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// The currently maturing generation is the first, whose natural environment is the world expanded by the digital sphere.



Digitalization of the environment is not surprising for them, and knowledge does not have to be gained - it is always in your pocket, available immediately. Meanwhile, within the framework of infrastructure development, creating public spaces in the city centers is getting slightly better. We can observe a tendency to increase awareness and requirements that are aimed in the direction of urban spaces and architecture. City authorities increasingly choose a conscious and aesthetic public space, believing that it’s a good investment not only in the standard of living and satisfaction of residents but also in the economic condition of the city and often the entire region.¹
By juxtaposing the above aspects, some questions and doubts arise. Are the designers responsible for creating new spaces in the city trying to confront the change in the way people live? Should we try to get people's attention out of the clutches of the virtual world? Does man still need to read the urban tissue in which he moves, or does he already have the skills to function in complete chaos? Is the educational and navigational layer, present in the urban space projects, still justified?

Posthuman

First of all, conditions for the current attitude of people living in the cities date back to the nineteenth century. According to Richard Sennett, an American sociologist, it was during this period that the values ​​of an intimate society had their origin. The society of the nineteenth-century metropolises, described in the publication "The Fall of Public Man" as a result of the spreading capitalism and secular faith, turned away from public life, seeking basic values ​​in interpersonal relations, but among families and relatives.² The situation of the society led to the disappearance of the need or even fear of expressing views on the forum, making public life an occasional duty. Man began to raise the value of nurturing relations with his loved ones and his own development beyond public life and community thinking. An interesting factor influencing this transformation was the element of improving the quality of travel.



// Thanks to the revolution in the way of moving, distances in space ceased to matter, and more importantly - overcoming them became convenient. Sennett wrote: "the more comfortable the body was in motion, the more it cut off from the human group, wandered alone and in silence." ³



Sennet's insights on the transformations of Western culture help to better understand the aspirations of the modern consumer world. The cult of the individual, passive participation in social life and warmth in relations with relatives are factors that indicate why in the present we have so unreflectively arranged a private space in social media. It can be easily modified and personalized, we use it to create our silhouette, relationships and involvement in virtual social life, without moving from the place. In today's world, life is largely happening in virtual space. Starting with monitoring of personal biological cycles, such as sleep or heart rhythm, through participation in the life of local communities, ending up with access to global communication. Smartphones, which are a knowledge store, are able to navigate and have unlimited possibilities in improving our lives, escalate our bodies and minds, bringing people closer to the cyborg (from the cybernetic organism). The universality of smartphones and their use as a tool for living in cities, communities and the ever-expanding network is undoubtedly a turning point in the development of civilization.

Postcity

The modern city being a living and constantly evolving organism is more and more supported by the virtual sphere. Modern information technologies (Information Technology - IT) are implemented on many levels of urban life. The Internet of Things (IoT), a part of the Smart City development idea, is an issue worth approaching. IoT relies on communicating with each other’s electronic devices via the Internet for the purpose of data exchange and analysis and then optimizing the operation of a specific mechanism.⁴ In IoT cities, it is most often used to control traffic flow or improve the operation of public transport, as well as in transmitting significant information for smartphone users. In the future, Augmented Reality (AR) may become an extension of human capabilities. AR technology using mobile devices enables the generation of a virtual layer embedded in a real environment on the device's screen or on translucent spectacles.⁵ The mechanism of action used in cities would be based on locating electronic markers in space that would send information with data to passers-by devices. The urban space, due to the impact of this technology, will receive an expanded field to inform users about the location of places, their quality or history in a completely new way. Already now we meet places where projections of non-existent architectural monuments are used.⁶



// However, the most significant aspect of the urban life that is happening virtually is the urban agora. It is in the electronic media that the voice of the people is heard more often, which at the moment unites and takes a stand to finally gather in the real world, demonstrating them secondarily.



This mechanism has opened new possibilities for the Internet population. Thanks to global communication, Internet users operate beyond the dimensions of time and space. They create transnational movements or groups that, through their immediacy, have previously unknown strength of voice and speed of organization. A great example illustrating the possibilities of these groups are protests from May 2013. Over 2 million citizens from 52 countries in similar time opposed the global brand that distributed genetically modified food. Protests took place on 6 continents.⁷

Coexistence and competition

The factors described above, apart from transformations directly affecting people's lives, change and will change the reception and use of space in the cities. Therefore, it should be verified whether the sphere of architectural design and spatial planning goes hand in hand with the ever-growing range of tools which we process the cities and their spaces with. Both areas of real and virtual world design have a common, fundamental goal - to optimize the use of resources and improve various aspects of human life. The image of modern people whose everyday life takes place in the city has a special feature. A significant majority of the urban life participants is constantly looking at the screen of their personal smartphones (phabbing from ang: phone snubbing). Their attention, while in the actual city spaces, is increasingly focused in the virtual space. The result of it is a reduction of sensitivity to the real world around us and the incentives sent by it. Mesmerizing devices undermine the original intentions of conscious space planning. Elements of the environment, such as the readability of the urban layout or the function of navigating specific elements in the urban structure, are no longer relevant for so-called "smartphone zombies". A new user of a given area, instead of a hierarchical system of streets or view openings and dominants, will use a mobile application (eg Google Maps) to see exactly where to turn to overcome subsequent stages of the route. However, in the future, the AR application will notify us that the door of the destination of our trip is on the side facade of the building, which we have just seen through the electronic lens on the eye. Both cases cause acceleration of decision making about the next step of the user and they do it more effectively than shapes of urban interiors.