ABSTRACT
Architecture, along with laws, social norms, and the market, is used as a system of regulation and control, such that it physically structures human interaction with external environments. Looking to the intellectuals involved in founding Ekistics – the study of human settlements – in the 1960s, there is an emerging enthusiasm for networks and global interconnectedness that sparked a revolution in urban planning and architecture, which underpins the conception of the smart city today, functioning contemporaneously as a capitalist utopia. Historically, utopian creators have concerned themselves with the larger categories of the literary utopia and the design utopia. That is, architects such as Leon Battista Alberti and writers like Thomas More have been at the forefront of utopian thinking using the strengths of their respective disciplines, accounting for the principles and attributes of social and physical organization. The literary utopia created its idealistic conception for the future by altering institutions and social organizations.
