Digital Technologies and Alternative Social Imaginaries: Producing Architectural Counternarratives in Eco- communities

This chapter presents a reflection on the role played by digital technologies in fostering collective imagination within a particular category of sustainable communities, so-called eco-communities. The hypothesis that today digital tools and communication channels can pave the way to the definition of an architectural counternarrative, where real and virtual spheres coexist, is tested through a questionnaire-based primary data collection in three case studies across England: Old Hall, Hockerton, and Landmatters eco-communities. A critical assessment of the potentials and challenges imposed by digital technologies in the definition of an expanded operational field of architectural design is carried out in the discussion, leading to context-specific reflections on the role such technologies have in creating networks of care, reconceiving the territorial field of local eco-communities, and sharing ecological praxis.