Abstract

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“Information Overload”, “Data Deluge” or “Information Explosion” are terms often used in discussions related to the technological evolution in order to describe the rapid increase in the amount of published information or data and the effects of this abundance. Certainly, the amount of digital data increases every day and the social networks, like Facebook or Twitter play a decisive role to this process. We live in an expanding digital universe  ruled by information, of which the 90% has been generated the last two years, not only from traditional media but also from non-traditional new methods and tools: digital sensors that collect information about the climate, posts in the social networks, digital pictures and videos, banking digital archives and GPS signals derived from smartphones - to mention but a few. Meanwhile, the world’s computational and storage capacity grows significantly in order to process and save the ever increasing amounts of information. 
Not surprisingly, the progress in the area of information processing and storage as well as the evolution of the Information Technology have direct consequences on the everyday life. Most importantly, the way the world deals with information, perceives scientific research and envisages the future, have undergone slow and gradual but incessant changes. The Information Technology  has significantly transformed diverse areas, altering in this way the perception of space and time and, thus, the perception of reality. The Internet of Things and Ubiquitous Computing are only a part of the omnipresent technologies that are producing data on an ongoing basis. Connected through the Internet, they generate and exchange information about every aspect of today‘s life. Big data analysis, being one of the most popular means used by contemporary colossal companies of the Internet, such as Google  and Amazon,  gains value perpetually due to the ability to harness information in novel ways,  produce useful insights and create new forms of value. 
The thesis “Big Data Architecture” focuses on investigating the role of Information Technology and the “Data Deluge” when it comes to architecture and design. What Mario Carpo calls “the first wave of digital” in Architecture of the 1990s was defined and described by the elegant curved lines, easily produced by the design software. The management of the architectural information was achieved using Building Information Modelling applications, something that leaded to the division between the software destined for experimentation on the form and the programs deriving from the software industry mostly used for production.
Today, during the second era of the digital architecture, data acquires a protagonistic role , defying the bureaucratic logic of the past. In the spirit of Big Data Analysis, architecture transforms while this post-scientific paradigm is renewing and retooling contemporary digital design. Internet, data overload and evolved software  alter the design, permit and  promote participatory versioning, open sourcing and the digital “style of many hands”. The continuity between computer-based design and fabrication has mirrored and at times re-enacted, aspects of traditional, one-to-one hand-making and bespoke craftsmanship. As a result, the digital design of today finds its form by intuition, through an empirical approach, trial and error processes and computational simulations while in the meantime glorifies complexity, indeterminacy, nonlinearity and post-modern messiness.