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 properties — changing the very nature of how a particular material behaves at any given time.

For instance, smart materials will be able to change in real time as certain variables like temperature, light or stress trigger them. Similarly, new sensing technologies will come together to yield smart environments where ubiquitous computing is tuned to give occupants a more personalized experience.

Furthermore, as nanotechnology and biomimetic systems rise into the forefront, you as an architect will need to consistently rethink how building materials typically function — by building for them from the bottom up.

The “rules” behind designing for material behavior are changing and new smart material systems will give you a new kind of flexibility which you can optimize by taking both function and form to entirely new levels.

A key to doing this is to rethink your notion of …[Read Full Article]…

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 how people perceive your built work:

Here is a Sneak Peak at What the Experiment Revealed

In an interesting experiment, researchers engaged in a series of investigations to see if they could tell whether desire has a consequential effect over a person’s ability to perceive distance. In one of a series of experiments, the researchers put a coupon on the floor and asked participants to throw a beanbag that should land on top of the coupon on the floor in front of them.

Prior to throwing their beanbag, half of the participants were told that the voucher was worth $25, while the other half of the participants were told that it was worthless. Amazingly, the half of the participants that believed the coupon was worth $25 didn’t throw their beanbag far enough. Their throws always came up short.

The resulting explanation for this, as the researchers explained, is that the participants who thought the coupon was valuable actually believed that it was closer to them than it actually was. (The participants who thought the coupon was worthless estimated that it was further away.)

To see the original article, click [here].

Is Distance in the Eye of the Beholder?

As you design a building, you are constantly thinking in terms of distance. It factors into a multitude of the design decisions you make everyday. And once your design is built, your occupants must also think in terms of distance as they travel around and through your building, from feature to feature, from space to space and from experience to experience.

So, how do you incorporate distance as you design? And how do you make sure that what you envisioned when designing, translates well for your occupants once …[Read Full Article]…

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 attention to the LEED Platinum rated Genzyme Center located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Within this building project designed by Behnisch, Behnisch & Partner, sustainable systems work to create not only an energy-efficient environment, but also a healthier workplace for the approximate 900 employees who work there.

As you will see in the online virtual tour (at the end of this article), key building features include …[Read Full Article]…

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, they can showcase your materials, an experiential path or even “warm” an otherwise “cold” space.

So, the real question becomes…

WHY Do You Inject Light into Your Building Designs?

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 to do involves selecting the style of seats, specifying how many total seats you will need, designating which ones will be accessible, planning how they will meet egress requirements and making sure each seat position provides a clear view to the stage.

But, should everything be treated so generally? What about the differences in behavior exhibited by each person in the audience? Perhaps not everyone watches a performance in the same way.

Well, a researcher from Japan named Matia Okubo, published a psychology article describing and proving that right-handed persons, interested in paying attention to a film, will actually choose seats to the right side of the theater.

What do you think? Will such a seemingly miniscule characteristic make you think differently about how you design audience seating?

Individuals Make Up a Population, Design for Them.

There are almost innumerable times, as an architect, that you will need to make “small” decisions that affect a the entire collective group of your occupants at once. (Namely, I’m thinking of theater or auditorium seating arrangements, and school classroom student seating arrangements here.)

So, is it often that you think of your occupants in a “lump some” — rather than as individuals who happen to make up a collective?

Yes, negotiating that balance between a “population” and an “individual” can be a delicate thing to do. For instance, just like in the above theater example, school classroom design must also tailor to …[Read Full Article]…

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 part due to converging architectural technology.

With adaptive design, architecture will take on “motion” in new ways. A new type of “dialogue” between a building and its user will ask new things of its occupants, while feeding back dynamic and real-time sensorial stimuli.

Instead of having somewhat truncated conversations as you can experience with present-day interactive installations, the adaptive architecture of tomorrow will be able to engage in a dialogue where “feedback from the environment” takes on new meanings.

Today’s Sneak-Peeks

In their book entitled Interactive Architecture (my affiliate link), Miles Kemp and Michael Fox explore just how these adaptive environments could be designed and assembled.

Clearly showing how it will be possible to “construct” adaptive design spaces, they explain how “miniature robots, new material compositions, molecular geometries, robotic prototyping, atypical geometries and shape shifting-architectures” will have a profound effect on …[Read Full Article]…

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 puts out and the stimuli that your occupant’s brain receives. Why is this important?

Well, as an architect, you are the one who designs what those occupants engage with as they travel through your space. As each person absorbs the “information” that you put out, you are having an affect upon them — stirring them to move, feel, behave and think.

The composition that your features take on have both individual and cumulative effects — and you can use timing as a variable to further fine tune what you communicate through your design.

The “Space” Between Your Design and Your Occupant’s Thought

Part of what makes human consciousness possible is our brain’s ability to control the speed of our thoughts; and hence, incoming stimuli. Because of this, we are able to perceive our environment at once (in real-time). For example, if someone throws your keys across the room, you will see where they fall and hear were they fall. However, signals sent out by your brain’s core region (called the thalamus) act as “pacemakers” which ensure that such stimuli coming in from your eyes and ears is perceived simultaneously. (1)

As an architect, this should help you understand how important it is to design for your occupant’s various senses. Your occupants literally form impressions of your building by gathering stimuli through all of their senses as they journey through it. And although they perceive your architectural features in a synchronized way, it still does take time for the stimuli that your building sends out to travel from their eyes and ears for processing in their brain.

Hence, those movements, feelings, behaviors and thoughts that you help to stir…take time.

What does this mean for your architecture?

You should think about how your occupants travel through your design. What will they see, hear, touch, smell or even taste? How will you orchestrate your design so that …[Read Full Article]…

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, it will help you to think about building skin and all of its possibilities in totally new and fresh ways. Instead of using building skin to “shield” or “expose” building occupants to the external environment, think of how building skin can act as a live filter that “flexes” its own boundaries in dynamic ways. As an exercise to get you thinking along these lines try asking yourself the following three questions to get you started:

1. On Selectivity: How can I connect my occupant with nature in completely new ways? Instead of thinking of skin as a barrier, how can I think of it as a dynamic filter — how could I separate different light, air quality or sound properties so the exterior can enhance interior spaces? How many exterior/interior “hybrids” can I think of?
2. On Preconceptions: What qualities of nature do I presently take for granted as a designer? Can I “capture” a particular aspect of nature that is usually “invisible”? How can I “feed” my occupants through a building’skin to let them “touch” it in new ways? (For instance, a clever positioning and use of smart glass.)
3. On Transience: What could my building do if my building skin could change in real-time? Could “windows” move and flex in new ways? Could they magnify or minimize certain qualities of nature? What new “between-states” could I create to bridge interior and exterior environments?

With the advent and evolution of nanotechnology, there will be many new developments for architectural buildings — particularly when it comes to building skins. Already there are newfound ideas on the drawing boards showing how certain nanotechnology integrations could work.

Harnessing the Power of Sun and Wind

One example of this is seen in the Concept Tower designed by Agustin Otegui. Within this tower’s skin, Otegui uses Nano Vent-Skin (NVS) as a way to extract energy from both the sun and wind. Using a system of “sensors, organic photovoltaics and micro-wind turbines”, the Concept Tower’s skin would be able to self repair through a self assembly process.

In the following images you can see, conceptually, how this design would work: …[Read Full Article]…

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 who listens to music while he operates. Also, he is conducting various studies to really understand what effect music has on both doctors and patients. In addition to improving the results of surgery, he thinks music might also be used for other types of medical treatments. (1)

For example, while listening to Mozart, patients needed less sedation, had “reduced stress hormone levels and had lower blood pressure(s) and heart rate(s)” than those that heard nothing. Similarly, Mozart proved to be quite a success when measuring the performance of surgeons. Their accuracy was notably improved. (1)

Architects Take “Note”

This type of research will provide great information for architects to utilize for their work. Both in architectural offices and within architectural schools, you will most likely find …[Read Full Article]…

What Should People Do When They Wait?

How do you design for the function of waiting? Do your building occupants ever really wait? Typically, they move from one activity to another, but it is equally important to also design for those in-between moments. What happens during those “between” moments can really impact an occupant’s experience; thus, as a designer, you can make what goes on inside a waiting room a great experience.

Take hospitals, for instance. Once a patient has gone through the initial phase of “checking in”, then begins the often long and frequently boring wait. Unfortunately, many hospital designs don’t place an emphasis on providing for an optimal waiting area — and that is really a missed opportunity.

Just think of the things that could be accomplished and provided for patients, if only architects would give some serious thought to what patients actually need during this time. For example, within a hospital waiting room, patients could get views of nature or be surrounded by calming colors and pleasing sounds — thus, soothing patient anxiety and stress.

Another tactic that would help patients endure those long “waiting periods” involves giving thought to the arrangement and ergonomics of where they sit. Comfort while waiting is key, particularly for hospital patients who might be in a great deal of pain.

I have noticed that many waiting rooms incorporate …[Read Full Article]…