I’ve finally got round to recovering interactive architecture dot org and I’m pleased to be able to get back to blogging by introducing my most recent research into Constructing Interactive Reconfigurable Space. Collaborating with Paul Burres a fellow student of mine at the Bartlett School of Architecture (UCL) we created the ‘Angels‘ Project as a way of investigating more closely some ideas that grew out of a building proposal we put together earlier this year.

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The ‘Angels‘ project questions the nature of fixed architecture and looks at the possibilities of an architecture lighter than air capable of sheltering us and even bringing communities together. Acting as either individual agents or flocking together to create large architectural constructs, they inhabit the world around us both within buildings and outdoors creating dynamically responsive architectures in real-time.

Summary PDF

Detailed Description of Research PDF  

Our current iteration has a simple set of behaviors reacting to human gesture, proximity and conversation, future iterations will investigate learning algorithms so that the Angels can adapt to their environment. In its current form the “Angels” act as individuals but the potential for these to structurally network is a continuing part of our investigation.  

Our investigation additionally explored suitable forms of notation to express interaction in space. Initial drawings described the motion paths of the Angels and Inhabitants and were later followed by notation that correlated statistical data. Using the Angels onboard Vision System transmitted wirelessly to a local computer we processed real-time data of conversation space using a piece of software we developed in MaxMSP Jitter that generated formal representations to support our recording and notation of the interactions that occurred. These projections also provided an added form of feedback when projected into the conversation space. 

See Website  

A time-based architecture for the augmented body

The Virtual Operation Room is a game developed for the Museum of Technology in Delft by the ONL office in association with Hyperbody Research Group . Both aim at the practice and the research on interactive and e-motive architecture. Just like cars, websites and other vehicles, buildings become more and more sensitive and intelligent and start to respond, act and surprise. In order to study and practice e-motive architecture we build parametric environments and interactive interfaces to communicate with active worlds. Actual architectural concepts like e-motive architecture, time-based architecture, programmable architecture, free form styling, swarm behaviour and genetic algorithms come together in a game.

The VOR features a responsive geometry, responsive to actions of the players of the VOR game. In each of its highly responsive and pro-active worlds the player learns about the bodily system by acting, by pointing at sweet spots, by shooting cells, by killing cancerous growth. After having gained insight in the dynamics of the complex adaptive system of the human bodily system by collecting points, you can transfer yourself to one of the other worlds.

A pool of water is projected on the floor. Participants have to compete to fill its surface with lotus flowers or to catch as many of the carp swimming in the water as possible. Electroencephalogram probes are attached to the viewers' heads to measure the alpha wave activity of the brain. Forcing things does not work, the more peaceful the posture and the mind, the more successful the effort.

via wmmna

An interactive installation exhibited at the Prague Biennale. ‘Invisibles' by biot(h)ing uses holosonic speakers to create sound patterns projected into an interactive space. These speakers isolate individual cones of sound, creating a counterintuitive experience for the visitors as they move through different vibrations of sonar projections. At the same time LCD Screens display streams of information as it crystallizes and becomes visible through pulses of dynamic morphologies of 3D Cells scripted in animation software.

These crystallized streams may also be affected by the physical environment through an interactive sensor field. At the core of the audio/visual/physical interface is an interactive sound-programming environment that alters conventional forms of musical composition through the incorporation of algorithmically based processes.

biot(h)ing is the research-design laboratory of alisa andrasek – creating and studying algorithmically derived structures in virtual and physical environments.

As you may have seen there’s a tutorials page attached to the blog which I’ve had online as long as the blog has been running. I’ve been meaning to build up a tutorials section of links to other websites and books about physical computing, hacking appropriated technology etc but just haven’t got around to doing so. Its mainly aimed at students interested in interactive installations and devices of any kind for the time being. I get quite a few emails from architecture, design and art students asking about learning how to use basic electronics and programming etc so I’ve added a few essential links in the last couple of days but would really like to make it a more comprehensive resource. Have you got any suggestions? I will of course credit those who pass on their suggestions so please leave your name and website if you’ve got one.

Thanks so much and hopefully I may see some of you at transmediale in Berlin which is where I’m off on a holiday for a week starting tomorrow. Hurrah!

image from the excellent ‘low-tech sensors and actuators project’ by Usman Haque and Adam Somlai-Fischer

Above is the Blur Building by Diller + Scofido whirling above Lake Neuchatel , Switzerland and Below is an interesting interview of Brian Massumi by Thomas Markussen.

Thomas Markussen

A few years ago, architects were almost obsessed with the question of how cyberspace and virtual reality are changing basic ideas about architectural space. But events like the Neuroaesthetics conference here in London , along with the increasing impact of neuroscience on contemporary architectural theory, marks a clear change of interests — if not a paradigm shift. Significantly, the then almost ubiquitous word “virtual” is now being replaced by “neuro.” What is happening?

Brian Massumi

The introduction of digital techniques into architecture, and the preoccupation with the virtual that came with it, brought up some very old questions with a new intensity. The change came at a time when the idea of “virtual reality” was very current in popular culture and had a major presence in the mass media. “Virtual reality” was used as a synonym for “artificial reality.” There was something of an apocalyptic tone to many commentaries, to the effect that the new generation of digital technology was creating a technological cocoon around human beings that would separate them from any direct access to the world, and would denature human relations.

The old questions that took on new urgency had to do with the relation between nature and culture. Digital techniques in architecture added a new twist that changed the terms in which this question could be asked… Read Article Here

via turbulence also check out their recent post ‘…and more thoughts on the End of Cyberspace‘

Cyberspace, RIP by Karl Schroeder from Future Now

“It’s this overlay of the virtual over the real that makes the cyberspace metaphor obsolete. Cyberspace, after all, is conceived as something like the astral plane–a digital reality that exists “elsewhere.” But it’s precisely this “elsewhere” that’s being eroded by applications like Davison and Reid’s augmented reality system. Increasingly, the digital world is being married to the real world, with surprising results.

My personal theory is this: when the only way to use a computer was to sit still and look through a little window (the screen) into a virtual space, the cyberspace metaphor worked best for us. But with cell phones, PDAs and geographical applications such as store-finders and the proposed “taxi” key for cell phones (which simply summons the nearest cab when you press it), we’re no longer staring through a window into cyberspace. The window’s been broken, and the cyber world has spilled out into our own space.”

“These projects explore the application of dynamic methods to design architectural models in digital environments.

Against the rationalist notion of objective space, the aim is to investigate implications of architectural form in relation to space and time multidirectional parameters, considering digital spatiality an environment not receiving but instead generator of forms.

Computer parameters are not-critical parameters, selected with intuitive criteria. They affront not-critically the opposition between form and void, to eliminate in the design process the memory of architectonic hierarchical organization.” And they’re pretty too!

VIEW interactive digital spaces

You will need Cosmoplayer to view.

Lacuna is a response to the relationship between body and architecture in the cyborg era. Existing in the perceived ‘gap’ between physical volume and electronic volume, Lacuna is customised software that communicates between the visual medium of the screen and a high resolution electronic skin of real world architecture. This in turn creates virtual counterpart architecture, enhancing the electronic Cybrid dimension of construction.

Lacuna is a new architectural experiment that allows physical architecture to extend itself into the realm of zero physicality to become a Hyperflexible Space. Movement, temperature, gasses, wind, sound, data, water usage, electrical information, fans, and lift position are among a few of the hundreds of sensors used to alter the Lacuna software in real-time, allowing a unique representation of the building not in traditional space and time or virtual electronic space, but somewhere between the two.

Visitors to Plymouth’s unique Portland Square building interact not through the key-press, or mouse-click associated with computing, but their very presence, or lack of presence, and usage of the building is converted into electronic signals. This, for the first time, allows visitors to exist simultaneously in the real and the virtual, they are everywhere and nowhere. Lacuna is in a constant state of flux, and intelligently updates, modifies and mutates itself many times a second.

Using image warping of a projection based on viewer perspective it is possible to extend a physical space with virtual projections that respond to your movement. Using view-dependent image-based and geometric warping, radiometric compensation, and multi-focal projection these guys have developed an interesting approach to merging the physical with the virtual.

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Such an approach does not only offer new possibilities for augmented reality and virtual reality, but also allows merging both technologies. This potentially gives some application domains – like architecture – the possibility to benefit from the conceptual overlaps of AR and VR. From Future Feeder