By providing improved methods for the exchange of information, the widespread integration of the Internet into our culture has already begun to change the way that we live and work.  The traditional relationship between home and office has been transformed by this new communication tool, which has led to such things as the creation of live-work environments, the campus-style office park, and  telecommuting.  The growing infrastructure network that is required to allow the Internet to work at higher speeds and to provide for an increasing number of users requires great amounts of hardware, which must be housed in a new type of building: the data centre. Here, computers become the primary occupants, and any humans are present in a secondary role. 

The demand for these new types of environments calls for new architecture, which can be achieved through the transformation of existing typologies.  The typologies of house, office, and utility building, and the relationships between them must be rethought.  So, if it is the Internet which has brought about the need for this change, then by examining the unique way in which information is organised and experienced on the Internet we can gain valuable insight into how our physical environments can be organised to facilitate more efficient communication on as many levels as possible.

This thesis attempts to answer the question of how the information infrastructure that is found on the Internet can be used to improve our physical architecture.

This question is explored through the design of a centre for Internet business near the Cogswell Interchange in Halifax, Nova Scotia, that concentrates the facilities necessary to develop Web businesses into one building in an urban context.  This building could act as a nervous system for the city, giving the people of Halifax more access to information, as well as allowing them to contribute information of their own, through more efficient communication with the rest of the world.  This project combines office space, housing, retail, a ìserver farm,î conference space, recreation facilities, and tourist facilities into one building, and uses the organisational principles extracted from the Internet to encourage communication within and between the different programmatic areas.

This building, where the real and the virtual come together, can serve as a communication tool which allows local culture and ideas to be shared with the world.