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.

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.

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

© 2008-2011 Sensing Architecture by Maria Lorena Lehman

Featured Image Takeaway Design Strategy:

While certain elements of this featured design by Carlo Scarpa are quite beautiful in terms of color, light, texture and harmonizing the old with the new, there are times where a magnificent design can be reduced in its impact. Within the image above notice the two wall lights that have been placed as afterthoughts (most likely added on later to this design due to building codes). Use technology to enhance your designs, not merely to fill in where it isn’t keeping up.

To Apply This Strategy, Ask Yourself:

© 2008-2011 Sensing Architecture by Maria Lorena Lehman

Image: rootoftwo | Flickr

Image: rootoftwo | Flickr

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 future built works.

In fact, to see the slideshow of these projects in action, Click here.

3 Simple Mindset Shifts for You To Think About

1. Your Design Process — Think about how the possibilities of adaptive architecture would impact the way you design. Just imagine how that would change your programming stages alone.
2. Convergence –Think about how you would use the convergence of breakthroughs from disciplines like nanotechnology, neuroscience, and biomimicry to improve the lifestyles of your occupants in almost limitless new ways.
3. Sensemaking –Architecture which adapts could be coded with simple rules; thus, embedding within it an underlying thumbprint, predisposing its behavior.

   As an architect, you will need to have your built works “make sense” of a lot of incoming information (coming from your occupants and the environment).

   Your job as Sensemaker is only just beginning.

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

Nature and technology are often thought of in separate terms. Sometimes you see the two juxtaposed, but in more and more buildings today your are now seeing them work side-by-side, feeding into one another’s space — not struggling against each other, but working well together. This is the power of building green by using technology.

In the project called Vertical Eco-Cibernetic City, by Orlando De Urrutia, you can see all of this. This building, inspired by the base of a tree (which extends to look for light from above) is designed as an “alive machine”. The designer’s intent is to create building systems which are self-sufficient and bio-climatic. In short, this design takes advantage of the many aspects of nature and feeds them into the building, creating quite an amazing architectural display.

Putting Architectural Technology to Good Use

An instance of what I am talking about can be seen in this building’s skin, which uses nanotechnology through geometric façade patterns. Such a skin takes advantage of light and shade while also incorporating “vegetal panels”.

Technology is also incorporated into the building through communication networks, which can be seen through the façade system of photovoltaic lattices. Such lattices serve to give energy to the forward facing LED screens to ultimately create a large multimedia façade which spans the vertical height of the building.

In the following video you will be able to see renderings, diagrams and flow charts, which more fully explain this project. I think it is a great example of what architects can achieve by aiming to merge the power of nature with the power of architectural technology and design.

Take a look:

Please note: You may need to turn down your volume if you are at work.

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: caribb | Flickr

DON’T CLICK IT!

I found a novel idea in a website called Don’t Click It, created by the Institute for Interactive Research. This site is great because it challenges the convention of how users typically interact with their computer — this is an entire website that actually does not want you to click. It’s fun. It’s creative. It’s different. It brings new life to user interface design.

Here is the Link: Don’t Click It

REVAMP YOUR DESIGNS

Wouldn’t it be great to design a building that pushes certain conventions, like Don’t Click It does? By questioning how we all do things, we can reach more innovative and interactive architectural design solutions.

As architectural technology and emerging architectural tools provide us with new and improved ways to design, you should be questioning what buildings do and how they do it.

Innovation is more than just using new technologies to get the same old result — it is about solving problems in creative ways that challenge conventions. By doing this, you will expose limitations, uncover opportunities for improvement and find new and innovative ideas.

The goal is for your architecture to evolve.

© 2008-2011 Sensing Architecture by Maria Lorena Lehman

Image: Kentoh | Dreamstime

Ubiquitous computing is giving architecture many benefits that we will continue to see embedded in our buildings. Ubiquitous computing is the wave of the future – providing us with many new architectural functions as well as challenges. For now, let’s focus on the benefits.

The following are the top seven benefits brought about by ubiquitous computing as they impact architecture and occupants in everyday life:

1) INVISIBLE:
“Smart” environments will be embedded with computing technologies that will be mostly out-of-sight. Architecture will gain many more capabilities – with less visual clutter.

2) SOCIALIZATION:
Interactions with architecture will be more social in nature. “Smart” buildings will illicit a more social response from occupants as computers user interfaces embed themselves within architecture. (1)

3) DECISION-MAKING:
“Smart” environments will help occupants to make better choices as they go about their everyday lives. At key moments within architectural experiences, a good architectural design will make “smart” environments helpful. Such architecture will be more proactive than passive.

4) EMERGENT BEHAVIOR:
Buildings are now becoming more and more kinetic in form and function. Their movements and constructed designs come together dynamically to yield behaviors that make them more adaptive. Buildings will learn how to learn – in order to run efficiently and aesthetically.

5) INFORMATION PROCESSING:
Since architecture will be gaining a type of “nervous system”, information processing will be gaining a whole new meaning. Architecture will go from crunching data to making sense of data; therefore, eliminating our need to constantly input adjustments.

6) ENHANCING EXPERIENCE:
As computers ubiquitously embed themselves in our environments, sensors and actuators will create “smart” environments where architectural space will be goal-oriented. Therefore, more occupant needs will be better met.

7) CONVERGENCE:
Much of our environment will be supplemented with interconnected digital technologies. Such interconnectivity will allow for a new type of “sharing” that will serve to eliminate many mundane tasks. Also, fewer errors will occur as systems pull data from shared digital locations (instead of having numerous copies to keep up-to-date).

DO YOU WANT TO LEARN MORE?

A wonderful book regarding this topic is Everyware written by Adam Greenfield. He describes the specific pros and cons to the “dawning age of ubiquitous computing” – what we will face and how we can make our transition better (by avoiding potentially negative effects of ubiquitous computing). This book makes for a good read if you are at all interested in these emerging ideas.

Here is the link: Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing (Voices That Matter)

(1) Greenfield, Adam. Everyware. AIGA. 2006.

© 2008-2011 Sensing Architecture by Maria Lorena Lehman

Cseh Ioan | Dreamstime

As architectural technology tries to solve one problem it often creates another. For example, as lighting illuminates it often also emits heat; therefore, making the HVAC system work harder. The systems seem out of balance as one trades off side-effects with another.

It appears that architectural technology is not yet highly efficient. Systems do not work together and as a result, occupants are deprived their optimal sensory experience. Take a hospital for instance: Often, patients must recover in spite of the hospital environment which surrounds them – from a sensory perception point of view. Buildings can be cold, intimidating and uninviting as architectural technology is installed onto architecture in an additive manner.

To help solve this dilemma, it becomes necessary for architectural technology to become more flexible. What if its physical appearance and functionality could change dependent on occupant needs in real-time? The key is integration – physically, acoustically, aesthetically and so on.

Architectural technology should become a positive part of occupant environments in any building type. Its appearance, its sounds and its functions should all contribute to the occupant experience in a positive way. If they do not, then that architectural technology is hindering the environment from doing its job – functionally and aesthetically.

© 2008-2011 Sensing Architecture by Maria Lorena Lehman

Today we have what you might refer to as information overload. We have information coming in from every angle. And because of this, the Institute for the Future states that we will eventually enter an age of “sensemaking”. It is interesting to think of how this will apply to architecture.

In my opinion, I think that architecture should be at the cutting edge of this era. Architecture could make use of incoming information, via sensors and rule-based systems. It could interact with its occupants through architecture technology that is programmed to assemble information for the public good. In doing so, more meaningful connections would take place between people and their surroundings.

Perhaps architecture could find new ways to influence occupant behavior. For example, a person might be persuaded to wait before their walk home based on heartbeat, medical history and a short predicted rainfall. Architecture could tie information together to form smart assumptions that inform occupants that might otherwise not know.

But how would architecture convey this meaning? Perhaps visualizations, sounds and other augmented reality features could work together to convey meaningful messages. Some would be simple to convey, while others would need more sophisticated synchronization. In the age of “sensemaking”, architecture would become dynamic in its behavior and aesthetically beautiful in its evolving and helpful forms.

© 2008-2011 Sensing Architecture by Maria Lorena Lehman

Dreamstimes

When designing technology into architecture it must be integrated – not just to fit in with the aesthetic effects of the architecture, but to also fit into the narrative of the place. All too often, technology sits where conversations should spark. Computers, televisions and even lighting technologies should enhance the functions they support. 

Do you remember the last time you were in a dressing room and felt you looked terrible? Blame it on the lighting that feels like an interrogation is about to begin. In this case, lighting is as much about helping the person to look good as it is to make the clothing look good. All too often design places emphasis on function and forgets the person involved in that function.

Technology should proactively augment your experience, not detract from it.

© 2008-2011 Sensing Architecture by Maria Lorena Lehman

Dreamstimes

Architectural technology should enhance and even proactively promote the functions within an architectural space. All too often; however, systems detract from a space’s function, sometimes rendering the space temporarily or even permanently useless. For example, improperly synchronized lighting, HVAC and/or acoustical systems can make for “painful” architectural experiences –- particularly for patients in hospital buildings. To solve such problems, architects should gain deeper insight regarding human perception to better integrate and synchronize architectural technology for human experience. 

As architectural technology becomes evermore pervasive, its collective effect upon humans will be evermore complex. For this reason, architectural design should lead technological advancement in a mission to redefine human-centered design.

© 2008-2011 Sensing Architecture by Maria Lorena Lehman