The network is the DNA of urbanization. In the 19th century railroads and canals provided both structure and stimulus for city development, while in the 20th century it was the highway that catalyzed urban settlements. Since the 1970’s this role has been taken over by a new species of networks called logistics that curate the global flow of data, people and products around the world each day. For our city fabric, and the design disciplines, this development has enormous and partially unfathomable implications that are only emerging. Clare charts the impact of logistics networks on architecture and urbanism and discusses how design might critically conceptualize, even integrate, these contemporary time-space systems into the built environment.
 
Clare Lyster is an architect, educator and writer. A native of Ireland she is now based in Chicago, where she is an Associate Professor at the UIC School of Architecture. In addition to CLUAA, a research and design practice founded by her in 2009, she frequently writes about architecture and urbanism from the perspective of contemporary theories in landscape, infrastructure and globalization. Essays have appeared in journals from Cabinet to Volume (forthcoming) and as chapters in edited anthologies on landscape and mobility networks. Current work focuses on logistical systems, the subject of her new book titled Learning from Logistics: How Networks Inform Cities (Birkhauser, 2016).
 

Image: BNSF Logistics Park, Joliet, Illinois, Aerial View, 2014

Daniels Sessions aims to explore new and alternative viewpoints on architectural practice and research. The series features speakers who present unconventional perspectives and work from both inside and outside of the discipline. Daniels Sessions aims to provoke thought and generate discussion in a less formal setting.