we changed our ways of thinking, including our thinking about cities and space." Nagata

"If you look at the keitai as something that blends in together with people and spaces, then spaces will become more attractive and new spaces and systems will emerge to make life more enjoyable." Nagata

On the role of the architect in designing information / computational networks, Kuma contends:

"In the urban style of communications, when you want to meet your friend you get on a train and go see him. But you can also communicate by connecting through your keitai. If the rail network is an infrastructure, then you could also call the 'keitai' an infrastructure. In the 1960s, it was thought that cities should be approached in terms of their infrastructure. Since the 1970s there has been a reaction to that in architecture – an atmosphere of nihilism stemming from a feeling of powerless and the difficulty as an architect to make any progress with large urban plans. The dominant feeling has been that to discover where you should be going as an architect you should concentrate on designing small-scale architecture. The keitai has changed all that. Now seems to be our chance to change cities from their infrastructure."

The last paragraph might seem to suggest that Kuma is validating the role of the architect in the design of invisible infrastructures; therein lies a deeper consciousness of social awareness and the intention to seize the chance to "change cities from their [invisible] infrastructure(s)". While this may not be a completely new breakthrough in architectural discourse pertaining to real and virtual infrastructures, it represents a clear intention to push the boundaries of the assumptions associated with virtual infrastructures and networks. The organisation of such a competition (with a highly lucrative monetary incentive, no less!) can only be a good thing, with regards to idea- and content-generation.

The winning entry:

(Image copyright of NTT Docomo)

According to the winners:

"The telephone rings. The keitai is opened, like opening an umbrella when it begins to rain. A space floats above the person talking on the telephone, changing in shape and size according to the volume and tone of their voice. People talking on the telephone separate themselves to ensure that the surrounding people do not collide with the space. From the shape of the space visible above people making telephone calls, the surrounding people can spy on their condition.

When speaking on a keitai, although separate from the person on the phone, there is a sense of togetherness, and the feeling of actual space fades. At the same time, the surrounding people feel a slight sense of alienation. The intervening space (empty space) with the person on the phone has no substance, but by temporarily visualizing it in the space above the person calling, the awkwardness of the sense of place in the city, instigated by the appearance of the keitai, is softened."

(It is becoming more apparent that there does not seem to be a literal English translation for 'keitai' - it seems it could mean 'cellphone' and the network that is covers a cellphone.)

Other entries which piqued my interest (in no particular order; images are not mine, but NTT Docomo's):


The explanation for the above project, which I think leaves very much up to one's interpretation, goes:

"Palette city

Currently, the diffusion of the keitai is reported to have reached 80% of the population. If the enabled area of telephone reception is an urban region, there is almost 100% coverage, and it has become an important tool in influencing the behavior of modern people.

Accordingly, taking the eaves of buildings as the starting point, out-of-range areas are scattered throughout the town. For an environment in which the keitai is always enabled, we consider the presence or absence of electromagnetic waves to be an element for composing a new locality.

The intention is to give rise to a variety of places in the town due to the relationship between the place and the tool."

Conceptually, it is a neat idea - of defining space by the intensity of electromagnetic waves that are present (ostensibly by virtue of whether a cellphone is in use, or not). Such a space would necessarily be very dynamic and undefined - like a flux. Graphically, the project illustrates 'blobs' of spaces within the 'hinterland' of the electromagnetic waves generated in a cellphone conversation. These blobs fall within a fixed city infrastructure, with the walls of the building torn down / opened up (or at least, not considered). As a graphic image, it sends a strong message on the potential of dynamic, flux spaces taking over our perceptions of a city's spaces (or its cityscapes) as that which is traditionally defined by brick and mortar.

On to more winning entries:

"Information is provided as a continuous stream to mobile phones (like a webpage banner). Businesses purchase these rights to provide information about its services and products to all the mobile users in a designated area. This real-time information empowers individuals to proactively choose goods and services. This results in a flexible building that is determined by on-the-minute consumer demand."

"Digital fields in the keitai city follow urban forms; distance and space give relevance to information, forming a connection between the virtual and the real. The keitai contains its owner's preferences and attributes. It modulates and interacts with digital fields and other keitai - creating personalised cities."

Conceptually, the above entry resonates the most with my initial ideas for the Remapping LA project, in particular, its focus on the specificness of the owner's "preferences and attributes" to his mobile device. The projection of images or video content onto a virtual surface, as suggested in the collages in the entry, is resonant to my ideas of transient displays for the LA project as well.

"Invisible noise.
This proposal is keen on the perception of innumerable radio waves that exist in urban settings. We use the mobile phone daily, but are unable to perceive the existence of corresponding radio waves. They are visualised using the nature of light and radio waves that travel at the same speed. We intend for the space to become a place to realise that the imperceptible element in our space has actual transfer and movement." (language edited)

The above entry is reminiscent of light installations done by artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, or the technique used to visualise invisible laser beams by blowing powder (a la Catherine Zeta-Jones in Entrapment).

Thus, what originates as a rather mundane, yet challenging, question leads to several interesting ideas that definitely bear potential for further development and realisation. Parallels can be drawn between some of the concepts that have been visualised in the above proposals and some of the ideas that have been brought up in the REMAP brainstorming sessions, including those which I have a vested interest in.

See the full proposals and results here.