image: Manky Maxblack | Flickr

As you design your building, do you ever think about what will remain “standing” both physically and in the minds of those that experience it in the future?

Yes, buildings weather and must pass certain “tests of time”, but do you ever consider whether your building will be worth “saving”, or will even be in use as time passes? It has been said that “[i]t takes a lot of money to build a building, but it doesn’t cost that much more to get it right”.

Thus, you should think about how to gain the most “design leverage” to ensure that your architecture will not only “stand” in the future, but will also be of value to those that experience it.

What Makes a Building Stand the Test of Time?

Eventually as time passes, you will reach a point in your career where you will need to expand, preserve or even tear down a building as occupant’s needs change or even as zoning or codes change. Needless to say, it can be quite tricky if you are the architect who must resurrect or modernize the “old” to give way to the “new”.

So, what is your design philosophy when tackling this set of challenges? How do you integrate the collective memory of the people who have experienced the old? And then turn around to rise above the collective expectations of those that want their “site” to receive that proverbial “facelift”?

Of course, there is no one-size-fits-all answer to architecturally exploring, integrating, deconstructing, demolishing or preserving what once was into what will become. However, one ideal goal might be to reach true architectural innovation that brings a site’s potential forward so architecture can leap toward elevating the lifestyles of the people it serves.

It is your job as an architect to pay attention to what came before, with much attention to what is needed now — and how you will rise to the needs of occupants in the future, with your foresight today.

Designing a building that stands the test of time takes much ingenuity and insight. But in the end, it seems that great architecture usually resonates with its occupants not only in their everyday individual memories, but within their collective memories — which are shared and passed on — as they contribute to overarching cultures.

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I would really like to get your feedback on my post today, so please leave me a comment in the form below. And if you enjoyed it, make sure you share it with your Twitter followers by “tweeting” it using the re-tweet button on this page.

© 2008-2009 Sensing Architecture by Maria Lorena Lehman

Diagram of red dot modules and lines of communication.
Image: Ethan Hein | Flickr

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 glance, modularity can give you ways to expand, re-locate or even provide for more mass customization opportunities within your work. And in some cases, modules can have such distinct characteristics that they actually serve to “brand” your work — if done well, this can be a good thing.

Yet, there is so much missed opportunity when it comes to the module. Instead of always trying to have modules “lock” into one another, try to provide each module with a proverbial “key” to unlock its neighboring modules in certain ways.

Just like the cells of the body which must communicate chemically to keep the entire system healthy, modules within an architectural design could communicate and thus, change their functions as needed, wherever needed.

Such modular communication allows for an entire “systems” approach to building not only functions, but also behaviors. So why not ask if there are any missed opportunities in your design where modules can communicate?

And just as a side note, sensors and actuators are only one way to get this done.

Please Tell Me What You Think

I would really like to get your feedback on my post today, so please leave me a comment in the form below. And if you enjoyed it, make sure you share it with your Twitter followers by “tweeting” it using the re-tweet button on this page.

© 2008-2009 Sensing Architecture by Maria Lorena Lehman

One way to Juxtapose A Door/Corridor cliché
Image: Andy Miah | Flickr

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 trying to stir humor, thought, emotion or even trying to change a reader’s belief or behavior.

As architects, we should take a cue from this author’s “gem”.

For example, the way many architects spec doors and corridors in a building design is one type of architectural cliché you’re probably used to seeing. You know — the type of door with “typical” dimensions, hardware, materials and so on.

But what would happen if you pointed this type of cliché out in your design and then immediately juxtaposed it with its complete opposite? What would you create?

If done well, your solution would make for a remarkable occupant experience. Such a juxtaposition would surely redefine what you and your occupant think a “doorway” can do. Also, you would remove those overused clichés that pollute and weaken your designs as they emerge as unnecessary.

Make your occupants re-experience what they take for granted by asking yourself what it is you take for granted. Give both you and your occupant a fresh lens.

Please Tell Me What You Think

I would really like to get your feedback on my post today, so please leave me a comment in the form below. And if you enjoyed it, make sure you share it with your Twitter followers by “tweeting” it using the re-tweet button on this page.

© 2008-2009 Sensing Architecture by Maria Lorena Lehman

image: Incase Designs | Flickr

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, more helpful and their interfaces are getting more intuitive. It’s no wonder that the surrounding environments which inhabit them now often allow for more mobility, productivity and collaboration.

But what about creativity? It’s an important factor — and one that should be addressed head-on.

I think that fostering creativity within office cultures is both fundamental, and too often under-emphasized and overlooked. After all, it is creativity that is the glue for so many office cultures today. Just think Google.

Within Google corporate cultures you can see how having a creative work office design literally feeds the Google work culture — ultimately leading to more innovation, better employee satisfaction, retention and outreach.

Here is a quick look around the Google Chicago office so you can get a glimpse of what I’m talking about (before I go on):

You need to design for Work Places that Move

As you can see from the above video, Google offers quite a comprehensive array of amenities for employees (including other facilities like beach volleyball, video games, pool tables and ping-pong which were not shown). In turn, Google’s employer perspective is quite pleased with the effects of providing this “college-like campus” as creativity fuels their innovative spirit (and subsequent products).

Now, on the other end of the spectrum are situations where employees work “remotely”, from a home office, a hotel, a café or even their car.

So where is this all going — and why?

All in all, incredible and rapid development of computers and other ubiquitous technologies are impacting not only how we work but also where we work. As architects, you should pay particular attention to these trends because as employee lifestyles change — so too will the workplace architecture(s) which surround them (wherever those may be).

Expect the blurring of boundaries as things like Twitter, Google Wave and other streaming communication tools abound. Suddenly, what you know about restaurant design can help you design a better office or what you know about office design can help you design a better café. Perhaps what you know about car design will help you design better office “pods” and visa versa.

Further down the road, we may very well see an employee as wearing their “office”. Yes, I’m sure we’re not too far away from seeing some prototypes for that.

So, it may be time to really ask yourself again:

“What yields productivity, collaboration, mobility, globalization, socialization and culture?”

As the “walls” that typically define an office space blur, how will you design them innovatively — or shall I say, in a way that challenges your occupant (employee) to enjoy their work, stay healthy and do a good job.

Odds are, creativity will still be a major design factor.

Please Tell Me What You Think

I would really like to get your feedback on my post today, so please leave me a comment in the form below. And if you enjoyed it, make sure you share it with your Twitter followers by “tweeting” it using the re-tweet button on this page.

© 2008-2009 Sensing Architecture by Maria Lorena Lehman

image: Manky Maxblack | Flikcr

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 course, there is a find line between extreme flexibility and that ultimate point where something just breaks. But for now, let’s take a look at the following list which I’ve put together to get you thinking about how you can take full advantage of flexibility for your future designs.

The aim here is to design architecture that is both technologically, scientifically and aesthetically advanced, but to do this in a most humane and occupant-centered manner.

To get started, try asking yourself the following four questions and see if you can “strip away” what you take for granted to bring an innovative edge to your work:

1. How might my designs change if I could reinvent any building material with whatever properties I specify?
   
   

   Nanotechnology will bring a new type of flexibility into the forefront of architecture. As we speak, materials are getting smarter from the bottom up (at the nano scale).

   What you generally think a material can do today, will likely change into tomorrow. Glass will span wider distances, concrete will self repair and other materials will be stronger than steel (and weigh less). Nanotechnology can change what you think you know about material behavior.

2. If my building’s surfaces (regardless of thickness) could sense and actuate, what would I have them do for my building occupants? Both for the entire group and for its individuals?
   
   

   Buildings skins are already gaining ability to breathe and to sense and interact with their exterior and interior environments simultaneously. Skins are becoming smarter, not just because of the materials being used to make them, but also because of the strategies being used to optimize the notion of “surface”. Can you make your building skins “breathe”?

3. What varying internal or external conditions do I want to keep “constant” for certain individual occupants? Or for a whole group of occupants? How?
   
   

   Believe it or not, asking yourself how you would go about keeping something constant, immediately exposed all of the “variations” you would have to account for. Suddenly it becomes clear, for instance, that to keep temperature constant you need to account for location, season, personal preference and time of day. What better way to get you thinking of how you can “play” upon the notion of “flexibility”.

4. How might I take what I find to be a beautiful experience or thing and present it in totally new form for my occupants to enjoy? How can I manipulate it to make it something new?
   
   

   Pushing your design instincts to intuitive extremes can often have great results. Capitalize on architecture’s ability to surprise, inspire, calm and bring spirit to your occupants. Being creative means knowing the right time to push the boundaries — and finding moments that lend themselves to greater flexibility.

Please Tell Me What You Think

I would really like to get your feedback on my post today, so please leave me a comment in the form below. And if you enjoyed it, make sure you share it with your Twitter followers by “tweeting” it using the re-tweet button on this page.

© 2008-2009 Sensing Architecture by Maria Lorena Lehman

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 largest organ. After all, there is much to learn by taking a closer look at what lies beneath its surface — particularly as it relates to architecture.

What do you typically think of when you think of “building skin”? Does it primarily function to keep the exterior outside and the interior inside? Or do you use it to bring the outside in within certain parts like windows, ducts and doors? Perhaps you have a more avant-garde way of working with “skin” — using it as part of your architectural language that allows your building to communicate with both its interior and exterior at the same time.

Wherever you may be in your ideas and way of designing building skin, I’m sure that the human skin can help to reinforce and spark new ideas for your architectural designs. You might be surprised to discover that there are many similarities between these two “skins”, and in essence, they are both there to protect and to communicate.

Can Human Skin Inspire Your Designs?

For starters, I want to show you this simple video that clearly shows how the human skin operates physiologically. Now is a good time to watch this sneak peek:

Notice any similarities between what human skin needs to do and what your building skin needs to do? Well, there are many similarities, particularly as building skin evolves into the future by continuing to integrate sensing technologies into its “surface”.

With such technological advancements (and with ongoing movements like sustainability and biomimicry) building skins will take on renewed ways to “breath” where its systems and surfaces will be capable of things like self-assembly, self-repair and self-regulation.

Of course, these are also some of the characteristics of human skin, and to take matters further, there are many more potential similarities when you consider the pieces and parts to make all of this work — for example, did you see the sensory receptors in the latter skin video? Beneath those layers are sensory receptors which basically allow the skin, and thus the body, to extract the most pertinent and helpful information from the exterior.

Just to get You Thinking…

Really, as the architect, it is you who embeds “rules” into your building skin, and it is your building skin that will hold, process, actuate and communicate to the rest of your building’s “body”. Just as human skin maintains a systematic structure, so too does your building skin — in real-time.
Thus, you should rethink the potential of what your building “skin” can become. As it is indeed a barrier, it is simultaneously a flexible filter. Just think, your skin can become a “bridge” that pulls from the exterior to feed the inside, and visa versa.

Upon finding this right balance and optimization, architectural skin can be quite beautiful.

The following is a simple, abstraction and interpretation of a “breathing” architectural skin. What ideas does this give you? And how can you use building skin to improve your architectural environments for your occupant?

© 2008-2009 Sensing Architecture by Maria Lorena Lehman

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 can be used within architecture in soul-stirring and innovative ways. Color not only engages a building occupant by making real the beauty of function, but also invites them “in” to truly “touch” a space — perhaps at first with their eyes, but then with all of their senses as color becomes much more when it meets the eye.

So, how do you use color to “move” your building occupants?

© 2008-2009 Sensing Architecture by Maria Lorena Lehman

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 of adaptive design.

As adaptive architecture evolves, systems will become more seamless and their behaviors will stream more fluidly. The idea of nesting, fusing and embedding behaviors into a design’s systems and sub-systems will require that you consider the in-between states of your form — slowing down real-time behavioral movements and speeding up that which appears to be standing still.

Of course, if you don’t have it already, this all will require a mindset shift from you, the designer; thus, calling upon you to think of responsive architecture in terms of kinetic “fields” — playing upon “layers” or “extensions”.

For this reason, the following video presents novel concepts behind how to design “kinetic fields”, and their solutions are quite intriguing. By integrating a seamless way of having systems and sub-systems relate to one another it is possible to achieve not only behavioral motion, but also renewed behavioral functions.

Take a look at the following car concepts and you will see a great illustration of what forms this type of design thinking can take. Also, in watching the following prototypes you can see how the boundaries we typically default to today can blur — suddenly location, size and function become dynamic variables inherent within a system and its materials.

Hence, as architects, we develop a greater focus upon behavior, stemming from things like location, size and function by also adding anew the variable of time.

Please Tell Me What You Think

I would really like to get your feedback on my post today, so please leave me a comment in the form below. And if you enjoyed it, make sure you share it with your Twitter followers by “tweeting” it using the re-tweet button on this page.

© 2008-2009 Sensing Architecture by Maria Lorena Lehman

image: phoosh | Flickr

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 design “transition”.

A Systems Approach to Designing with Building Materials

The biomimicry expert, Janine Benyus, says it best as she states that “The material is the system“. You see, it is within materials that we as designers can unleash new forms and functions to optimize our buildings — making them more sustainable, healthy, meaningful and beautiful.

By thinking of building materials down to the nano- scale, your design decisions as an architect will involve more of a “systems” way of thinking as opposed to the, as I have heard Janine Benyus call it, more typical “layered” approach to solving design problems.

Use “transition” as a way to unlock problems within an existing design system and as a way to capture inspiration from external forces that will trigger and react to your built environment. Think of how your occupant will experience your space, in all of its dimensions, and then ask yourself to rethink “transition” as you design.

To get you started, here are three questions to ask yourself:

1. If materials within your building’s design could “move” in real-time, how would you want them to move and why? Think aesthetics, function, efficiency, sustainability and human comfort. (As if your materials could gain “super-powers”, think beyond what materials today can do.)
2. What would be the resulting effect of such transient material “movements”? What new forms and functions would they allow? How could they help or hurt your occupant’s experience or the surrounding natural environment?
3. Is there a way to incorporate new transient materials to not only strengthen your building’s weak spots (design challenges) — but to ultimately strengthen the building as a whole (design opportunities)? What would your materials need to be able to “move” in the way you want? Think self-actuating, kinetics, weathering, interactivity, adaptation and so on.

Please Tell Me What You Think

I would really like to get your feedback on my post today, so please leave me a comment in the form below. And if you enjoyed it, make sure you share it with your Twitter followers by “tweeting” it using the re-tweet button on this page.

© 2008-2009 Sensing Architecture by Maria Lorena Lehman

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 prototypical mouse and keyboards. Siftables are designed to be more in tune with the way we actually navigate through the world.

Each Siftable is about the size of a “cookie” that works and feels like you are, in fact, playing with toy blocks. Each block can sense the others as they are moved around and tilted by their user. Essentially, this allows for a type of collaboration between the Siftables so they can work individually and together within their group’s system.

To see Siftables for yourself, simply watch the following video and imagine how, if developed further, such sensing physical objects will change the way we interact with digital media today. For instance, might such technologies help architects to “build” architectural models differently? Or might they allow for a new kind of architectural presentation that you might give to your clients?

Here’s Another Thought on How Siftables Could Impact Your Designs

In the future, architecture could expand upon its interactivity (and adaptability) with such sensing physical interfaces. Just imagine if occupants began to communicate with their environmental surroundings in completely new ways. For example, what if a grouping of Siftables could be shared by occupants, or they allowed for a new type of personalized customization?

So, what future possibilities and current uses would you like to use the Siftables for?

Please Tell Me What You Think

I would really like to get your feedback on my post today, so please leave me a comment in the form below. And if you enjoyed it, make sure you share it with your Twitter followers by “tweeting” it using the re-tweet button on this page.

© 2008-2009 Sensing Architecture by Maria Lorena Lehman