Image: puroticorico | Flickr

Today I am pleased to share with you a Dynamic Shapeshifting Helix Bridge which won the recent Design By Many Competition. As you can see from its design in the video below, the bridge actually morphs its shape as occupants walk through it. Being suspended high above the ground, and nestled as a connector between two buildings — I would imagine that this bridge would create quite an experience to walk through.

Here is the video of the bridge so you can take a look. Please note that this video has music, so if you are at work you may want to lower or mute your computer volume to not disturb others.

So, with that video in mind, I will now present to you seven ways to re-think shape-shifting architectural designs, from an occupant-centered approach. …[Read Full Article]…

Image Courtesy of: In Square Lab Ltd

There are many times when you are asked as an architect to design a building that harmonizes with its surrounding landscape — and as you make your attempt to not only harmonize, but to also integrate nature into your architectural design, you gain better appreciation for the surrounding context, community and even geography that brings forth the diversity of the native species. But now, with tools like augmented and virtual realities that are entering real world design, it is possible to incorporate nature in entirely new ways, where your architectural design can help to show its occupants nature as never before experienced.

A new project which takes a great step toward realizing this type of relationship between an architectural space and nature was created by the team at In Square Lab where their project called Urban Prairie is located within a relatively small physical space — but what it does with that small space is quite intriguing as it pushes the boundaries that define the relationship between architecture and nature, between inside and outside, and between the real and the virtual.

Image Courtesy of: In Square Lab Ltd

If you were walking down the street and encountered the Urban Prairie project, you would see “fields of grass” — where you, as a passerby, would engage and interact with physical grass that is equipped with sensors so as to create its movement as it sways in the imaginary wind — and this movement occurs in response to on-lookers that walk by or simply create motion with their body, thus activating the sensors and actuators that make up this interactive design installation.

Furthermore, the placement of the “real world” grass in motion in front of the “virtual world” grass (as seen in the monitors) which fades off into the horizon, takes participants into …[Read Full Article]…

Often the architecture that you see and use each day acts as a surrounding container with which occupants interact at certain times, and in often very physical ways — whether it be to open a door, open a window, engage in cleaning or maintenance, or even when using building interface devices like light switches, temperature controls or plumbing hardware which can often be found systematically throughout a building. Because of this, occupants often have to travel to predesignated places within buildings, in order to interact or change their surroundings — adding on to them, personalizing them or simply to use them for their intended functions.

As we are now in the midst of increasingly instantaneous and automatic lifestyles, you will find that the interactive will occur in more and more places within your building — and each of those places are becoming better equipped to handle a greater amount of functions. While this may be a good thing in many ways, I think we still have to revisit and renew what occupant connectedness means with regard to how a person interacts with their surrounding built environment, finding new and overlooked opportunities that may make improved use of occupant-to-building interactions.

What You Can Begin to Ask of an Interactive Wall

Of course, many of you have likely already seen interactive floors were projections give way to colorful visuals which respond to a person’s movements as they enter into a dialogue (examples might be playing, exercising or learning) with that particular installation. But I ask, what other ways might there be for occupants to interact with their buildings?…particularly as more variation and functionality gives way to greater personalization?

For instance, new innovations are bringing about technologies which make use of gesture-based as well as touch-based communication between a user and the functional goals of their interface — whether computer-based, object-based or environment-based. But what might happen if within buildings, surfaces (like walls) are …[Read Full Article]…

Image: Samuel Mann | Flickr

Sometimes it might be hard for occupants to really visualize their actions as they execute them. While not all actions need to be visualized, there are some interactions that could very well help occupants if they could better understand them as they occur. So, what in built environments could provide occupants with such insight, so as to give them real-time feedback on the key actions which they take? Could visualizations like these help them to live healthier? Be more productive? Have more fun? Learn better? Heal better?

In the following video, you will see a person simply moving through a space, and as they move, their actions are having some effect on a nearby interactive wall where there is an entire world of dynamic graphics composed to mirror their walking style. What is within this video is conceptually quite a simple premise. Yet, you can take some of the ideas within it to new heights, as you begin to interchange walking for other key occupant actions that may need to be mirrored — like someone working in …[Read Full Article]…

Image: ralphbijker | Flickr

When we experience space by traveling through it, we interact with it affecting its acoustical behaviors in what can be unintentional ways — but what if an architectural design could make its occupants think more carefully about how they move through built space, where their movements yield more intentional acoustic behaviors? Instead of aural experience always being something that seems to happen in the background (from an occupant’s perceptual point of view), why not make it a part of the interplay between building and occupant that not only informs occupants, but also promotes enjoyment, awareness, and/or goal oriented cues.

Of course, within architectural space there is rarely just one person that occupies it. So often, occupants must make use of collaboration and teamwork, as well as help to foster a sense of community and enjoyment while engaging interactively within a building. Take, for instance, a museum where visitors may be educated by exhibitions both individually and through interactive collaborative learning moments. Within such a building, exhibits might use tools like what you will see in the following video, where interactive musical instruments can be coordinated on the fly by willing participants. I think this has merit because if this concept were to be taken further, museum visitors would have more of an immersive and social cooperative learning experience about a subject — where they could draw …[Read Full Article]…

Image: visualpanic | Flickr

I think that as we progress into the future, new technologies should help us reconnect with nature in entirely new ways — rather than as a divide by which we further separate from it. For this reason, I find it quite interesting to have come across an interactive floor projection design which engages people to experience a texture from nature in motion. And that texture closely resembles the rippling effects of water. As people walk on the dry floor where this projection is, ripples of water virtually propel from their feet as if to imply they are walking on water. Needless to say, technology (if used creatively) can connect us to new sides of nature with unexpected behaviors in unexpected places.

While such a display seems quite fun (which I think it is), there can be many practical applications for such immersive displays which can work by engaging the human body to move and react to the physics which prompt it. Just as real water has its own set of physical and behavioral properties which dictate how it responds, so too can an interactive floor projection.

For instance, such motion textures could help people recovering from injuries in hospitals by helping them to engage in therapeutic exercises and other behavioral activities that can help them to recover and heal at whatever rate works best for them — thus, a personalized guide which can encourage them, help them reconnect with their body to become stronger, healthier and more proactive. In hospitals, for instance, interactive projections might be a great way to help …[Read Full Article]…

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 …[Read Full Article]…

Image: Markbeckwi... | Dreamstime

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 Full Article]…

Photo: Justin Stephens

In the magazine Inc., an article by David H. Freedman describes a new neural device that can “read” thought so that users can control video games, computer technologies and “what’s around the house” with their mind. This neural device sits on your head, like a headset, and deciphers brain signals that allow users to open doors or play happy music when feeling blue. Such a device is set to revolutionize interface design on many levels.

The article, entitled “Reality Bites”, describes a technology that would allow occupants to communicate with architecture in a whole new way. Our environments would interact with us anew, seeming to know when to calm us, excite us or simply comfort us. Interactive architecture would do more than just react to our behavior it would react to our brain activity – our thoughts. Described in the article is a device that would tailor movies and advertisements to our liking, in real-time. Imagine if architecture could “understand” and “persuade” occupants in this way as well.

As more neural devices come on the scene, architecture will ultimately be able to communicate through them — opening doors, adjusting light conditions and setting temperature. Architecture will speak to us in new ways and neural devices will be at the center of this revolution. What do you think of neural devices and their impending impact on architecture? Are you in favor of architecture having this heightened degree of sensitivity?

Pindiath 100 | Dreamstime

What if certain aspects of architectural design could be personalized for occupants? Such interactive architecture could reach out to people in different ways so environment would heighten experience for each individual user.

Personalizing certain aspects of architectural experience would make architectural design more intuitive for occupants. To make this work, architectural sensors could receive occupant information from everyday objects used by the occupant. In turn, architecture would have a type of designed interface that occupants would interact with as they inhabit a building. To do this, some architecture interface design considerations should include the following:

• occupant personal goals
• ease of interaction within daily work flow and activity
• technical expertise of occupant for interaction
• occupant style or preference

As more and more technology becomes embedded within architecture, there will be greater chance for personalization – just remember that occupant goals should always be honored.