Fall 2021
From Land to LAND. Critical Spatial Practices in the Digital Domain

© Marija Maric

From the introduction of 'fractional ownership' to the emergence of entire markets for developing and trading digital land—real estate has become the latest frontier for start-ups and companies organised around the uses and promises of blockchain technologies. The seminar will critically access the role of the emerging blokchain technologies in enabling new forms of land and real estate speculation, seeing them, at the same time, as an opportunity and a tool for reimagining our understanding of (digital) urban commons. In looking at (and beyond) real estate tokenization, NFTs, Decentraland, Earth 2, Metaverse, to name just some—the seminar will revolve around the question: what is the relationship between the built and the virtual, land and LAND, the Earth and its digital twins, dwelling and attention, and how are architects to mediate these materialities critically?