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 Read more

One of the most profound and informative senses that we have is our sense of touch. This sense informs so much of the way we “see” the world around us. Some have even said that touch is the greatest of all the senses.

It is interesting to think that in some way all of our other senses engage in some form of “touch” as we experience the things which make up our environments. Thus, as we move through architectural spaces, we touch what we perceive and we perceive what we touch — we extract it, interpret it and make meaning of it in our memory and through learning. You can say that “touch” helps us to understand.

Again, touch can involve all of the senses in some way. When you touch something it has been said that you can “feel” it. One could suppose that this means that you completely take it in through the senses — to cognitively and emotionally form a perception and then an impression.

Interactivity Fosters a “Touch” Mindset

With the advancement of interactive design, architecture is becoming more responsive and ultimately adaptive. Your occupants will be paying a different kind of attention to your designs as it begins to Read more

Going to the theater is usually an invigorating experience. A good production definitely considers the orchestration of numerous stimuli…all in an effort to feed the senses. Similar to architecture, theater set design must work to create an experience with space, and often such theatrical experiences tap into so much more that just the visual sense.

For this reason, architects can learn a thing or two from good theater set design and performance.

Space Filled with Dynamic Moments

What goes into producing an entire theatrical experience rests upon more that just the actors. There is an entire environment that revolves around them — everything from the theater building itself to the often dynamic and jaw-dropping stage environments.

As architects we can learn a lot from film compilation, music composition and story narrative; but the subject of theatrical design and performance is often an underplayed topic. If you think about it…how often can you see a synthesis of Read more

How does your building behave? Does it engage in a performance? Does it communicate in some novel way? Things are becoming less static. With the proliferation of the internet, social media, new architectural technologies, improved construction methods and so on — it is good news that your architectural structures can perform anew (if you know how to design for this correctly).

When I speak about behavior and performance with regard to architectural design I am talking about an architecture that is transient — an architectural design that changes around the occupant.

Take a look at the photos (left) and video (below) of the Read more

Can your building speak for its city?

With the rise of social media and other easy ways to communicate your whereabouts, moods or thoughts — buildings are becoming a canvas on which a population can paint their collective information.

The Emotional Cities, a 4-month light installation project, is doing just that. City dwellers can log in their current moods and the building displays certain colors on its façade to reflect those moods.

So, why can’t buildings talk back? Why stop the conversation there?

IMPACTING A CULTURE

Once buildings get better at absorbing and translating information, they will eventually be able to Read more

BRINGING SHADOWS TO LIFE

Here is an excellent example of how you can use interactive architecture and augmented reality to really give “feeling” to occupant interactions. As different “spaces” made with hand gestures result in different sounds, lighting and motion effects — users get a unique sense of how their gestures can interact with space. You can see how mere “shadows” take on a physical presence with weight, gravity and material bounce qualities. Plus, it looks like it would be fun to use.

MOLDING LIGHT AND SOUND ON THE FLY

This augmented reality design actually uses both analog and digital projectors by aligning and overlapping their projections. By creating a fusion between the two, user hand gestures actually become Read more

As architecture evolves by gaining renewed methods of interaction, I think it is good for architects to gain perspective from the field of interaction design. The following video reviews some key concepts that interaction designers use to execute their designs. Look out for the three leading questions that drive all interaction projects.

Please note: If you are not able to play the video, make sure to click this article’s title above so you can view this video from the original Sensing Architecture page.

VIDEO REVIEW

Interaction design is defined by Wikipedia as the “discipline of defining the behavior of products and systems that a user can interact with”. In this video, Bill Verplank explains very clearly what Read more

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: Read more

Sensory devices are being embedded in architecture to create interactive designs. Such ubiquitous computing arrangements will eventually propagate through our homes, offices and other building types. What remains fascinating is the advent when such architectural spaces will use technology to learn from its own experience. Already, robots are being designed to do just that. Let me explain…

In a Scientific American article entitled Can Robots Be Programmed to Learn from Their Own Experience, the author describes how Read more

Within architectural space it is important to establish a sense of place. This is true not only for the architecture to be good but also for your experience within that space to be memorable. Did you know that your memory and your sense of place are closely linked?(1) Creating an environment involves designing for meaningful experiences — to do this, establishing a sense of place is key.

In the paper Neuroscience and Architecture: Seeking Common Ground, both landmarks and paths are described as important when designing architecture. It seems that both memory and sense of place prominently involve the same part of the brain – the hippocampus. “Our memory of events may depend upon a strong sense of place, and by extension, our sense of place may be influenced by the integrity of the memories formed there.”(1)

A key factor in distinguishing place from space is the ability for humans to interact. This provides occupants with a feeling of belonging to the environment, instead of just “passing through it.” Also, establishing a connection between spaces is important. This provides opportunity for the incorporation of landmarks and other architectural features that can make a place memorable.(1)

Can you remember being in an architectural space that had a strong sense of place? Is your memory of that place linked to an experience that happened there? Odds are that that place also had a strong sense of orientation. As landmarks and other architectural features come together in one’s mental map, your sense of place becomes stronger.

Buildings that guide you through them while providing you with enough information to make meaningful decisions along the way can make for quite profound experiences. Embed within your architecture a succession for a meaningful sense of place – where memories can be shaped and built form can transcend the senses.

(1) Sternberg, Esther M. and Wilson, Matthew A. Neuroscience and Architecture: Seeking Common Ground. Cell 127, Elsevier Inc. October 20, 2006.