Image: sergis blog | Flickr

The Digital Water Pavilion in Zaragoza, Spain dismissed the notion of using glass for the boundaries which mark the “separation” between the interior and the exterior. To make it even more interesting, this pavilion drops a sheet of water around its perimeter in a curtain-like fashion, but when it senses the movement and approach of a body that wishes to enter — it uses sensors to stop releasing water so as to create a portal through which a person can gain entrance into the pavilion. Yes, an early form of fluidity in action.

Carlo Ratti, the Digital Water Pavilion’s architect, uses choreography and “sensing” to bring the notions of entrance, boundary and threshold into new realms — and much of this is achieved by taking advantage of a very common material…water. He does this by creating an architectural space that takes a step toward what I call a “fluid-bridging effect”.

The Fluid-Bridging Effect

Much like a simple window screen that keeps certain elements out (insects), allows certain elements in (wind) and unveils a portal from the opposite site (for viewing), the water in Ratti’s Pavilion design gives life to a “moving wall” which bridges the exterior and interior in a real-time transient manner.

This “fluid bridge” unites these two worlds at different times and in different locations giving access, entry and view all triggered and sustained by motion. In this case, motion creates a void to allow for a fluid bridge. In other words, a connection that is in motion.

Fluidity and sensing go hand in hand for the architecture of tomorrow. In fact, you already have the tools to put these in effect today. I challenge you to look at the simple materials we all take for granted. Turn the way they work and what they are aimed to do upside-down.

Be conscious of their limitations and then imagine what would happen if a particular limitation didn’t exist. What would it allow you to achieve? Furthermore, what if you could merge two materials and then adjust the percentage of which material properties carry through to the hybrid? What would this new hybrid material allow your occupants to do? What would it allow your building to do?

Simply think beyond boundaries, and then create new ones.

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© 2008-2010 Sensing Architecture by Maria Lorena Lehman

Image: jericho1ne | Flickr

Augmented reality and other virtual digital displays can revolutionize they way we interact within architectural spaces. When sitting in your office, experiencing a museum or simply learning in school, occupants already use digital media to carry out even the most basic of tasks. Just imagine what the evolution of augmented reality can do.

For starters, we can now see the beginning to how buildings can evolve internal “nervous systems”. Designers are beginning to think of “connections” in whole new ways.

Not only can spaces become less “local”, they can gain even greater dimension as real-time information gets processed through the building to provide visitors with a broader sense of where they are and what they can do.

YOU ARE THE BAROMETER

Similar to the glass evolution in architecture, real-time virtual “models” of information are making space less limited. Space is gaining transient abilities. It is becoming less static and more in tune with what its occupants really need and want.

Architects will need to act as the barometer for these augmented reality spaces — so virtual information can integrate and work with architectural form.

The key is to bring all of these emerging technologies back to the essence of human comfort: health, safety, happiness, productivity and so on. Without targeting the most basic of human needs, everything else could fall by the wayside.

© 2008-2010 Sensing Architecture by Maria Lorena Lehman