Responsive Architecture

Definition Divertimento: A building that changes shape (ORAMBRA 2005). Responsive architecture is an evolving field of architectural practice and research. Responsive architectures are those that measure actual environmental conditions (via sensors) to enable buildings to adapt their form, shape, color or character responsively (via actuators). Responsive architectures aim to refine and extend the discipline of architecture by improving the energy performance of buildings with responsive technologies (sensors / control systems / actuators) while also producing buildings that reflect the technological and cultural conditions of our time. Responsive architectures distinguish themselves from other forms of interactive design by incorporating intelligent and responsive technologies into the core elements of a building's fabric. For example: by incorporating responsive technologies into the structural systems of buildings architects have the ability to tie the shape of a building directly to its environment. This enables architects to reconsider the way they design and construct space while striving to advance the discipline rather than applying patchworks of intelligent technologies to an existing vision of "building". History The common definition of responsive architecture, as described by many authors, is a class of architecture or building that demonstrates an ability to alter its form, to continually reflect the environmental conditions that surround it. The term "responsive architecture" was given to us by Nicholas Negroponte, who first conceived of it during the late nineteen sixties when spatial design problems were being explored by applying cybernetics to architecture. Negroponte proposes that responsive architecture is the natural product of the integration of computing power into built spaces and structures, and that better performing, more rational buildings are the result. Negroponte also extends this mixture to include the concepts of recognition, intention, contextual variation, and meaning into computing and its successful (ubiquitous) integration into architecture. This cross-fertilization of ideas lasted for about eight years. Several important theories resulted from these efforts, but today Nicholas Negroponte contributions are the most obvious to architecture. His work moved the field of architecture in a technical, functional, and actuated direction. Since Negroponte contribution, new works of responsive architecture have also emerged, but as aesthetic creationsather than functional ones. The works of Diller & Scofidio (Blur), dECOi (Aegis Hypo-Surface), and NOX (The Freshwater Pavilion, NL) are all classifiable as types of responsive architecture. Each of these works monitors fluctuations with the environment and alters its form in response to these changes. The Blur project by Diller & Scofidio relies upon the responsive characteristics of a cloud to change its form while blowing in the wind. In the work of dECOi, responsiveness is enabled by a programmable faade, and finally in the work of NOX, a programmable audioisual interior. All of these works depend upon the abilities of computers to continuously calculate and join digital models that are programmable, to the real world and the events that shape it. Finally an account of the development of the use of responsive systems and their history in respect to recent architectural theory can be found in Tristan d'Estree Sterk's recent opening keynote address (ACADIA 2009) entitled "Thoughts for Gen X Speculating about the Rise of Continuous Measurement in Architecture" Phenomenology Research into the Phenomenology of responsive architectures has been conducted by Daniel Grnkranz of the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. He writes: "The concept of architectural responses arose from the work of Nicholas Negroponte and the Architecture Machine Group at the MIT from the late 1960 s to the mid 1970 s. Negroponte proposed the application of computers in architectural design and endorsed their integration in built structures and spaces. The initiation of the research program was a consequence of the crisis of architectural rationalism and the endless repetition of industrialized architectural forms. The goals of the program were to make buildings context responsive and to create an intelligent environment that responses to the requirements and desires of users. The common introduction to responsive architecture is usually made by using the example of the thermostat. It is a basic example of a cybernetic feedback loop placed in a building environment in which the actual output is affected in response to an input. A sensor distributed in the environment is monitoring its change (as for example a decline of temperature). A controlling device, which may also enables a user to enter his/her preferences (a change in space temperature), is reading the sensory output and compares it to a predefined instruction (hold a certain space temperature). If there is a change in the input criteria (temperature dial) the controlling device is triggering actuators (the heating system) which are able to change the environment. The thermostat is an example for what Don Ihde calls in his classification background phenomena. That is, as the term reveals, when a pecifically functioning technology occupies a ackground or field position or becomes kind of near-technological environment itself. Once set, these technologies, controlling for example lighting, heating, and cooling systems, are operating more or less automatically. They do not require our focal attention. These technologies in the background would be a source of conflict for a phenomenology as operated by Heidegger, because they disconnect us from activities that bring change to an environment we live in. In this view, which might be called romantic, the way to heat a home is that one has to go out to cut down a tree using an axe as a technology for this purpose. Furthermore, someone has to chop the wood, dry it, store it, and at last set it ablaze to generate heat energy. In contrast, to operate a thermostat is a ire and forget activity. But also a conventional wood fired oven becomes an example for background relations in the intervals between the maintenance of the fire. The oven does not need our undivided attention to cause environmental change. This examination should demonstrate the sometimes tense relationship between phenomenology and technology. It is shown in a missing acceptance for the nature of technology and its development as a fact of human endeavour. Ever since technologies have been deployed and accepted, they, on one hand, intended to change our ways of doing and on the other hand they also have changed the production of environments and social fields where we place our doing. In the philosophy of technology, these two points were often strictly divided by the discussion over the neutrality or non-neutrality of technology; divided by the instrumental theory of technological-determinist position on one side and by the substantive theory of social determinists on the other side for which Heidegger took position. Naturally, technologies are compassed by human experience. Therefore they are matter of the lifeworld and thus part of the phenomenological concept. Husserl brought the notion of Lebenswelt, respectively lifeworld, into phenomenological philosophy to be understood as most basic layer of World. In his view, ny secondary or specialized world, such as science and technology, has to have an immediate connection to the basis or otherwise has to be critically questioned. It is pointed out that he issue of the lifeworld arose with the dvent of modern science. Science took over great authority in the attempt for objective investigation and explanation of World. Phenomenology, in its characteristic as scientific philosophy based on the subjective, coped with that fact through argumentations that sciences were widely and originally embedded in the lived world. The notion of lifeworld is interpreted as a basis for the human experience of daily life which is no matter of reflective attention. This basis will be received unquestioned and as self-evident. T]he lifeworld in which the experience happens is normally out of sight as uman beings do not make their experience in the lifeworld an object of conscious awareness. That means, this oblivion is not just an absence but an absence of something that can be brought to mind through the consciousness itself. It can be assumed that the experience of architectural space through human-technology relations is emanating likewise from the same basis that is called lifeworld as the experience of all other matters of daily life. The impact of technologies should not have a disconnecting effect towards the lifeworld. But technologies take influence on the preconditions which humans come across in their daily life. Technology is grounded in the World-stratum but daily life is changing in the face of technologies. In phenomenology, the rantedness of the everyday world is identified by the term atural attitude which emphasises the phenomenological fact hat people are immersed in a world that normally unfolds automatically. For a complete description of Daniel Grnkranz's work see his paper entitled: "Towards a Phenomenology of Responsive Architecture: Intelligent Technologies and Their Influence on the Experience of Space". Current work Actuated Tensegrity Structure (Prototype) by ORAMBRA. While a considerable amount of time and effort has been spent on intelligent homes in recent years, the emphasis here has been mainly on developing computerized systems and electronics to adapt the interior of the building or its rooms to the needs of residents. Research in the area of responsive architecture has had far more to do with the building structure itself, its ability to adapt to changing weather conditions and to take account of light, heat and cold. This could theoretically be achieved by designing structures consisting of rods and strings which would bend in response to wind, distributing the load in much the same way as a tree. Similarly, windows would respond to light, opening and closing to provide the best lighting and heating conditions inside the building. This line of research, known as actuated tensegrity, relies on changes in structures controlled by actuators which in turn are driven by computerized interpreters of the real world conditions. Some key contributors A building that changes shape by ORAMBRA. Full Scale Actuated Tensegrity Structure (2003 Prototype) by ORAMBRA. Tristan d'Estree Sterk of The Bureau For Responsive Architecutre and The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Robert Skelton of UCSD in San Diego are working together on actuated tensegrity, experimenting with pneumatically controlled rods and wires which change the shape of a building in response to sensors both outside and inside the structure. Their goal is to limit and reduce the impact of buildings on natural environments. MIT's Kinetic Design Group has been developing the concept of intelligent kinetic systems which are defined as "architectural spaces and objects that can physically re-configure themselves to meet changing needs." They draw on structural engineering, embedded computation and adaptable architecture. The objective is to demonstrate that energy use and the environmental quality of buildings could be rendered more efficient and affodable by making use of a combination of these technologies. Daniel Grnkranz of The University of Applied Arts in Vienna is currently undertaking PhD research in the field of Phenomenology as it applies to Responsive Architectures and Technologies. Depicted Left: A full scale actuated tensegrity prototype built from cast aluminium, stainless steel components and pneumatic muscles (pneumatic muscles provided by shadow robotics UK) by Tristan d'Estree Sterk and The Office for Robotic Architectural Media (2003). These types of structural systems use variable and controllable rigidity to provide architects and engineers with systems that have a controllable shape. As a form of ultra-lightweight structure these systems offer a primary method for reducing the embodied energy used in construction processes. Bibliography Sterk, T.: 'Thoughts for Gen X Speculating about the Rise of Continuous Measurement in Architecture' in Sterk, Loveridge, Pancoast "Building A Better Tomorrow" Proceedings of the 29th annual conference of the Association of Computer Aided Design in Architecture, The Art Institute of Chicago, 2009. ISBN 978-0-9842705-0-7 Beesley, Philip; Hirosue, Sachiko; Ruxton, Jim; Trankle, Marion; Turner, Camille: Responsive Architectures: Subtle Technologies, Riverside Architectural Press, 2006, 239 p., ISBN 0978097807 Bullivant, Lucy, 'Responsive Environments: architecture, art and design', V&A Contemporary, 2006. London:Victoria and Albert Museum. A detailed analysis of the emergence of responsive environments as a multidisciplinary phenomenon, nurtured by museums, arts agencies and resulting from self-initiated activities by practitioners working in different cultural contexts. ISBN 1-85177-481-5 Bullivant, Lucy, 'Interactive Design Environments'. London: AD/John Wiley & Sons, 2007. The follow-up to '4dspace', '4dsocial' is similarly a group of essays by different authors. It accents the creative role of museums in incubating new practices, terminology in this field, and the impact of interactive media installations in public spaces with a social message. ISBN 978-0470 319116 Bullivant, Lucy, '4dspace: Interactive Design Environments'. London: AD/John Wiley & Sons, 2005. An in-depth, multi-author investigation of the factors leading to and shaping the evolution of this hybrid field, featuring international practitioners. ISBN 0-470-09092-8 Negroponte, N.: Soft Architecture Machines, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1975. 239 p., ISBN 0262140187 Footnotes ^ Aegis