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.

Image: SNappa2006 |Flickr

Image: Mélisande* |Flickr

Take a look at the photos (left) and video (below) of the Rolling Bridge in London, England. You can see that the designers, Heatherwick Studio, thought about how this design morphs with its transient form. Starting off as a bridge and curling into an octagon, this bridge definitely gives a performance.

FROM PERFORMANCE TO BEHAVIOR

To design for an architectural performance, it may help you to think of how directors compose a film or how authors write a narrative. Both have beginnings, climaxes and finales. Both can have plot twists, subplots or even play with time.

As emerging architectural technologies surface, there will be more leeway for you to design interactive structures that are not as limited to a static existence.

This way of designing takes a particular type of mindset shift — you know your occupants behave and perform within architecture, so now you need to think of how architecture can perform to behave with and around those occupants.

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

The following video is by Urban Screen, a company that claims to “put architecture on stage”. They basically design large-scale projections for urban surfaces.

You will notice how the building facade in this video becomes dynamic and its skin seems to “breathe” — even if it is only an illusion.

LAYERS OF FLATNESS

In some ways I think that the experience of this installation is very different on video than it would have been in person. I do; however, like the way the projection is scaled to “play” with the existing buildings design elements (windows and such).

Seeing a video like this is thought provoking in that it makes one aware of a state we call “flatness” — and what designers can do with its layers.

IT’S MORE THAN JUST A PROJECTION

There is most definitely a theatrical side to this urban “stage” where architecture can come to life in an entirely new way. It’s not about the simple act of projecting; it’s what Urban Screen does with the merger between the dynamic projection and the static building.

By pushing the boundaries of physics, passers-by can “see” building materials and structures behave in entirely new and unexpected ways.

It’s a great way to push the “behavioral” envelope.

© 2008-2011 Sensing Architecture by Maria Lorena Lehman

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 a part of the dynamic display — both positive and negative versions of user hand motions are captured and integrated.

This has great potential because it not only incorporates an occupant’s movement through space but also attempts to communicate back to the user with specific reactions to their hand “language” — giving literal and figurative “weight” to what their hands “say” through signals.

PUSHING THE BOUNDARIES OF BEHAVIOR

By applying different properties to these so-called “shadows”, hand gestures actually create new behaviors that relate to how we perceptually experience the real-world. Perhaps further applications with this type of augmented reality can push the boundaries of our senses — where such “shadows” can become a more useful architectural design language all their own , perhaps playing with certain rules that we all take for granted (like gravity).

© 2008-2011 Sensing Architecture by Maria Lorena Lehman