About four months ago, I stopped checking my phone directly after waking up. Not that my sleep was bad, but I’ve started to dislike the behaviour. It still feels like a small victory every time I resist the temptation. On average, people spend one-seventh of their time on their phone. Combined with laptop and television use, this results in eight and a half hours of screen time a day on average in the Netherlands. For architecture and urbanism students, this is likely even longer.

When considering typologies of the built environment, a few spring to mind: The church, the house, the library, the graveyard… these all together provide for a diverse experience when departing the home. Different typologies carry not only diverse formal characteristics but they house specific experiences unique to their formal qualities.

We all know that Vitruvius’ (c. 90 - c. 20 BCE) treatise “De Architectura”, divided in 10 books, is still a guide for building projects. According to him the successful architect and engineer should have theoretical and practical knowledge based on a wider comprehension of sciences and arts. Buildings should always contain three aspects: beauty (venustas), stability (firmitas), and usefulness (utilitas). I wonder what Vitruvius would say about the contemporary city, concerning the new digital dimension being hybridized with it, and how we are teaching architecture.