New interactive tools are surfacing to help architects do their job better. One such tool is a multi touch 3-D architectural application which can be used as both an interactive table device and a larger scale screen projection. While I can see such devices being helpful to architects for brainstorming, project reviews, coordination meetings, and client presentations, we really should ask — is this just another “cool” device? Or, does it really help architects like you to do your job better?

Before we go on to talk further about the application technology, I think it best to show you a glimpse of what such multi-touch devices can do:

As you can see, 3-D visualizations are developing past solely working with still renderings or even scripted and locked in place animations — which today mostly run as “replays” of camera movements that serve to walk someone through a space along a predesignated path. But what makes these new multi touch virtual reality environments even more helpful is that they give architects the ability to …[Read Full Article]…

Image: midnightcomm | Flickr

As current buildings make their way toward becoming interactive architectural environments that increasingly gain capabilities to adapt, you can begin to imagine how that kind of building’s communication system will act like a “nervous system” that travels throughout the building infrastructure. But you may ask yourself, just how might this “wiring” take place? And how can we prevent that communication infrastructure from being redundant both in the labor it takes to build, and in its ability to sync with dispersed sensors throughout the building.

According to the article entitled Turning HVAC into RFID, HVAC ducts are a very useful way to create a building wide antenna that can serve to help process incoming information from RFID antenna sensor networks that control various systems within a building. What this all means is that most of a building’s nervous system can go from being wired, to being wireless.

As was pointed out in the article, we have many systems within a building that work from sensors, including temperature control, fire and security systems. And while such wireless communication may prove to work very well for certain building needs, it may not quite work as well for others. But just as with any new technological ideas, there will be limitations and challenges. However, finding ways to make communication more efficient within smart buildings, is a step in the right direction.

Adding Functionality by Enhancing Your Building’s “Nervous System”

Today many buildings are rather static, depending on their own occupants to make them “operable” by physically adjusting so many of their components. Yes, buildings today have an array of …[Read Full Article]…

Image: Verino77 | Flickr

New technologies are emerging like smart windows that are not only making it more energy efficient and cheaper for occupants to run their smart building systems during different seasons of the year, but are providing a way to make occupants feel more comfortable as well.

There is a new smart window on the market which is described as “tunable” in that it would give people a way to control how much light and heat come in through that window. The key here is that the smart window allows for occupants to make light and heat adjustments independently from each other. So for example, an occupant would be able to let heat in while simultaneously blocking out the light. This might be good in winter months, for example. (For more of a description about how these new smart windows work, you can check out the Technology Review article here.)

What Will Make “Tunable” Design Elements Desirable?

Such new smart windows are a good sign because they are …[Read Full Article]…

Image: luisvilla | Flickr

When you walk through a building like a mall or an airport where there is a lot of signage, and often much of that signage is advertising, you might either feel somewhat interrupted as you travel to your destination, or you might feel helped by finding a “just-in-time” building directory, pertinent advertising or other relevant piece of information that you can use. Such wayfinding can exist at many scales…from being located within a building to being displayed prominently on a street as a billboard. And today, such signage is getting a facelift not only to become more digital, but to be more interactive — which is bringing with it a new kind of personalization for those passersby.

Of course, such interactive signage in the form of advertisements was taken to one extreme in movies like Minority Report. And while, on one hand, that brings with it all kinds of issues about what that kind of interactivity (where public advertisements appear personalized to you as you walk down the street) might do to privacy (as has been shown to be a concern by many people), there are some practical applications today which can be extracted from those Minority Report portrayals. And these can serve to improve not only the aesthetics of building signage, but also the usefulness and helpfulness of the information which appears on that signage.

Making wayfinding a better experience includes tackling issues that deal with timing, understanding the demographics of those that will experience that signage and a designer having a more intimate understanding of how people perceive, process, and respond. While more interactivity is emerging on the façades of commercial buildings, it becomes evermore important for designers to take a look at how such signage can better …[Read Full Article]…

Image: samuelbausson | Flickr

Buildings are much more than a surrounding envelope which merely exists in a state separated from its occupants and their objects and tools. Instead, buildings are part of the landscape which helps occupants to live better. And now, with more sensory technologies, architecture can connect anew with occupants to greatly uplift their lifestyle… through their objects and tools that they use everyday.

Much of this is done by making interactive surface design within your building highly effective.

Many times, people think of sensing technologies within architecture as a way for the building to pick up all kinds of cues from just the occupants, but that is only one part of how a building can read or interpret the language and context of what is happening within it. In fact, a key way for a building’s systems to engage with occupant behaviors is by sensing cues from an occupant’s objects — like a bottle of medicine that might need to be refilled or random food from the kitchen that might be calling for a good recipe so it doesn’t go to waste.

Such is the challenge being worked on by Intel when developing Oasis, an interactive surface design technology that can be used in many places throughout a home, or for any building type should the need arise. Really, it can work on a simple premise: as objects and their respective movements occur, sensory technologies gather …[Read Full Article]…

Image: icathing | Flickr

Just imagine wearing clothes that monitor your body’s processes throughout the day. Well, in a recent issue of Scientific American it was found that MIT researchers have come up with a piezoelectric fiber that can record and produce sound. So, what does this mean for architecture and why would this impact you and your designs? I think the answer is in understanding that clothes can act as a bridge between your occupant and your building.

You see, as your occupant travels through your building, your building can actually begin to aggregate data sent by their clothes — which can not only engage occupants in what to do, but can also tell the building what to do and how to better respond and engage those occupants. Furthermore, your building can collect data from all of its occupants at any given time and begin to respond for the collective whole as well as each individual occupant — for instance, by understanding more about their human process of body temperature, blood pressure or movement speed and location.

The clothes of tomorrow can become a unifying bridge between occupants and their built environment — and there is a huge …[Read Full Article]…

Image: TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³ | Flickr

The work going on over at the SENSEable City Lab at MIT will really make you think. You might start by simply asking yourself what would happen if little omni lights (think stars in the sky, but much much closer) could move around responsively and dynamically through space — and move transiently in coordination with one another. Well, this direction is what the group over at MIT is working on right now — and their project is called Flyfire.

You may already know what can happen when you start with just one pixel-like point when working with computers to design architecture in programs like AutoCAD or 3D Studio Max. But, what will happen when when that pixel-like point becomes more of an omni light in real life— a three-dimensional point in space that has the ability to harmonize with others of its own type?

For starters, these little hovering lights can be orchestrated to yield not only two-dimensional displays that light up in a rainbow of colors, but can further align themselves into three-dimensional free-forms or sculptures. It kind of gets one thinking about what might happen, from an experiental point of view, if people could literally walk-through light displays, where architectural boundaries become not only transient, but also …[Read Full Article]…

With the redefinition of flexible space into what is now being called kinetic architecture, you as an architect need to go beyond movement to really think about what growth, expansion and contraction has the power to do. Furthermore, we can begin to bring forward what it might mean for architectural design when we think about a folding space — space transiently reconfigured through variation.

It is time to revisit walls, by really looking at them in section, and understanding how easily walls can turn into the ceilings, floors and transient windows. For this reason, I love the following image which shows you very clearly one way in which an architectural product called Metamorphosis Shimmer (by Philips Design) can make a simple, elegant and multifaceted design for kinetic architecture.

Image: centralasian | Flickr

Here is what Philips Design says when describing their Metamorphosis Shimmer product: …[Read Full Article]…

Image: williamcho | Flickr

As Communication Technology Moves Ahead…

How will your building be used over time? I’m sure you already take into account how certain materials will look as they are continuously exposed to sunlight or are worn down by occupant use. But do you ever seriously consider how, when and why your building will need a “facelift” during its lifespan? Well, today there are a multitude of factors that can spark the need for such change — and a major one is communication technology.

Communication technology is spreading and evolving at a faster and faster pace — particularly noticeable in office buildings. The nature of the way employees communicate is having radical effects on the way buildings work. In fact, the cultures behind many architectural institution-types are morphing because of changes in communication — and their occupants certainly feel the differences.

With new technologies, people are able to …[Read Full Article]…

Image: MarcelGermain | Flickr

Yes, I often write that you should think about the senses, materiality and so on. But I would like to emphasize that as an architect you are a “director” of sorts. It is important to learn how to synchronize and orchestrate all of those architectural elements to create the experience you intend.

As an architect, once you get a good grasp on how the human senses really work and really develop a high design skillset, you should always be concerned with synergy and orchestration.

Here is what I mean…

Lighting + Material = Redefined Form

The equation I just made up above is an example of how powerful (and simple) this idea can be. Take a building like the Torre Agbar in Barcelona (image shown above) and you will get a notion of what I am talking about.

Using technologies to enhance, minimize or morph your architectural elements can be a very effective technique. Most architects today simply “add-on” new technologies to their design. Kind of like the architect said “I’ll include this because I can.” The result is that it is not well integrated and does not do much for the design. In some cases, it actually makes the design worst.

SOME DESIGN TIPS

Take the simple equation that I wrote above and get this to challenge and push the way you think when you are designing a building. Ask yourself about what …[Read Full Article]…