A Brief Look at Some Interactive Architecture January 29, 2010 Juli Griffo Is It Interactive?

iSpa: Interactive Urban Retreat Course at the Art Center College of Design

“The motivation for this course lies in learning to create dynamic environments that can physically re-configure themselves to meet changing needs.” These students each designed a piece of this collaborative space - everything had to fit together

Some Pieces Include: Responsive Floor Space - “The responsive flooring/lounging surface reacts to the movements of users through the space. This dynamic system reacts and adapts to the specific situations to create a unique relaxation experience within a larger public space. The instability of the floor challenges the user to become explicitly aware of their place within the space, as well as their connection to others within the larger space.” Kelp Towers - Some natural habitat of ocean brought into space, includes audio for effect Ripple - users/guests can personalize effects of color and light that changes while in the space Sea Anemone - installed at entrance, a “portal” to create a different, relaxing, ocean-inspired experience as user/guest enters iSpa Link

Phalanstery Module “This installation grown from the hypothesizes that in zero-gravity, one can rotate (in) architecture and treat all elevations as plans - i.e., walls, ceilings and floors. Without gravity, all surfaces can be occupied. In essence, the distinctions between orthographic drawings become obsolete. To this end the installation will be a large constantly rotating structure which visitors will be able to approach and use differently every time.”

Designed by Jimenez Lai Comic book designer Inspired by one of his own comic books Made as part of Materials & Applications: Architecture and Landscape Research’s outdoor exhibition in 2008 Phalanstery Link

Vivisys What is it? “experimental double-curved acrylic lattice vault that plays host to an extraordinary cluster of rapidly prototyped metallic barnacles” “A robotic soundscape and networked auroras of electron emitting cold cathode tubes respond to interactions from their environment” “synthesizes patterns of the organic and the manufactured into a new creative paradigm for energy, form and matter” “The exhibition includes drawings and models of three recent design proposals by Future Cities Lab: Super Galaxy II (NYC, NY), Urban Archipelagos (Hong Kong), and the Seoul Energy Farm (Korea).” “commisioned, designed, fabricated, assembled in Charlottesville and installed in Chicago in 28 days”

And I’m still not sure what this means… so here’s a 15 second video of it in action. …PowerPoint refuses to allow me to import this video, so at this point I will be just playing it in another window. Thanks for your patience. Vivisys Link with Embedded Video

Moody Mushroom Floor “A smell/sound/light floor that develops moods and aspirations in response to the ways that people react to the invidual outputs.” “A system of 8 input-output devices which, through their programming and sensors, create an internal representation of their surrounding environment and which act upon the environment with the outputs they are provided with.” Devices “actions are determined by their goals -- the important thing, however, is that each mushroom sets its own particular goals at any particular moment.” Each goal is given a name like “sullen” which defines what the mushroom attempts to achieve – a “sullen” mushroom will try to keep people from coming near it Moody Mushroom Floor Link

“The constructed project, the Moody Mushroom Floor, is a system of 8 input-output devices which are programmed by 48 concurrent genetic algorithms in such a way that the devices collectively seem to display intelligent behaviour. Each device forms an internal representation of its surrounding environment and outputs a sequence of light, smell and sound which will tend either to attract human beings or repel them (or neither). The devices fall somewhere between unintelligent 'nodes' and more sophisticated 'agents’.” “The 'agents' emit output sequences which depend on the particular mode they happen to be in. They then check to see how successful that particular output sequence was (i.e. whether it attracted or repelled as intended) and a new output "strategy" is emitted, having undergone quasi-genetic operation to try and improve the output strategy for that particular mode, for that particular 'agent'. The output strategies are successively evolved genetically and will tend to converge on six individualised sequences for each 'agent' in its various modes.”

The 'agents' form an internal representation of their surrounding environments from the following inputs: olfactory combinations of two smells in varying quantities (Royale Bain de Compagne and Mercaptopthene, though there are no instructions to indicate whether the former is generally favoured by human beings or the latter is generally disliked). aural: sound of varying frequencies (depending on those encountered) and also human speech synthesis. visual: various combinations of three pulsing 240 volt light bulbs in wattages of 25, 40 and 60. information details of a particularly "successful" (in terms of ability to attract or repel a human being) output sequence may be relayed to another 'agent'.

sound as sampled by the Macintosh computer. presence of other objects (human beings, dogs, cats, etc. i.e. anything that moves) through a combination of infrared motion detectors and pressure pads (which also give an indication of human beings' distances from each 'agent'). Output capabilities (as perceived by humans) include: