
Adam Greenfield is an American writer and urbanist, based in London. He was born in
Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania in 1968.
Early life
Greenfield attended
New York University, graduating with a degree in Cultural studies in 1989. Between 1995 and 2000, he served as a psychological operations specialist (later sergeant) in the United States Army’s
Special Operations Command.
Career
After leaving the Army, Greenfield took up work in the then-nascent field of
information architecture for the World Wide Web, holding a succession of positions culminating in employment at the
Tokyo office of
Razorfish
Razorfish may refer to:
Species Fish
A common name used for three unrelated groups of fishes:
* The genera ''Aeoliscus'', and ''Centriscus'', also known as shrimpfishes, in the family Centriscidae
* The genus ''Xyrichtys'' of the family Labridae
* ...
, where he was head of information architecture.
In the 2006 and 2007 academic years, with Kevin Slavin, he co-taught a class at New York University's
Interactive Telecommunications Program called Urban Computing. In the following academic year the class was renamed Urban Experience in the Network Age, and Greenfield taught it alone. From 2008 to 2010 he was
Nokia's head of design direction for user interface and services, residing in
Helsinki throughout the assignment. In 2010 he returned to New York City and founded an urban-systems design practice called Urbanscale, which describes their work as "design for networked cities and citizens."
In September 2013, Greenfield was awarded the inaugural Senior Urban Fellowship at the
LSE Cities centre of the
London School of Economics,
relocated to London, and taught in the MArch Urban Design programme at the
Bartlett School of Architecture of
University College London.
Publications
*2006: ''Everyware: The Dawning Age of
Ubiquitous Computing'' (), which has been called "groundbreaking" by
Bruce Sterling
Michael Bruce Sterling (born April 14, 1954) is an American science fiction author known for his novels and short fiction and editorship of the ''Mirrorshades'' anthology. In particular, he is linked to the cyberpunk subgenre.
Sterling's first ...
: "One puts it down with a strange conviction that web-designers have transcended geekdom and achieved Zen soulfulness."
*2007: ''Urban Computing and Its Discontents'' (), (co-author) an overview of informatics for urban environments
*2013: ''Against the Smart City'' ().
*2017: ''
Radical Technologies
''Radical Technologies'' is a non-fiction book by the UK-based American author Adam Greenfield. Subtitled 'The design of everyday life' it looks at the technologies that are transforming the world at an ever increasing rate.
Greenfield's take on ...
'' (,
Verso), about the relationship between new technologies and social forces leading to their adoption or rejection. Writing for ''
The Guardian'', Stephen Poole called the book "tremendously intelligent and stylish", and comparing Greenfield's view of the future with
The Culture novels from
Iain M. Banks.
References
External links
Greenfield's personal siteUrbanscale"Urban Computing and its Discontents", a freely downloadable pamphlet co-authored with Mark Shepard
{{DEFAULTSORT:Greenfield, Adam
American technology writers
1968 births
Living people
Writers from Philadelphia
Writers from London
21st-century American non-fiction writers