INTERACTIVE ARCHITECTURE ADAPTIVE WORLD

INTERACTIVE ARCHITECTURE ADAPTIVE WORLD

INTERACTIVE ARCHITECTURE ADAPTIVE WORLD

As we embrace a world in which the lines between
the physical and the digital are increasingly blurred,
we see a maturing vision for architecture that actively
participates in our lives. In the few years since the
original Interactive Architecture was published, a
number of projects have been built at scales that both
move beyond the scope of the architectural exhibit
as test bed and push the boundaries of our thinking
in terms of material performance, connectivity,
and control. Our architectural surroundings have
become so inextricably tied to technological trends
that the two ultimately and simultaneously respond
to and define each other. The promise of ubiquitous
computing has secured a permanent foothold in
our lives and has begun to infiltrate our devices and
objects as well as our buildings and environments.
Such is our physical world: not just digital but also
seamlessly networked and connected, an architectural
world that is a direct participant in our lives. Bill
Gates once predicted that by the end of the first
decade of the twenty-first century
there would be
nothing untouched by the digital.
1
By the end of the
second
decade, states the interaction designer Behnaz
Farahi Bouzanjani, this impact will arguably have
become so pervasive that computation will not be
noticeable anymore.
2

The subject of this book is how
architectural design integrates and negotiates the
digital; in our contemporary context, this is nothing
short of reciprocal innovation. This book surveys
the rapidly evolving landscape of projects and trends
that are finally catching up with the past. As a matter
of definition, interactive architectural environments
are built upon the convergence of embedded
computation and a physical counterpart that satisfies
adaptation within the framework of interaction. It
encompasses both buildings and environments that
have been designed to respond, adapt, change, and
come to life.
Sensors available today can discern almost anything,
from complex gestures to CO
emissions to hair
color. An interconnected digital world means, in
addition to having sensory perception, that data
sets—ranging from Internet usage to traffic patterns
and crowd behaviors—can be drivers of interactive
buildings or environments. Courses in robotic
prototyping and interaction are commonly taught
in today’s architecture programs, with contextual
subjects ranging from urban social issues to practical
sustainability. Perhaps equally as important as the
rapid advance of such technologies is the fact that
both robotics and interaction are technically and
economically accessible. The requisite technologies
are simple enough to enable designers who are not
experts in computer science to prototype their ideas
in an affordable way and communicate their design
intent. Architects and designers are not expected, as
on exhibit-scale projects, to execute their interactive
designs alone; they are expected, rather, to possess
enough foundational knowledge in the area to
contribute. In the same way, while architects need
2
to learn structural engineering in school and, until
recently, have been required to pass a special section
on structures for the professional licensing exam, it is
rarely assumed that architects will do the structural
calculations for the buildings they design; that work
is carried out by professional structural engineers.
The field is fresh with original ideas, illuminated
by the built prototypes and architectural projects
illustrated in this book. Driven by the applications,
these genuinely new developments and ideas
will rapidly foster advanced thinking within the
discipline; yet it is important to understand that their
foundations have been around for quite some time,
dating back nearly thirty years.

Michael Fox