Image: Andreasg | Dreamstime

HEIGHTENING ARCHITECTURE’S POTENTIAL

There is no question that the design evolution of technology is skyrocketing – and having profound effects on architecture. As technology grows in processing power, it also shrinks in size, allowing for more complex uses where technology can be embedded in objects (and smart environments). Consequently, interactions between humans and technology are becoming evermore complex, and at the heart of such interactions may be the notion of rule-based systems — where sensors and actuators communicate according to rules that allow an environmental system to carry out goal-based behaviors.

HOW WILL BUILDINGS LEARN?

But, is this the only way to build smart environments in the future? In a recent article entitled The Coming Merging of Mind and Machine, the author Ray Kurzweil describes how machines are gaining speed in their ability to download complex patterns. He states that “computing technology is Read more

Beyondthedarkroom | Dreamstime

Most building “skins” today are quite static. Instead of being a bridge that allows the exterior and interior to communicate, many building skins today serve to separate the interior from the exterior with only, if any, intermittent window openings. What if, instead, architects designed building skins to synchronize occupant environments with real-time occupant needs?

Jean Nouvel’s Institute of the Arab World in Paris (above) is an excellent example of how exterior walls can function as a membrane that breathes in and out. This shows one example of how a wall can be used like a nervous system to bridge between two otherwise separate environments. 

The skin can serve both as a shield to block out the negatives and as a bridge to connect the positives. Such an architectural building skin might be programmed as a rule-based system where certain occupant goals would be made into system objectives. The skin would maintain its own dynamic behavior as it works in real-time to meet occupant needs.