high tech

1. High technology.
2. A style of interior decoration marked by the use of industrial materials, equipment, or design.

A descriptive term for industry heavily dependent on recent laboratory discoveries. Manufacturing computers is a typical high-tech industry.

Stylistic term applied to the expressive use of modern technology, industrial components, equipment or materials in the design of architecture, interiors and furnishings. It was first employed in print by Joan Kron and Susan Slesin in magazine articles of 1977. High Tech described the then-fashionable style of decoration using out-of-context, brightly coloured elements of industrial design (e.g. factory lamps, warehouse shelving, office chairs, work-benches, duct-work, glass bricks etc) in domestic interiors and shops. In their book High-Tech: The Industrial Style and Source-book for the Home (1978), however, Kron and Slesin cited a number of buildings, most notably the Centre Georges Pompidou (1971-7), Paris, by Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano, to add weight to their argument that 'the industrial aesthetic in design ...is one of the most important design trends today'. By 1980 this building (see PARIS, fig. 14) had become the standard exemplar of High Tech architectural design and remained a monument of definition thereafter. The bright colours of its exposed ducts, its transparent escalator tubes hung on the exterior of its boldly exhibited structural system and its general air of technological optimism made it a convincing large-scale demonstration of the Kron and Slesin aesthetic.

See the Abbreviations for further details.

A term used increasingly widely from the early 1970s to denote ‘high technology’, High-Tech was often associated with the utilization of advanced technology, as seen in contemporary architecture such as that of the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (1972-7). Designed by architects Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers it was largely fabricated in glass and metal, with many functions and services—such as escalators, walkways and services—clearly articulated on the exterior of the building. Other architects and designers associated with this outlook included Norman Foster in the Lloyd's Building (1979-86), London, and the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank building in Hong Kong (1979-86). Many of its qualities could also be found in the interiors of designers such as Nigel Coates and Eva Jiricna. The increasing fashionability of a style of architecture, interior, and product design that took on the symbolism of high technology was given a further fillip by the publication in New York in 1978 of the widely-selling book High-Tech: the Industrial Design and Source Book. Its authors, American journalists Joan Kron and Suzanne Slesin, suggested the appropriation for domestic use of mass-produced items generally used in a work context, such as industrial shelving and storage systems, stainless steel bowls from the catering industry, or rubber flooring. Such ideas had been explored in the Eameses' Californian house thirty years earlier where component parts were ordered from catalogues. However, many subsequent products were especially designed to capture a specific High-Tech ‘feel’, as in geometrically based wallpapers and textiles derived from graph paper grids, the widespread use of perforated steel sheets, and ‘space age’ gadgets. Supposedly a fusion of ‘high style’ and ‘technology’, High-Tech was often marketed in pre-packaged form in fashionable retail stores like Habitat, rather than being an imaginative redeployment of readymade, industrially-produced components by individual consumers. In its Catalogue of 1980/81 Habitat defined its Tech style as ‘a new look, reflecting the influence of the industrial style in home furniture’.

Style (some would deny it is anything of the sort) expressive of structures, technologies, and services by exposing and even emphasizing them, or appearing to do so (the so-called Machine Aesthetic). Some hold that High Tech originated in C19 iron-and-glass structures such as Paxton's Crystal Palace (1851), but its aggressive imagery owes more, perhaps, to Buckminster Fuller, Frei Otto, Archigram, and even Futurism and New Brutalism. The Centre Pompidou, Paris (1977), by Piano and Rogers; the Sainsbury Centre, University of East Anglia, Norwich (1977), by Norman Foster; the Lloyd's Building, London (1986), by Rogers; the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, Hong Kong (1986), by Foster; Schlumberger Research Laboratories, Cambridge (1985), by Hopkins; and the Financial Times Printing Works, Docklands, London (1988), by Grimshaw are among the most paradigmatic High Tech structures. It is also known as the Industrial Aesthetic, and it is really about image. It tends to be expensive to construct and maintain.

Bibliography

• Architectural Review, clxi/693 (May 1977), 270–94, clxxix/1037 (Jul. 1983), 14–59
• K. Daniels (1998)
• C. Davies (1988)
• Forester (1987)
• Jencks (1988)
• Kron & Slesin (1979)
• Jane Turner (1996)

The full bibliography for this book is available to download as a pdf file.
Download the bibliography for A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (PDF: 1.2MB)

Short for “high technology”; the term describes industries and firms that use or produce advanced technology, especially in electronics.

This article needs reorganization to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. There is good information here, but it is poorly organized; editors are encouraged to be bold and make changes to the overall structure to improve this article.

"High technology" redirects here. For the school, see High Technology High School.

See also High Tech Academy

For the computer chess program, see HiTech.

Look up high tech in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

In a search of New York Times articles, the first occurrence of the phrase "high tech" occurs in a 1957 story advocating "atomic energy" for Europe:^[1] "...Western Europe, with its dense population and its high technology..." The twelfth occurrence, in 1968, is, significantly, in a story about Route 128, described as Boston's "Golden Semicircle":

“

It is not clear whether the term comes from the high technologies flourishing in the glass rectangles along the route or from the Midas touch their entrepreneurs have shown in starting new companies.[2]

”

By April 1969, Robert Metz was using it in a financial column—Arthur H. Collins of Collins Radio "controls a score of high technology patents in variety of fields."^[3] Metz used the term frequently thereafter; a few months later he was using it with a hyphen, saying that a fund "holds computer peripheral... business equipment, and high-technology stocks."^[4] Its first occurrence in the abbreviated form "high tech" occurred in a Metz in 1971.^[5]

Before 1970, the term "high technology" appeared a total of only 26 times; during the 1970s, 450 times; during the 1980s, over 4000 times. As of 2006, any technology from the year 2000 onward may be considered high tech.

Contents 1 Architecture 2 Economy 2.1 High-tech sectors 2.2 High-tech industries 3 High-tech society 4 See also 5 Literature 6 References

Architecture

Main article: High-tech architecture

In architecture, high-tech design involves the use of the materials associated with high tech industries of the 1980s and 1990s, such as space frames, metal cladding and composite fabrics and materials. High tech buildings often have extensive glazing to show to the outside world the activity going on inside. Generally their overall appearance is light, typically with a combination of dramatic curves and straight lines. In many ways high tech architecture is a reaction against Brutalist architecture, without the features of post-modernism.

The high tech style emerged in the 1980s and remains popular. In the United Kingdom, two of its main proponents are Richard Rogers and Norman Foster

Economy

Because the high-tech sector of the economy develops or uses the most advanced technology known, it is often seen as having the most potential for future growth. This perception has led to high investment in high-tech sectors of the economy. High-tech startup enterprises receive a large portion of venture capital. However, if, as has happened in the past, investment exceeds actual potential, then investors can lose all or most of their investment. High tech is often viewed as high risk, but offering the opportunity for high profits.

Like Big Science, high technology is an international phenomenon, spanning continents, epitomized by the worldwide communication of the Internet. Thus a multinational corporation might work on a project 24 hours a day, with teams waking and working with the advance of the sun across the globe; such projects might be in software development or in the development of an integrated circuit. The help desks of a multinational corporation might thus employ, successively, teams in Kenya, Brazil, the Philippines, or India, with the only requirement fluency in the mother tongue, be it Spanish, Portuguese or English.

OECD has two different approaches: sector and product (industry) approaches.

High-tech sectors

The sector approach classifies industries according their technology intensity, product approach according to finished products.

• Aerospace technology
• Artificial intelligence
• Biotechnology
• Energy
• Instrumentation
• Nanotechnology
• Nuclear physics
• Optoelectronics
• Robotics
• Telecommunications

It can be noted that technologies which are not seen as high-tech, like Information technology, may also be considered in the scope of being part of higher technological developments.

High-tech industries

Further analysis from OECD has indicated that using research intensity as only industry classification indicator is also possible. The OECD does not only take the manufacturing but also the usage rate of technology into account. The OECD's classification is following (stable since 1973):

Industry name	Total R&D-intensity (1999, in %)	ISIC Rev. 3
High-Technology
Pharmaceuticals	10.46	2423
Aircraft & spacecraft	10.29	353
Medical, precision & optimal instruments	9.69	33
Radio, television & communication equipment	7.48	32
Office, accounting & computing machinery	7.21	30
Medium-High-Technology
Electrical machinery & apparatus	3.60	31
Motor vehicles, trailers & semi-trailers	3.51	34
Railroad & transport equipment	3.11	352+359
Chemical & chemical products	2.85	24 (excl. 2423)
Machinery & equipment	2.20	29

Furthermore, OECD’s product-based classification supports the technology intensity approach. It can be concluded, that companies in a high-technology industry do not necessary produce high-technology products and vice versa. This creates a problem of aggregation.

High-tech society

An overall society based in high-tech is something generally unattainable by the definition comprising its scarcity among every technology available. Some countries like USA, Germany, South Korea, Hong Kong or Finland can be in general considered high-tech societies in relation to most countries, since it is common for its citizens having access to technology that is presently at the cutting edge, in consumer's terms. Considering recent technological achievements, some parts of China, India and even England can also be considered high-tech societies regarding the rest of those countries. Research oriented institutions such as Aveiro University, ESA, MITRE, NASA, CERN, IIT^{[disambiguation needed]} or MIT might be considered high-tech microssocieties in relation to the general surrounding socio-economic region or overall activity sector. An organization's department dealing with the latest technology in their projects, may also be considered a high-tech microssociety within the organization's and partners' scope. Students and faculty related with ENAEE or ABET accredited programs might be considered high-tech society members, regarding other traditional degrees. In industry, companies working in the leading edge may be considered high-tech societies along with its main competitors, regarding the rest of the sectorial competition.

See also

• Atari Democrat
• High-tech architecture
• Industrial design
• Information technology
• Intermediate technology
• Knowledge economy
• Knowledge intensive business services
• Low tech
• Product design
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• MITRE
• ESA
• NASA
• CERN
• Aveiro University
• Japan
• South Korea
• Category:High tech recruitment companies

Literature

• Alexander Loschky: High-Technology Trade Indicators 2008 – An international comparison of the big economic areas and countries, 2008, Joint Research Centre (JRC): Scientific and Technical Research series

References

1. ^ "Atomic Power for Europe", The New York Times, February 4, 1957, p. 17.
2. ^ Lieberman, Henry R. "Technology: Alchemist Of Route 128; Boston's 'Golden Semicircle'" The New York Times, January 8, 1968, p. 139.
3. ^ Metz, Robert (1969). "Market Place: Collins Versus The Middle Man", The New York Times, April 24, 1969, p. 64.
4. ^ Metz, Robert (1969). "Market Place: Keeping an Eye On Big Trends", The New York Times, November 4, 1969, p. 64.
5. ^ Metz, Robert (1971). "Market Place: So What Made E.D.S. Plunge?", The New York Times, November 11, 1971, p. 72.

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