January 29th, 2010 §
When we received the book Interactive Architecture by Michael Fox and Miles Kemp (published by PA Press), I thought it would be just another compilation of interactive installations and responsive façades… but this book is goes beyond that. A wide selection of projects, ranging from small installations, to programable houses, to large scale intelligent buildings, goes in parallel with a series of writings from different fields (architecture, industrial design, computer programming, engineering, physical computing) which not only covers building or technical aspects of interactive, kinetic and dynamic spaces, but also its sociological, psychological and environmental implications.
Under this approach, the book is a good learning tool to those who are starting to learn and experiment with interactive systems, contextualized and understanding current trends and the integration of new technologies. Even if the actual projects or trends shown on the book render obsolete, the concepts, processes and workflows described here will not.
More after the break.
Every year, a bevy of new phones, games, televisions, and electronic reading devices ride into our lives on a tidal wave of interactive hype. These i-products, while handy, primarily confine their interactivity to the surfaces of screens. Not exactly the kind of “world-changing” transformation we’ve been promised. In Interactive Architecture, authors Michael Fox and Miles Kemp introduce us to a brave new world where design pioneers are busy creating environments that not only facilitate interaction between people, but also actively participate in their own right. These spaces—able to reconfigure themselves in response to human stimuli—will literally change our worlds by addressing our ever-evolving individual, social, and environmental needs. In other words, it’s time to stop asking what architecture is and start asking what it can do.
Interactive Architecture is a processes-oriented guide to creating dynamic spaces and objects capable of performing a range of pragmatic and humanistic functions. These complex physical interactions are made possible by the creative fusion of embedded computation (intelligence) with a physical, tangible counterpart (kinetics). A uniquely twenty-first century toolbox and skill set—virtual and physical modeling, sensor technology, CNC fabrication, prototyping, and robotics—necessitates collaboration across many diverse scientific and art-based communities. Interactive Architecture includes contributions from the worlds of architecture, industrial design, computer programming, engineering, and physical computing. These remarkable projects run the gamut in size and complexity. Full-scale built examples include a house in Colorado that programs itself by observing the lifestyle of the inhabitants, and then learns to anticipate and accommodate their needs. Interactive Architecture examines this vanguard movement from all sides, including its sociological and psychological implications as well as its potentially beneficial environmental impact.
- Princeton Architectural Press, New York
Authors: Michael Fox and Miles Kemp
Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press, New York
Editor: Lauren Nelson Packard
Designer: Jan Haux
Language: English
Cover: Hardcover
Pages: 256
Illustrations: 350 color
Dimensions: 9 x 7.1 x 1 inches
ISBN: 978-1568988368
Index
Acknowledgements
Foreword
Introduction
Physical Change
Trends in Kinetic Architecture
Ways and Means of Kinetic Motion
Horizons of Kinetic Architecture
Embedded Computation
Trends in Embedded Computation
Ways and Means of Embedded Computation
Horizons of Embedded Computation in Architecture
Project Landscape
Adaptable Space
Living Environments
Working Environments
Entertainment Environments
Public Environments
Environmental Impact
Energy Efficiency
Active Sustainable Solutions
Ephemeralization
Environmental Cognizance
Enhancing and Extending Activities
Mediated Environments
Gerontechnology
Physically Challenged
Active Participation
Coexistence
Sociological and Psychological Implications
Changing Lifestyle Patterns
Behavior Awareness
Building Awareness
Sense of Place
Control of Space
Attachment to Space
Sense of Sound
Sense of Smell
Artistic Initiatives
Design and the Profession
Designing Interactive Systems
Novel Tools and Heuristics
A Pedagogical Approach
Academic Initiatives
Client and User Initiatives
Corporate Initiatives
Economic Feasibility
New Horizons
Technology Transfer
Interface Design
The End of Mechanics
Autonomous Robotics
Biomimetics
Evolutionary Systems
Possibilities and Understandings
The End of the Beginning
“A new epoch has begun!”
Bibliography
Buy this book
January 29th, 2010 §
January 29th, 2010 §
© Hisao Suzuki
Architect: Sebastian Mariscal Studio
Location: San Diego, California, USA
Designer & Builder: Sebastian Mariscal Studio
Design Team: Sebastian Mariscal & Dominique Houriet
Structural Engineering: Omar Mobayed
Project Area: 472 sqm
Project year: 2006
Photographs: Hisao Suzuki
Small urban infill projects such as ‘On Grape’ add diversity to the city; providing contrast and scale to the multitude of whole city block buildings that are being constructed in San Diego during its current state of fast-paced redevelopment.
ground & second floor plan
© Hisao Suzuki
A project of this nature comes with a host of inconveniences that become a challenge in not only design, but also construction, including: small lot size, busy streets, zero setbacks from property lines, and a complete lack of space for construction storage and scaffolding. The initial approach for ‘On Grape’ was to subdivide the land into two parcels producing two single-family residences that maximize the enclosed, narrow, and linear space. The main goal was to maintain an interior-exterior connection in design while creating a spacious and quiet living environment in the city. To do so, the design focused on the planes of space throughout the project, and was achieved by constructing continuous spaces horizontally from one property line to the other and keeping the interior void open vertically to the sky.
© Hisao Suzuki
Within the urban context, the building exists as dual volumes separated by an interior courtyard of bamboo and light. The wood frame structure receives a floating exterior skin of engineered stone and COR-TEN steel that is separated by an internal air chamber, providing thermal and acoustic insulation. Spatially, the residences offer a quiet respite within the city core. Materially, the dark stone, the steel and the IPE wood accentuate the diverse urban fabric of San Diego.
January 24th, 2010 §
January 24th, 2010 §
The Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design of the University of Toronto will held a conference on Architecture Therapeutics Aesthetics from February 26 till February 28. This conference will begin the public discourse that will be continued in our new Health Design graduate studies program currently in the planning stages.
It begins a dialogue between medicine and aesthetics examining the capacity for design to align evidence with intuition, quantitative analysis with qualitative judgment, science with art. The conference interrogates current ideas and practices defining the role of design in the promotion of health while seeking to foster an appreciation of how the forms of affective and cognitive experience associated with environmental aesthetics may clarify and amplify the goals that motivate therapeutic practices and institutions.
For more information, click here.
January 24th, 2010 §
© Åke E:son Lindman
Architect: Elding Oscarson
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Structural Engineer: Konkret
Builder: Nils Bengtsson Bygg / Storskog Bygg & Montage
Floor Area: 160 sqm
Project Year: 2009
Photographer: Åke E:son Lindman
© Åke E:son Lindman
This design bureau for magazines and web is housed in an old textile manufacturing hall in the very center of Stockholm. They loved the naked, lofty and bright spaces, but needed to alter it drastically to make it operable for their business. There was a mezzanine in the space, with a windowless meeting room underneath and an country style kitchen sprawling along the walls, all arranged in what appeared to be an L-shaped space. Our client liked the uninterrupted row of windows, and wanted to keep it that way. Yet a bigger meeting room with windows, an atelier table for informal meetings, and more workstations was on the wish list, along with an entrance lobby and a small kitchen with a dining table.
floor plan
Dividing the space with a wall gives a very bright and large meeting room, as well as a clean rectangular room for the rest of the program. This large space is softly divided with a box containing service functions and a kitchen. By compressing the contents of the box and positioning it very carefully, the program effortlessly falls into place without breaking the impression of a single large room. The purposefully magnetic cladding of galvanized steel picks up the colors of the surroundings in a hazy reflection and further defines the box as an inserted element.
© Åke E:son Lindman
By finding the right balance between a very large pane of glass in the wall and a construction method for the wall that makes it feel both temporary and solid, the spatial atmosphere of an uninterrupted row of windows is kept while the rectangular geometries of the rooms are clearly defined. Besides having a literal relevance to the client’s business, the wall made of stacked bundles of magazines is not only a natural conversation piece in its mere irrationality, but also works as an acoustical absorbent.
© Åke E:son Lindman
The lighting solution and interior project, which to a large extent uses our own furniture designs mixed with vintage pieces and staples already in the client’s possession, aim at highlighting the nakedness of the space. Largely, the raw, untreated space was kept untouched after demolition. By adding only two clearly defined architectural elements, the client’s wish list could be met while keeping the beauty of an industrial atmosphere.
January 22nd, 2010 §
On Office (Joao Vieira Costa + Tudor Vlasceanu) designed a housing project located right outside Oslo. Since the existing neighborhood presents the same architectural atmosphere, where nature and landscape dominate the land between houses, for this project, the architects wanted to preserve that natural and built relationship. Working within the confines of a small site, the design of the stacked villas creates separate private gardens for each of the homes. And, their orientation toward the river provides great views to the users. Inside, the layout is simple and efficient, shaped to meet the landscape of the exterior.
More images after the break.
Location: Oslo, Norway
Program: 500 m2 (residential)
Client: Hecht
Status: Cancelled
Architect. On Office
Team: Joao Vieira Costa, Tudor Vlasceanu
January 22nd, 2010 §
For today’s Round Up, we wanted to show you the inmense variety of big scale projects (houses were not included), in China. Enjoy!
CR Land Guanganmen Green Technology Showroom / Vector Architects
The project is a “temporary” Green Technology Showroom of 3-year use for one of CR Land’s (华润置地) residential projects in Beijing. The idea is to develop the concept of “Temporary” from a meaningful perspective, to design a piece of floating “installation” in the garden, which could be built, demolished, and recycled (read more…)
Guangzhou Baiyun International Convention Center / BURO II + CITIC
This project recently won the civic category at the World Architecture Festival. The local authority of Guangzhou decided to develop a congress centre at the edge of the historical landscape of the Baiyun Mountains. The new congress centre will function as generator for the further urban development of the city of Guangzhou (read more…)
Chongqing Library / Perkins Eastman
For the largest city in China, comprising 30 million inhabitants and more than 3,000 years of history, a new library had to be much more than just a collection of books. Chongqing, often called “mountain city” for its majestic natural features and geography, realized this early on in its plan to develop a world-class library (read more…)
New Academy of Art in Hangzhou / Wang Shu, Amateur Architecture Studio
Iwan Baan shared with us the photographs of the New Academy of Art in Hangzhou, China, designed by Wang Shu, Amateur Architecture Studio. Also our friends at 0300 recently released a very interesting video on this project. You can watch it in the following link. All the photographs by Iwan Baan after the break (see more…)
Ningbo Historic Museum / Wang Shu, Amateur Architecture Studio
Iwan Baan shared with us one of the latest works he photographed, the Ningbo Historic Museum designed by Wang Shu, Amateur Architecture Studio. An amazing stone work, more pictures after the break (see more…)
January 22nd, 2010 §
© SO-IL
Since 2000, the MoMA and the P.S.1 have been running a competition under their Young Architects Program, inviting each year a group of emerging architects to experiment with new shapes and materials, resulting in a summer installation at the P.S.1.
Interesting projects have come out of this competition, such as the Public Farm (PF1) by Work AC in 2008, and Afterparty by MOS last year. And today, the winning proposal for 2010 has been announced: Pole Dance by Brooklyn based SO-IL (Solid Object Idenburg Liu) a practice ran by Florian Idenburg and Jing Liu.
© SO-IL
Conceived as a participatory environment that reframes the conceptual relationship between humankind and structure, Pole Dance is an interconnected system of poles and bungees whose equilibrium is open to human action and environmental factors. Throughout the courtyard, groups of 25-foot-tall poles on 12 x 12-foot grids connected by bungee cords whose elasticity will cause the poles to gently sway, creating a steady ripple throughout the courtyard space.
To explain this to one of my friends, I used a fabric and a few sharp pencils (so they stick to the fabric, and the eraser in the back sticks to the table) and we started to move it around… I´m pretty sure that the built installation will be very fun to visit. As you can see on the renderings, the net waves around, and touches the soil at the pool in the center, with a few holes that let you pass by.
SO-IL worked with Buro Happold for this structure, and with Sciame for cost analysis, to keep the installation on a $85,000 budget.
After the break, more images from SO-IL’s winning proposal.
© SO-IL
© SO-IL
© SO-IL
January 20th, 2010 §
© Ivo Tavares
Architect: Manuel Ribeiro
Location: Braga, Portugal
Project Team: Manuel Ribeiro
Structural Engineer: Alberto Fernandes Ribeiro
Landscape Architect: Manuel Ribeiro, Architect
Contractor: William Kent Development Inc.
Project Area: 450m sqm
Project Year: 2006-2007
Photographs: Ivo Tavares
Designed in Braga, Aveleda´s House is a villa designed to accommodate the light as a source of inner experience of housing.
© Ivo Tavares
The basic idea of the project, parts from the concept of being located near by the old Roman city of “Bracara Augustae”, where the ancient Roman houses, the Domus, were built around an internal square. Hence all the subtlety of the house is achieved with a careful distribution. In other hand, it was searchable to provide all 6 senses of life.
“… We tried to take the most of the land to create a connection with the interior of the building, leaving a view of the valley and the square that exists between the two bodies housing …”, highlights Manuel Ribeiro, architect and author of the project responsible for its implementation.
ground floor plan
The main body which houses the social functions of the house is situated at the same elevation of the square, assuming the sloping ground with the Hall higher, comparatively to the social part and creating a view of all from this; the social area involves open spaces, living and dining room without doors to the kitchen, and bathroom service is disguised within.
Down below the architect created a space for a gym and an office, supplied by the natural slope of the terrain.
section 02
The private area with 4 bedrooms (1 suite and 3 rooms) and a large bathroom facility support is at the elevation of the entrance hall, raised highly in comparison of the external square, without losing the visual field.
The suite room as also a closet, and a large bathroom, where’s a division between the uses (bath, sanitary and sinks).
© Ivo Tavares
On the square that is outside, we can find the pool that reminds us the Roman “compluvium” of a “Domus”, centered on between two areas of housing. Uniting all construction towards the valley and enhanced with the Sun´s circuit along with the glass façade.
The engine room, the locker room and a support kitchen area in a under elevation of the square, as a support for the outdoor activities.
© Ivo Tavares
“… The plasticity of the object HOUSE (purpose built) will always be overridden by the phenomenological aspect, giving identity and character to the building and so, it’s able now to provide a center of life, functional and familiar at the same time that explores the pleasure of landscapes, spacious zones and materials.
This will not be only a “home”, but always a Domus. All the project intends to explore the human being as well as it senses: touch, sight, smell, hearing, taste and passion. These are aspects that never been neglected. On the contrary, they are always present… ”, he concludes.
