About Built in the Cloud

Built in the Cloud is a platform for critical inquiry at the intersection of architecture, technology, and culture. It explores how the accelerating digitization of life — from AI and automation to digital media and virtual space — is reshaping our physical environments, and how we might respond.

Humanity is navigating a complex transition. While digital systems offer unprecedented connectivity and intelligence, they also risk detaching us from the material infrastructures that sustain daily life — housing, transit, energy, food, and public space.

As a practicing architect, I work within the constraints of the physical world: building codes, budgets, climate, and terrain. These realities remain foundational, even as our attention shifts into the cloud.

Built in the Cloud is not a rejection of digital progress. It’s an invitation to think critically — and creatively — about how our virtual and physical worlds might evolve together.

About the Author

Adam Mayer is an architect based in Silicon Valley, California.

A noted authority on architecture, planning, and urban development, Adam has written articles for Alta Journal, NewGeography, CLOG, and Dwell Asia Magazine, and has been quoted in Monocle, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The South China Morning Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, and Bloomberg CityLab.

He lives in Silicon Valley, where he is the Founder and Principal of the boutique architecture and interior design practice, Studio AMA.

Follow Adam on X

Connect with Adam on LinkedIn