Digitally Enhanced Architecture for Sustainable Placemaking: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Digital placemaking embeds digital technology to enhance form, activity, and meaning. The inclusion of digital material into conventional placemaking diagrams indicates gaps and leads to the development of new propositions. This study aims to develop new propositions, principles, and criteria for digitally enhanced architecture for sustainable placemaking. The novelty lies in the new proposition of digitally enhanced architecture by using digital information as a formal material for sustainable placemaking through multisensory experience and two-way user-form interaction. This study uses a systematic literature review method to analyse 38 theoretical and 20 case studies based on constituent aspects (form, activity, meaning) in digital placemaking and media architecture theory to formulate design principles and criteria. The developed propositions are digital information technology as form, reciprocal multisensory interactions as activities, and perception for place meaning. The principle is digital form stimulates users' sensors to respond via two-way interactions, constructing a perception of place meaning. The criteria are building architectural forms from digital information as a physical setting and stimulating two-way multisensory interactions for spatial perceptions and experiences associated with memory and meaning. These findings apply to places with inaccessible physical forms, so digital information can replace and stimulate interactive activities to construct, strengthen, or restore place meaning.