A fascinating and culturally-based urbanism has emerged in Asia and elsewhere, fueled by aggressive investment in education, technology, and innovation.  It is hoped that concentration on these new-age tools will advance the most culturally sophisticated lifestyles possible, and in so doing reverse the trend of Westernization in favor of a more globalized world-view.  The result is unprecedented–a premier service-industry city typology, a new open city, a paradigm of a global post-industrial city. 

In those cities that have actively engaged this type of development, its effects are far-reaching and unprecedented, in particular for the design industries upon whose skill and innovation all services rely. Traditional systems of Western urbanism cannot be applied to the development of the new post-industrial city; they simply cannot cope with the demands posed by: the integration of new types of service/culture programs, application of technological advancements, and development/density/performance criteria.  A new urbanism, marked by supremely hybridized building and infrastructural systems, including housing, has emerged–and we see it in the rise of landscape urbanism, infrastructural landscapes, and a design culture underpinned by seemingly boundless interdisciplinary crossovers.  In addition, traditions of Western urbanism that touched upon national identity and regionalism have been replaced by a new globalized identity. 

This conference will explore the phenomenon of the open city by hosting panels that explore the reverberations of this new urban order.