Can Modular Design Increase Your Building’s Potential?

I am intrigued by this quote about modular design: “A downside to modularity (and this depends on the extent of modularity) is that modular systems are not optimized for performance. This is usually due to the cost of putting up interfaces between modules.” (Wikipedia source here) At first... [Read More]

How to Use a Cliché to Make Your Building Design Work

I recently read an article by Seth Godin who describes a very powerful writing technique where an author takes a popular and widely used cliché, points it out in his or her work and then writes about its exact opposite. When done cleverly this can produce a very powerful result whether an author is... [Read More]

Going to Work in the Office Designs of Tomorrow

Productivity. Collaboration. Mobility. Globalization. Socialization. Culture. Such are the buzz-words which describe the more modern workplaces of today. But where is this all going? And why? One thing is for sure, computers are spreading. They seem to be everywhere. They’re getting smaller,... [Read More]

Can Flexible Design Get You to the Cutting-Edge?

What can flexibility do for you? Let’s exaggerate for a moment and see if we can make what is flexible, even more flexible. The goal is to get you to push some design boundaries and of course, to use the idea of “flexible design” to get your architecture to that “cutting-edge”. Of... [Read More]

To Design Building Skin Take Note of Human Skin (Video)

When You Think of “Skin”…What’s the First Thing You Think Of? Have you ever compared building skin to human skin? Well, with new developments like nanotechnology, smart materials and ubiquitous computing the time is ripe to revisit the inner-workings of the human body’s... [Read More]

Using Color Design to “Move” Your Occupant (Slideshow)

How do you use color to “move” your occupant? Do you go beyond merely using it as a wayfinding technique? Or do you “paint” your three-dimensional space to lead your occupant on a journey that enhances the spirit of place? As you will find within the following slideshow, color... [Read More]

In-between States of Kinetic Adaptive Design (Video)

Today, the spectrum between a part and its subparts can be vast and rather static, yet already, there are prototypes for architectural systems that can adapt to triggers to self-perpetuate their own form — and blur the boundaries between where their sub-parts begin and end. Such is the character... [Read More]

Rethink “Transition” to Unleash A New Kind of Design Fluidity

As new emerging technologies surface, the idea of “transition” will take on entirely new form. Not only will “transition” continue to exist between building materials (like you see in buildings today), but “transition” will also be present within a material’s... [Read More]

New Siftables, Change the Way You Work with Digital Media (Video)

An amazing new prototype called Siftables, developed at the MIT media Lab, merges the worlds of digital media and physical interfaces. The main idea behind them is to get virtual information into your hands (literally) by using a “block-like” natural interface that transcends beyond our... [Read More]

Why Differences in Spatial Reasoning can Impact Your Project

Can Desire Influence What You and Your Occupant See? This interesting experiment might just give you, as an architect, some understanding of how you and your occupants perceive “distance” — and why this aspect of spatial reasoning might vary from person to person; thus, influencing... [Read More]

Take a Virtual Tour of this LEED Platinum Green Building

Sustainable Systems Working Together as a Whole Light, water, temperature, air quality and renewable resources typically come to mind when talking about sustainable design, and to see these innovative green building issues tackled in one building project is wonderful. In this article I am calling particular... [Read More]

How Do You Inject Light into Your Building Designs? (Slideshow)

Light has many faces, and many forms. As an architect, you can “paint” with light, “sculpt” with light and guide your occupant to “touch” it. The following slideshow takes a look at how light can “set off” built form, and how built form can “set off” light. When the two fuse poetically,... [Read More]

Use Kinetic Design to Build Beautiful Behavior (Video)

Full scale architectural kinetic forms can appear to almost take off, float or flex in the most unexpected and beautiful ways. Thus, it is no surprise that as an architect, you can use kinetic design to manipulate form in time, to give you a certain freedom to inspire and reconnect your building occupant... [Read More]

Find Design Opportunity in Group Behavior

Right-handers Influence Group Behavior Simply By Choosing a Seat When designing audience seating within theaters or auditoriums, have you ever given specific thought to which seats will be used the most, and by whom? At first, it may seem strange to ponder such details when most of what you will need... [Read More]

Can “Design on Demand” Boost Corporate Culture? (Video)

Does More Choice Yield Better Customization? “Design on Demand” is becoming ever-more prevalent. With its surfacing, you and your client will be given more, and sometimes new, choice. Such customization is bound to change certain aspects of architectural design, perhaps even helping you... [Read More]

Conquering the Convergence of Architectural Technology

Adaptive Design: The Dialogue Between Building and Occupant Adaptive architecture will embody behaviors that respond to human and environmental interactions. It is with this transience that architectural space will more fully interact — or “converse” with its occupants, in grand... [Read More]

Have You Timed the Spacing of Your Architectural Features?

Fine Tune How Your Design Communicates Have you ever thought about the speed of human thought and how that might relate to your architectural design? Timing is everything. Both in the brain and throughout your architectural features, timing plays a critical role between the stimuli that your building... [Read More]

Mastering Design Innovation to Build Green Skins

Unleashing Necessity and Your Ingenuity The need to build green skins that are able to harness energy gives architects incentive to find new ways to use and guide emerging technologies. Essentially, it is necessity coupled with ingenuity that can often spark the best design innovation. As an architect,... [Read More]

A Design for Interacting with Your Own Static Energy

E-Static Shadows — Making the Intangible…Tangible Do you think architecture can make you connect with your own static energy? Well, the project E-Static Shadows found a way to do just that. In the video below, you will see how designers have taken a cross-disciplinary approach — ranging... [Read More]

Music, Experience and Your Architectural Designs

Can Music Increase Your Potential? What role does music play in your work as an architect? Do you listen to it while you design? Or do you incorporate it into your architectural designs, for your occupants? In an article recently published by The Boston Globe, Carolyn Y. Johnson writes about a surgeon... [Read More]

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