Image: jurvetson | Flickr

With the uprising of more technologies that seem to track everything from sleep, to diet, to other behavioral patterns, environmental design is becoming more of an important player in helping to collect such clues that consequentially help make a person’s life better. Such clues reveal patterns that can be used to determine where, when, and how a person might make adjustments in their life to improve issues like their health, productivity, memory, creativity, or even to help them engage in more socially-conscious behaviors, like green living.

So, the key here for you as an architect is to understand how patterns are inherent to how your designed spaces get used — and such patterns, upon their collection, can help you to design better for your building occupant, and can help your building to adapt in real-time to your occupants’ everchanging needs, as they need them. Especially, the more subtle ones that make a big difference.

I’m sure you’ve already begun to see sleep monitors, or diet monitors, becoming more readily available in devices like the iPhone, or other wrist-worn devices, for instance. (1) But have you stopped to consider what role your designed architectural environments play in this type of real-time lifestyle tracking and pattern analysis?

It is important for you to ask yourself, as an architect, “How can I use clues about how my building occupant behaves to help inform the way I design for them? And how can I use such clues to make my designs better, by tapping into the more subtle nuances of their life?” Also, you should consider whether some of the clues which your environment collects about an occupant would be beneficial to share back with them, in real-time and within that same environment. Might they impact the way your occupant makes health-minded choices, for example?

It is one thing to design for a populations’ general programmatic requirements which seem to get categorized into “standard” needs…a kind of “one size fits all approach”. But you can go a step further to personalize your design, to build an environment that speaks to your occupants’ particular weaknesses and strengths — to build an environment that picks up on the nuances that will make your occupant’s life better.

Thus, you should keep an eye out for new technologies that reveal patterns in your occupant’s lifestyle or health. Just as an occupant’s allergies might make a difference in the type of materials you choose for their designed space, new types of devices are revealing new types of information about people’s lives. Be sure to use such resources to better understand people in general, to better interpret the differences which your particular occupant presents, and to help you find new ways to design environments that collect, analyze, and solve for what were previously, invisible clues.

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Reference:
(1) Nagle, Micheal. Tracking Attention, Social Activity, and Our Environment. The Measured Life. Technology Review.

© 2008-2011 Sensing Architecture by Maria Lorena Lehman

In the video today, I delve into various ways architectural design speaks to its occupants as it inherently provides “choice”. And as an architect, you hold the key as you design such architectural elements, which all affect your occupant in a multitude of ways. For instance, many of these elements either compete with each other, or work with each other, as they offer incentives (or deterrents) that may influence your occupant’s decision-making as they travel through your building design.

Follow along as I show you, through simple diagrammatic form, how you are inevitably filling your design spaces with choices — affecting the daily lives of your occupants in so many ways. As you will see, one of the lessons to be learned here is that you should be aware of what you offer to your occupants through your building designs, for they may very well choose (and do) what you offer.

Video Transcript

00:08 Maria Lorena Lehman: This is Maria Lorena Lehman with SensingArchitecture.com. In today’s video, I’m going to explore how architectural design affects occupant choice and what exactly that means for your occupants. Because hopefully as you design architecture for your occupants, you aren’t just simply trying to meet a list of programmatic requirements and trying to insert those programmatic requirements and spatial functions into allotted spaces, without giving some serious consideration into the relationships between those programmatic elements. Because each of them speaks with one another as your occupant travels through those spaces and travels from one to the other.

00:58 MLL: So, as you can see in this diagram below, we have a diagrammatic elevator here, a stairwell here, and just a simple hallway leading outward, followed by a larger hallway-like space towards the south. Now, supposing this is your occupant that is traveling through the space heading in this direction, they will be presented with a series of choices. First, as they’re traveling through this hallway, they may decide to take the elevator to travel vertically to the left or they will have the choice to take the stairs. Of course, depending on their needs at that time, they may need to travel through this entire space as they go in this direction, or they may like to sit down. Perhaps this is a seating area for socialization, another seating area here for socialization or contemplation, or thinking space in preparation to go into whatever programmatic function might be at the other end of this hallway.

02:31 MLL: Now, what might be interesting for you as an architect is to think beyond just putting in a space for seating. What might your occupant do there? Would it help them if they had a view of nature or access to the outdoors? Would it help them if there was a sculptural park out here, where perhaps seating or eating areas, eating outside could occur out here? So, there’s an interrelation now between the inside and the outside which could be quite nice. On the other hand, what if they decide to take the elevator versus the stair? What does that mean for their health? What does that mean in terms of their journey upward through your architectural space? Would taking the stair be more of an aesthetic experience or would taking the elevator be more of an intriguing experience, where the doors open to reveal the surprise which awaits them on the upper levels?

03:36 MLL: Furthermore, as they’re traveling in this direction up the hallway, might they get some kind of clue, perhaps earlier on in the hallway that there is a special experience, if they were to take the elevator in this direction, or a clue that the stair might be a special experience? Even from this point you’re already presenting your occupant, as they see this clue with incentive to possibly turn right, or left, depending upon what journey you think might be best for that particular occupant at that particular time, within that particular position within your space.

04:23 MLL: Furthermore, you could use way-finding as a way to communicate with your occupant. However, don’t rely too fully on way-finding as using architectural elements may provide a more beautiful and seamless solution that may actually help to uplift some of the other qualities and characteristics of your architectural space. So, by designing for occupant choice, whether to give it or restrict it, you can create an architectural narrative that can take your architecture from being a place where functions and forms just happen, to being a place where they actually thrive. And likewise, in places where they thrive, your occupants will thrive, particularly as you begin to think about where your occupants came from, whether it’s the exterior or another interior room and where they’re going.

05:31 MLL: So as you design, give some consideration to how your designs affect occupant choice and what that means for your occupants within your architectural spaces.

05:46 MLL: This is Maria Lorena Lehman with SensingArchitecture.com.

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© 2008-2011 Sensing Architecture by Maria Lorena Lehman

In today’s video, I explore how a patient room within a hospital can be designed as a narrative made up of a patient’s behaviors. By being able to orchestrate room elements within a hospital design’s patient room, you as an architect can bring building elements to foster healing by tapping into both the patient’s cognitive and behavioral processes.

As you watch this video, think of how you might tap into the resources with such a room, so that they coordinate with one another — yielding elements that are much more aesthetic, comfortable and effective — as they pull from each others strengths.

Video Transcript

00:10 Maria Lorena Lehman: This is Maria Lorena Lehman with SensingArchitecture.com. In this video, I’m going to talk about occupant experience, specifically looking at healthcare architecture and a recovery room for a patient, so the patient will be our occupant in this example. As you can see here, I’ve already drawn a very, very rough diagram of a typical patient room that you might typically see. In this upper hand corner, left-hand corner, might be a restroom area. Over here in the upper right hand corner might be a window with hopefully a view of some trees or nature. On this wall might be paintings or interactive video displays or televisions. Of course, this is the patient bed or central point where the patient spends most of their time. And we also have an area for visitors, which is all very important. And this, of course, is our main entry and exit into and from the room.

01:32 MLL: Now as you can see, there is already a narrative going on within this patient room. The patient has different activities with which they need to be involved, both things that they want to do and things that their medical team and doctors are prescribing them to do, usually to help them heal and keep their spirits up while within the hospital. Some of the things that are important for you as an architect to understand when designing for your occupants in this manner might be hierarchy and timing in conjunction with your occupant needs. And of course, as I said before, their needs might be what they want and what the medical staff thinks they should want and need.

02:35 MLL: And all of this leads them on their path to recovery. I think it is here where architecture often misses a beat, where the overall architectural solution tries to share all of these requirements and activities within one space. But what I think might be most interesting for you as an architect is to track the patterns in a story-like fashion where, for instance, with timing at certain times in the day, a patient might need to engage in activities of daily living. They may need help getting to and from the restroom. At other times of day, they may need more time for contemplation or peaceful thinking where looking at the view of nature has actually often been found to help patients heal. At other times of day, they may need distraction to watch television or interactive video displays, but similarly, the video displays could also serve to inform them and teach them how to take care of themselves and prepare them for their trip home. Likewise, visitors can be allowed in at certain times.

04:33 MLL: So the room is usually, today, in a one-size-fits-all standard state. But with transient architecture, I wonder how we can pull resources together within a room to really make each activity sing. For instance, the interactive television display might actually serve to teach them or inform them with activities and exercises so they can get better and more independent over time and begin to engage more readily in their activities of daily living.

05:37 MLL: So the idea here would be for you as an architect to begin to pull the different resources within the room; like the restrooms, televisions, interactive displays, views of nature, spaces for contemplation, visitor areas, patient bed, and of course, this involves room lighting, flooring, wall materials, ceiling materials so that they might become transient and work together in an orchestrated fashion to help emphasize certain elements within a room at certain times when the patients need it most. And this might help them to recover faster and better.

06:19 MLL: Thank you for listening. This is Maria Lorena Lehman with sensingarchitecture.com.

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© 2008-2011 Sensing Architecture by Maria Lorena Lehman

The sign on the door doesn't look good, pushing heavy doors doesn't feel good, and both can leave a negative impression upon your building occupants.
Image: gruntzooki | Flickr

The other night as I was approaching (to enter) a restaurant, a group of people happened to be exiting. And as they were making their way through the main doors, one of them exclaimed (with a lot of passion in her voice), “we had to eat a lot of food to be able to push these doors open” — the doors were just “so heavy“.

As it became my turn to enter, it also became my turn to hold the door and I quickly discovered just how right she was in her observation.

While this was a good restaurant…There were some lessons to be learned here.

As an architect you must make a concerted effort to go beyond the visual and aural senses — for, in the restaurant design that I recently experienced, it would have helped immensely if the designers had made their entrance/exit “gateway” feature more than just look good…because despite their best efforts to do this, once occupants interacted with the doors, their negative perceptions reflected badly upon the restaurant and their dining experience.

So much of architecture is a touch-based and tactile experience. Just think of how many times your occupants “touch” something (architectural details) while experiencing your building design.

It may help to actually walk yourself through their journey, while paying particular attention to what their sensorial journey will be like. For instance, what do they hear within each spatial zone of your design? What do they touch? …whether to open a door, pull up a chair, turn on a light switch, lean against a wall, hold a handrail, and so on? Think about how each architectural zone transitions into the next, and about what core points you intend to make in each within your design.

The First and Last Thing They Remember

Not only is it important to understand the sequence of the way your architectural design impacts your occupants through their journey, but it is also good to think about where within the sequence they experience those things. For example, the extremely heavy doors within the restaurant that people experienced became the first and the last thing that those restaurant goers had to contend with during their dining experience at that place. What kind of message do you think that sends to them, especially if this was their first and last impression?

Now, if you are trying to make a bold statement, then it may be wise to work within your designs by juxtaposing different sensory modalities. Perhaps slightly heavier doors are purposely set there to create a certain atmosphere and expectation within the occupant before they experience the full breadth of an interior space. But be careful, making a statement too bold may create the opposite effect that you are aiming for.

Thus, when you are working to get all of the architectural detailing just right, do not overlook (or take for granted) the most simple and obvious within your architectural designs. You may often find that it is within these “details” that many designs (which may have otherwise been good), simply fall short or are otherwise ruined. So, again, do not overlook the details — and I am talking about the ones that are most simple and obvious. Think beyond what might look good to also incorporate how it will actually feel within the overall experience of your design. For, even building details can have strong and long-lasting impact on your entire overarching building design, either positive or negative.

In the end, create your architectural details to give your building occupants the experience that they need, while all the time trying to surpass their expectations.

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© 2008-2011 Sensing Architecture by Maria Lorena Lehman

Image: R. Butler | Flickr

Along with many other innovations that are surfacing today, the Responsive Environments Group at MIT is working on a prototype that, if successful, may make the light switch a thing of the past. (1)

Their new lighting technology will be responsive by being able to adjust both lighting intensity and color balance to the specific activities that are going on within an architectural space — it would work by being able to monitor the light reading wherever a user happens to put the sensors. So for example, if you place the light sensor within the space where you usually only need task lighting, then the light will adjust accordingly, making sure that you have enough light either from natural daylight, the responsive lighting solution or some combined ratio both. (1)

While this responsive lighting innovation may sound somewhat simple in principle, it does take an interesting step toward providing a tool for greater adaptive design approaches. There are so many parts within buildings today that are static, being made to function in almost binary terms, with only “on” or “off” choices — beyond lighting, think of how static building surfaces often are: including wall surface materials, window configurations and even floor and ceiling installations.

The Power of Transience within Your Design

I think that we are in an age where the onset of new adaptive design technologies will help spaces evolve to include more dynamic and fluid behaviors — which will help to make architecture more malleable, versatile and responsive to occupant needs. The key is to move beyond only having a technology radiate stimuli the way a song might sound on a piano if only played with one note.

Instead, architectural technology should be a tool with which, you as an architect, use “responsive gradation” — making the stimuli which your building occupants perceive sound like a beautiful song played on a piano using the full range of notes played at different times, for different lengths, for different intensities and in different combinations — to be most appreciated by your building occupants within the areas that they carry out their most sensitive activities.

So, as an architect, pay attention to where your occupants carry out their activities, look at the way in which they behave and the characteristics of their environment that impact them through their senses in meaningful ways. Then think about how gradation can step in, to give them more than choice, to additionally give them a freedom by which they can enjoy their environments in their entirety, adjusting to their personal preferences and needs — whether they be one thing on a Monday and something entirely different by Friday.

The beauty of pushing toward “responsive gradations” within an architectural environment, is the lessening dependency upon a typical “default” way of thinking, and thus, designing. The advantage is the move from a one-size-fits-all (throw in some lighting) approach to a more thoughtful and strategic spectral arrangement where environments become more attuned to the things that are going on within them.

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(1) Intelligent, Adaptive Lights Reduce Energy Use by 90 Percent. Good. November 19, 2010.

© 2008-2011 Sensing Architecture by Maria Lorena Lehman

Image: D'Arcy Norman | Flickr

Architects often look at where their occupants travel within their building, what makes them decide to go wherever they are going, and what behaviors they engage in once they arrive. But what actually happens to building occupants as they move through your building? Does the speed at which they move through your building have impact on their experiences while they are there? And upon how those experiences are remembered?

In a recent research article published by Science Daily, it was cited that the Society for Neuroscience studied and found evidence that “activity in rats’ memory-related brain areas varies with how quickly they move to explore their environments”. (1) So, for our purposes, we can begin to deduce that the speed at which a subject moves, can alter their memory of the setting within which they moved. (1)

Here is a slightly more detailed description of why this happens in the first place:

“They found that the pathway associated with storing and consolidating memories was most active when the animals moved slowly. At faster speeds, the balance shifted from these circuits to circuits bringing in info from the outside world.” (1)

Speeding Your Occupants Up Versus Slowing Them Down

So, within your own building projects, how might you go about designing for the way in which your occupants move? And what about your design solutions might benefit them as they engage in their real-time activities within your building?

First, you must ask yourself how you would go about slowing them down versus speeding them up as they travel to and fro within your built environment. For instance, might putting in a sloping floor impact their travel speed and behavior? Might there also be impact if you changed the material composition, color or pattern with which the floor is made? And by juxtaposing the rising and declining slopes, while also transitioning between flooring materials, might that serve as a “friction” or “smoothing” process that would yield different occupant travel speeds?

On the other hand, you could take a more generalized approach, where perhaps, a change in lighting color, strategically positioned architectural features, or a certain amount of contemplation or learning space might serve to give building occupants more to sensorially take in, and thus, causing them to linger. Whereas having a more subdued design fabric that is more goal-oriented and efficiency-based might make occupants move about more quickly.

Of course, this all could be taken to an uncomfortable extreme — if perhaps an architectural space has a superfluous amount of design activity that becomes too busy, and in fact, overwhelms occupants.

The Journey Your Occupants Take and The Memories That Form

In the end, speed of occupant travel really impacts the behaviors that they engage in once within a space, thus impacting the benefits they get from those behaviors. Subsequently, memories are formed, and as the Society of Neuroscience study implies, the way in which they are stored is now thought to be determined significantly by their motion and speed.

So, how can you as an architect begin to apply all of this to your work?

Perhaps within your designs you can re-assess the overall intended function that you are planning to hone in upon within your designs. Then, you can assess what role memory will play both while your occupants are engaging in their behaviors and once they have left the space. For instance, will learning be a key component while within your space? If so, at what spatial and experiential points within your design do you want your occupants to learn? How will you get them there? What will they do while they are learning to help them with memory formation (which is linked with learning)? And how will you design for the way in which they leave?

As a preliminary step, I would recommend assessing whether it be beneficial for your occupants to engage in a more exploratory travel experience within your building, or a more targeted goal-driven one. Think about how much they might need to absorb while they are there, and what they should remember once they have left. Then think of ways that you might design for all of this — floor slope, feature materials, lighting colors, goal-driven versus contemplation space, and so on.

In short, think about what your occupants actually engage in while within your building, then think about their “motion” while engaging in those behaviors — both of these will impact what they remember, and that may very well push your architecture from being simply good, toward being great.

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 and Facebook followers by clicking on the “re-tweet” and “like” button at the beginning of this page.

——–

© 2008-2011 Sensing Architecture by Maria Lorena Lehman

Image: o palsson | Flickr

Often in architectural design (and as with any business) there is a wide variety of modeling, testing, and planning to ensure that the final project (or product) will make its way into the real world with great success. As architects, I know that there are a wide variety of things we do to help us visualize our built environments for clients — where we pull from our own internal talents and resources, combine them with the latest know-how and efforts of our design team and consultants, and then proceed to get them accepted by all kinds of review boards, committees and so on. But — have you ever done a quality control design test of your building after it’s built? If so, how do you do it? And what do you do with the results?

Do you ever ask yourself — How much testing and surveying do we really do as architects once our building is built? What do we do after it is constructed? Do we merely check in on it in a general manner and use it for marketing opportunities?… Or, do we examine what our design team has created?

I say all of this because I think it is important to have a relationship and connection with your designed buildings after they are built. Wouldn’t it be nice to be a “fly on a wall” so you could get a sneak peak at exactly how your building occupants use your spaces, interact with them, behave within them and so on?

Why Running a Design Test Is so Important, And How You Can Start to Do It

Of course, if something about your building really fails, I am pretty sure you hear about it in no time flat. However, there are ways for you take the time to really observe the nuances to what you have built for your occupants. For instance, it is important to really listen and watch the way the people within your buildings use your designs. You will immediately begin to see the things that work and the things that do not, but even more amazingly your design test observations will lead to realizations and then into insights which I think will enter into your design process and emerge as even more creative solutions during your next architectural project. Thus, a main benefit to studying the nuance to your buildings in use after they are built, is to give you an awareness of your own design decisions and process. In the end, you’ll design better buildings both with greater quality and in less time.

One way, and a very easy way, to start to begin to understand your design (in an almost undercover way) is to talk with people that are inhabiting your buildings, whether they occupy them daily or after their one-time visit, their point of view about their experience can really serve as a wake-up-call to you. They key is to talk with people that you would not normally talk with as the “architect”. Ask somebody in your building that uses a particular feature to execute their work for instance. Ask how they like. Ask a few questions to get them talking and before you know it they could be giving you invaluable information about your design abilities. They may say “you know, I love this about it — but this part is really uncomfortable”.

It is a moment like that, that can turn into a golden opportunity. But with such an insight, yes you do see a problem (and that is unfortunate), but then you have many options to either fix it, take note of it, or even tell the person using it that they are using it wrong or even suggest a workaround. But, your observation does not end there…

Be sure to make a mental note of what they said because this design oversight, conflict or even miscalculation will help you see a constraint which might be holding all of your designs back. And trust me, once you have heard a revelation like this, you as an architect and designer will grow — having what I like to call architectural empathy.

In other words, you will be better able to put yourself into your occupants shoes — yes, helping you to design better projects in the future, but also increasing your relationship with your clients early in the design process.

Thus, I encourage you to think about studying your buildings, not only before the project is built, but well after it has been built. Remember that you should not leave your building completely once it has been “finished”; for, your building will remain standing for a long time and I think there is much that can be learned from it — not only by others, but also by you.

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.

© 2008-2011 Sensing Architecture by Maria Lorena Lehman

Image: laurenatclemson | Flickr

If by chance you watched the 2010 Academy Awards you may have noticed that the “Animated Short” category was won by the film called Logorama, directed by the French animation collective H5. This interesting film, like so many others, has actually proven to be a bit controversial. But I do think one thing remains clear — so many of our environments are “branded” in many ways and at many levels.

In Logorama, the entire animated environment is made up of logos, brands and slogans to depict an entire world with much of the complexity of ours. To give you a better idea of what I’m talking about…the following is a short trailer to give you a quick glimpse at the world of branding which Logorama creates:

What Logorama Will Help You to Ask Yourself

From an architectural point of view, this animated short film brings up some old and new questions regarding architecture, “signage” and branding — whether it be stylistic branding or more additive branding. For instance, how might your building be perceived, after all of the hard work you put into designing it, when a well-known “brand” it added to your building by way of signage, corporate cultural identity or even by its proximity to another built form with a strong “branded” identity?

The latter are some interesting questions, but first, you may need to ask this — Is branding and architecture really a bad combination? I mean, to some extent everything might be “branded” — as if branding is inherently woven into all designs in our built environment. Is perhaps “branding” something that we humans do as we perceive objects, places, people and so on? If so, is there such a thing as good branding or bad branding? And how do you know the difference?

All of these questions lead me to ask whether the final “branding” on a building overshadows the original design intent. After all, don’t architectural features that you integrate into your designs, even though they are not necessarily a “logo”, become brands which encapsulate or stick with your occupants experience of your building? So then I must ask, does branding go hand in hand with what makes a built form and its experience memorable? And where is that fine line which divides more overt branding from more subtle impression?

I think Logorama is a very intriguing short film in that it makes us confront one way in which we have labeled, and furthermore interpreted, the things and experiences which make up the world in which we live. And since architecture plays a major role in the development and follow-through of that built environment, you as an architect, should be well-aware of how your building gets “branded”, both intentionally and by chance.

You should ask questions like: Who will have the majority of say in how my building gets branded? What will I be able to control about how my building gets branded? And how will my overall body of architectural work be branded — in a stylistic manner, in a functional manner, in an iconic manner, in an experiential manner and so on?

So, think about branding and all that might come with it when you delve into where you are in your architectural career. When designing, interpretation is fundamentally linked with both aesthetics and function — but you must also wonder what it is about your architectural design work that you are trying to “sell’ (if anything)? And then step back and consider whether it “sells” itself.

By asking such questions you might get to the root of not only your design intent, but also the success or failure of your design’s outcome.

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.

© 2008-2011 Sensing Architecture by Maria Lorena Lehman

Image: Ben Chau | Flickr

Throughout your architectural design process it is often the case that you need different tools at different points in time as you design. While some tools help you to visualize what goes on during your personalized architecture process, others help you to visualize what will go on within your final building design. So, what happens when these two worlds start to merge? Will your design visualizations be as immersive as the actual methods you use to communicate your designs to clients and other team members?

At different phases during your design process you explore different things. You engage in different levels of refinement and you solve an array of problems and questions that all have project-wide consequences and effects. You probably use a combination of both digital media information visualizations and 3D modeling methods. In fact, many architects today are delving into 4D information modeling techniques involving BIM leading-edge tools.

Whatever the case, it is paramount that your digital media design tools help to streamline your own architecture process. And a key to this is to make sure these tools are intuitive and promote creative thinking.

Digital Media Tools that Dig into the Minds of Your Occupants

Design project tools that reduce redundancy, error and cost during your architectural design process can go a long way toward increasing the quality and reducing the cost of your building — while also increasing the actual speed with which you can design. But there are a few things that come to mind when questioning how these tools can evolve, to get even better.

What if your architectural design tool could also help you extract information about occupant behaviors, perhaps algorithmically? Furthermore, what if you could inject this information into your building design visualization models? Hence, it would become a preview of not only what your design will look like, but also how it will function once built.

Would this pulling of occupant information allow you to spot new kinds of design errors? Would it further allow you to see aspects to your design that you otherwise did not think of, or simply missed? And in an ideal world, what other information do you wish you could pull into your architecture visualizations? What would their new capabilities allow you to “see” or “construct”?

In an age where we can easily pull data from repositories of information like the internet and other databases, new “models” can be built to help you and your firm with your architectural design processes. It is important for you to understand your current design flow, and then to be aware of what added dimensions would be most helpful to make it stronger.

The key is to “visualize” that which is almost intangible, pool from our era’s developing resources and then to implement tools that help us push architecture, as a discipline, that much further.

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.

© 2008-2011 Sensing Architecture by Maria Lorena Lehman

Image: Eduardo Deboni | Flickr

Yes, findings stemming from the worlds of science and technology are painting a new era that we are already beginning.

When cutting-edge paradigm-shifts occur, like new perspectives on nature that make methods like Biomimicry and BioDigital Architecture possible, I still wonder how these, combined with other factors like culture, globalization, personal preferences, lifestyle trends and geographic land characteristics will impact what we, as architectural visionaries, paint for the future.

Well, the future is happening now and as different cultures help to mold, embrace and even reject what design visionaries bring forward, I find it fascinating to uncover how innovative designs emerge into (and from) different regions and respective populations in the world.

What Stories Will Biomimicry Designs Tell?

As architects take on a renewed and forward-looking slant when turning to nature for inspiration, will this “attuned” architecture reflect its contextual surrounding geography and culture? After all, nature found in different parts of the world maintain different forms of life cycle processes and response systems; thus, giving architects a plethora of sources from which to design for more advanced architectural function and beauty.

In looking ahead, I can’t help but envision what Biomimicry and BioDigial Architecture can do for our architectural discipline. On the forefront, I can see that architecture will gain a renewed closeness with nature that it has never consciously had before. I also can see buildings that metaphorically embody a piece of nature (take the simple example of a flower), where an architect studies a particular process or response system from nature and then builds an architecture stemming from this nature inspired “seed”. Thus, a literal flower species can metaphorically plant its “seeds” within an architect’s vision — so then, a bioDigital building becomes a metaphorical flower offspring.

So yes, I do think the emergence of more bioDigital architecture will reflect the very nature which surrounds a building (or at least, the architect). Architectural clues like material, fabrication method and occupant lifestyle preference are already inherent to buildings around the world. Thus, a building is like a time capsule holding within it not just its occupants while it is functional within its own time, but also holding within it an “archeological-type” find that serves as a multi-dimensional “treasure map” telling a story to all those who “read” it long after its occupants are gone.

What story do you think buildings will tell once new technologies and scientific breakthroughs have had a chance to take full effect in architectural advances like Biomimic Design? Will buildings tell a deeper tale about what extinct species and types of nature existed before in a specific region of the world? Furthermore, what story will architecture built using nanotechnology, bioDigital algorithmic design and ubiquitous computing methods?

One thing is for sure, I do think that new biomimcry design methods will implant new layers of information — making the visionary buildings of today, gem-like seeds for tomorrow.

Please Tell Me What You Think

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© 2008-2011 Sensing Architecture by Maria Lorena Lehman