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Responsive Interior Architecture - Interactive Surfaces

Conference Paper · August 2016

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 Responsive Architecture

RESPONSIVE INTERIOR ARCHITECTURE - INTERACTIVE SURFACES

Assoc. Prof. Arch. Alma-Dia Hapenciuc

Assoc. Prof. Drd. Arch. Oana Banescu
Drd. Arch. Adrian Mihai
Politehnica University of Timisoara, Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, Romania

ABSTRACT
The environmental adaptation research topic is based on the desire to align the
architecture and design related responses to the current circumstantial, social, cultural
conditions. Regarding all architectural proposals that are as complex, as they are
“petrified” in time and space, we propose some principles, according to which they should
constantly auto-correct themselves depending on the exterior stimuli and the relevant
occurred changes. Hence, architecture would become an interactive, live, responsive
mechanism, which would meet users with the best solution, configured depending on the
parameters that influence it in a particular moment in time.
The research is sustained by two experimental design models using the environment's
parameters as premises for interactive processes. The proposed dynamic surfaces
perceive all motor characteristics, appropriate them and respond in their own manner,
through a permanent dialogue with the user in motion.
Keywords: parametricism, interactivity, responsivity, environmental adaptation

INTRODUCTION
“In a decaying society, art, if it is truthful, must also reflect decay. And unless it wants to
break faith with its social function, art must show the world as changeable. And help to
change it.” [1]
Next, we will analyze the principles that give birth to contemporary and interior
architecture, drawing on the ideas of continuous change, flexibility, responsivity and
interaction with the user. We will also outline the theories based on the constant
improvement of the response given by architecture according to the versatile exterior
environment; then, based on how people develop as bio-psycho-social beings in an ever
changing environment, which constantly influences their reply, we will outline a possible
direction of thought towards the development of (interior) architecture as living,
interactive, real time responsive entity.

ARCHITECTURE AS FUNCTION, SPACE, FIELD - ANALYSIS

Architecture, in its complexity, develops due to human activities, to needs and
requirements resulted from peoples’ choices. It represents “petrified” points – a space, a
place, a shelter – within the infinite matrix of the human paths. However, it has been
regarded less as the sum of a series of activities even in this continuous and dynamic spirit.
General and interior architecture are born from activity, which develops function, which
then sets the tone for shape... Although these seem like the natural chronology and
International Multidisciplinary Scientific Conference on Social Sciences and Arts / SGEM Vienna 2016

causality, it is exactly the complexity of this equation that has generated not only many
solutions, but different interpretations, which led to possibly infinite approaches.
We firstly recall the functionalist approach of architecture through the famous phrase
“Form follows Function” [2]. Taken from Greenough, for Sullivan, this was “distilled
wisdom, an aesthetic creed, the only <rule to which no exception will be allowed>.” [3].
This concept was then adopted at the end of 19th century – beginning of the 20th century,
when technology, aesthetics and economy intersected violently, generating the necessity
of an approach different from the past centuries. Alongside “ornament is crime” [4], this
functionalist approach would decisively influence modernist architecture and, thus, great
architects such as Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, Gerrit Rietveld or
Alvar Aalto.
Next, viewing architecture from another point of view, we notice a deviation from the
patterns, in the second half of the 20th century, with the Sydney Opera, in which form and
aesthetic choices respond to some needs, but not to the classical individual needs as
before. The concepts of landmark-buildings, brand, flagship projects, star-(ar)chitects
appeared throughout the years as a response to global tendencies in the context of an acerb
economic competition. Thus emblematic projects intended to draw attention to a certain
spot on the global map are created. They would push the technological solutions to
extremes unseen before, bringing often shape to the forefront, and then resolving the
functional needs within the spectacular envelope.
Finally, we recall the Rolex Learning Center designed by SANAA, the landscape-
gradient, landscape-tactical architecture [5] and the tendency to deviate from the idea of
activity that defines architecture. This gives birth to fluxes, paths, communication and
transport networks, human activity, architecture being a node within a complex matrix or,
on the contrary, being able to “extend’’ in the physical urban framework or only as
influence, giving up its characteristic of punctual implant in favor of an ensemble of
activities, areas, spaces, places, etc.
Last but not least, the “parametricism” introduced by Patrik Schumacher pleads for an
“unifying style maintained and guided by a theoretical unifying edifice, which can
integrate several partial theories: a theory of the societal function of architecture, a theory
of the self-demarcation of the discipline, a theory of the avant-garde, a theory of
aesthetics, a theory of media, a theory of process, etc. The theory of architecture’s
<autopoiesis> presents such an integrated theoretical edifice. It is nothing else but the
rational reconstruction and systematization of the discipline that evolves discursively,
explicitly materialized as unifying theory, open to critic and constructive elaboration”. [6]
Elaborating the idea of an architecture resulted from the sum of all parameters that
characterize the implant, Schumacher proposes, through a fluid virtual field, which will
unify all information based on the relevant changes of the environment, as can be seen in
the movie “Parametricism”, section “Urbanism”. [7]
UNDENIABLE INTERIOR GENETIC INFORMATION OR CONSTANT
CHANGE BASED ON EXTERNAL STIMULI?
The myth of the irreversible passage of time materialized through the constant changes
undergone by nature, by people and things, is found in the major literary themes of most
cultures; in a time where speed and efficiency govern us, we came, paradoxically, to
 Responsive Architecture

forget that time never stops, that we are in a continuous change and transformation. How
could, thus, a piece of furniture, an architectural development, an urban implant, in their
“petrifaction”, static and “silence” in an ever communicating environment completely
satisfy their users’ needs, which are living organisms, constantly submitted to stimuli that
influence and transform them?
Further on, we will underline the human nature as a versatile, bio-psycho-social interface.
“(...) The dichotomy constructed around nature as major determinant of life’s causality,
through DNA, the code of codes (...) that conducts all, and around the social-scientific
perspective according to which we are social organisms (...) completely detached from
biology (...), is a nonsense. However, we notice that it is practically impossible to
understand how biology functions outside the context given by the surrounding
environment” (Dr. Robert Sapolsky). [8] Hence, we notice certain predispositions of
human behavior, which can manifest fully or not at all, depending on the exterior factors
that activate them or not. Human behavior will be, thus, influenced by these exterior
parameters, transforming itself through them, as well as through interior predispositions,
in a matrix of infinite possibilities. And so, we reach to the conclusion that nothing is only
genetically programmed (behaviors, diseases, etc.), but results from a complex equation,
that contains certain predispositions, but also the sum of external, environmental, social,
cultural or political factors. The genes outline certain possible directions of response, but,
depending on the totality of the exterior parameters, they can be activated in different
proportions or can remain fully inactive.
In direct relationship to such organisms of infinite complexity, with a cumulus of
multilateral and endless natural factors, how can architecture communicate in an optimum
manner? [9] And even taking into account the theories concerning its interactivity and
flexibility, as well as the known parametric architecture examples, which seek the
materialization of these directions, how can man communicate with a liquid space, which
is part of a fluid field, when the latter only imitates movement, expansion, growth, in the
end still being a petrified image in a development stage, with roots in the present
circumstances of time and space?...
RESPONSIVE, INTERACTIVE, LIVING INTERIOR ARCHITECTURE -
PROPOSAL
Taking into account all the factors of this analysis, we will project these concepts on a
series of architectural experiences and experiments.
Architecture is susceptible to change according to the user’s needs. There are many
examples, which propose versatile developments that can be personalized based on the
inhabitants’ number and needs, changing function, configuration, place, details, textures,
materials, etc.
However, the purpose of this analysis is to seek for new directions of interaction between
the user and its environment; (interior) architecture, after being designed and
implemented, usually becomes a self-standing piece, an independent object. For all that,
it could become a receptor of external stimuli, which it would perceive and transform in
relevant information, processed then and materialized as self-improvement, in real time.
Thus, this entire communication network would constitute a multidirectional system of
software-hardware constant cooperation.
International Multidisciplinary Scientific Conference on Social Sciences and Arts / SGEM Vienna 2016

In order to illustrate the proposed direction through some basic tests, we will describe the
functions and characteristics of on ongoing experimental project, based on the general
idea of this analysis. The applicative part of a theme as vast, variable, complex and
profoundly conceptual as this one, which is prefigured in the speeches of the great
contemporary architects, has a similarly large range of implementation possibilities.
Starting from the big urban experiments of parametricism supporters and reaching to
contemporary fluid, flexible and organic furniture, we propose a small scale experiment
that accompanies these interactive projects in the common search of the possibly “living’’
nature of architecture, interiors and pieces of furniture surrounding us.
A. Interactive Wall - Responding to Movement
The first experiment of this type consists of an unconventional piece of furniture, intended
to transform external influences into own language elements, which it prefigures on itself,
in a matrix of action-reaction, stimulus-response, open to transformation in real time,
according to the following diagram (Fig. 1.)

External Proximity Rail Kinetic

Software
Input sensor actuator Output
-

Fig. 1. Functioning diagram – Sinestezia.Studio Interactive Wall

Fig. 1. Functioning
The Interactive wall (Fig. 2.) is made of a series of fine and repetitive vertical elements,
diagram –
placed rhythmically along two rails at lower and upper level. These rails allow the gliding
Sinestezia.Studio
of all verticals. Therefore, the interaction with the surrounding environment takes place
Interactive
through the movement wallfilter; the ensemble’s processor perceives the external stimuli
throughConcept
a movement sensor, transmitting them then in real time to the vertical elements
and materialization
network, Sinestezia.Studio
which transforms (2014) the information in a manner of expression characteristic to its
own vocabulary.
In practice, this wall of fine threads that define a complex organic area, with the two
beams in the lower and upper parts, having the shape of two special curves, retires in the
immediate proximity of people, creating an airy island of vertical elements. On the rest of
its length, the wall maintains a rhythm as intense as possible, creating thus a gradient
between the airy area that “reflects” the presence of an individual in motion, in real time,
regardless of the direction in which he is moving, and the rest of the wall, which does not
perceive the dynamic, creating thus a degradé between presence (apparition of the user)
and absence (its absence along the wall) through the increasing / decreasing distance
between the threads constituting the wall.
In this way we have made the first experiment related to the capability of a wall to
communicate with the surrounding environment, perceive its motor characteristics,
appropriate them and respond in its own manner through a permanent dialogue with the
user in motion. The Interactive Wall thus becomes a novel communication platform
between the user and the architectural panel, relying only on dynamics and movement.
 Responsive Architecture

Fig. 2. 3D Draft –
Interactive
Fig. wall– –Interactive Wall – Concept and materialization Sinestezia.Studio
2. 3D Draft
Concept and
B. Responsive Wall - Mirroring the Surrounding Environment on a Dual Scale
materialization
Next,Sinestezia.Studio
we sought to deepen the analysis of this possible trait of a surface to interact with
its users. In the next experiment we doubled the multidirectional relationship through the
material we used. The Responsive Wall is formed by a large number of small mirrors that
function on one hand as pixels that reproduce the image in front of them and, on the other
hand, as a surface that reflects the environment due to the characteristic of the material
itself. The functioning diagram (Fig. 3.) is, this time, a little different due to the fact that
the wall does not only perceive the notion of motion in its proximity, but also receives the
entire “moving” image, which it reinterprets and renders then through its constitutive
elements – a matrix of small size mirrors.

Servo-
External Web Kinetic
Software motor
Input Camera Output
actuator
-mirrors-

Fig. 3. Functioning diagram – Sinestezia.Studio Reflective Wall

Thus, at a first level of interaction, the mirrors reflect the movement around them. Then,
atFig.
the 4. Functioning
second level, a video camera captures the image, which is reinterpreted by the
diagram –and
software Responsive
transmitted in real time through a pixelated image of what is in front of the
wall. Thiswall perceived image, consisting of a white-to-black gradient, is rendered by the
mirrors through their angle: those that look towards the ceiling represent the white “spots”
ofConcept and materialization
the image, reflecting the interior lighting, and all shades of greys are created through
Sinestezia.Studio (2015)
the reflection of the basis of the wall (a dark surface). All the intermediary nuances of
grey have their afferent angles, depicting thus, through a white-to-black painting, and at
the same time in an abstract manner due to the double reflection, the continuously moving
image from the wall’s proximity and, thus, the dynamic breath given by users to this
innovative piece of interior architecture.
International Multidisciplinary Scientific Conference on Social Sciences and Arts / SGEM Vienna 2016

The types of responses offered by it can vary according to the software, the possibilities
being endless: from rendering the surrounding image to different independent animations
and static positions of the mirrors, representing the desired images or certain directions
(Fig. 4.a., 4.b.).
This way, the second experiment presents a small scale element of interior architecture
that capitalizes the very premises of this study, managing to capture stimuli from its
exterior, to reinterpret them and to transmit a response in real time, in its own formal
vocabulary. Through the dual scale of the reflection, by means of both the walls’ pixels’
movement and the material of the pixels (mirror), the experiment of a possible
communication platform between an individual and interior architecture has thus been
taken to a whole new level.

Fig. 4a. Animations – Reflective Wall – Concept and materialization Sinestezia.Studio

Fig. 4b. Reflective Wall – Concept and materialization Sinestezia.Studio

 Responsive Architecture

The successful result of this second experiment is underlined by the complete

materialization of the concept and the certainty of its optimal functioning (Fig. 5.).

Fig. 5. Reflective Wall – Concept and materialization Sinestezia.Studio

SELF-DEVELOPMENT. SELF-RECONSTRUCTION. SELF-

REINTERPRETATION
Taking the concept of continuous reiteration of architecture based on external relevant
stimuli, which would start as being a basic static space – the shelter –and would become
a constantly evolving information system – the field / the matrix – we could accept the
idea that this entity observes the changes of the surrounding environment; we could also
accept the idea of it storing selected information; we could accept that this entity would
examine all relevant stimuli; however, how could we imagine it to be capable of
transforming the analyzed information into a real model as a response to this ever
changing infinitely complex equation?
Contemporary state-of-the-art technology and the constant innovation allow nowadays
the production of unprecedented structures of great complexity, developed through the
capabilities of algorithm-based software.
The “form being communication that frames and the function being the actual framed
communication”[10], the basis of the answer for this great unifying and infinitely versatile
project would have to be defined by the design of its infrastructure – the communication
networks between the virtual model and its real representation. By firstly designing
platforms, infrastructures and frames, architecture could thus begin to “live” inside them.
Conclusion: Taking the present analysis and its proposals into consideration, the drawn
conclusion would be that the method of perceiving information in architecture and of
expressing the proposal resulted from its processing through a unique artistic vocabulary,
 International Multidisciplinary Scientific Conference on Social Sciences and Arts / SGEM Vienna 2016

deserves to be aligned to the contemporary technological progress; this endeavor should

not only be made through chronology and regular causality, but through a virtual unifying
system, which includes all parameters and can suggest solutions for the equations resulted
from their analysis in real time, too.
From here to an interactive, responsive, living architecture, with a “self-healing” capacity
and possibility of self-reinterpretation to the good of its inhabitants and the environment,
lays an open, difficult and unknown experimental path. But interior architecture, through
its small scale and accessibility, could successfully capitalize empiric interpretations of
this concept. And they could form the basis for future personal studies in the field of the
present analysis: namely architectural flexibility, interactivity and responsivity, all of
which are features that emphasize the possible dialogue that could be created between
architecture and its users and that deserve profound commitment and extensive
multidisciplinary research.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We would like to express our sincere gratitude to our advisors and partners: Prof. Dr.
Arch. Cristian Dumitrescu, Andrei Lazar, Ioana Hariga, Marcel Chis, Daniel Flonta.

REFERENCES

[1] E. Fischer, The Necessity of Art, Penguin Books. Cox & Wyman Ltd., London, 1963
[2] L. Sullivan, The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered, Third Edition,
Macmillan, New York, Chapter 4, 1896
[3] Form follows Function, par. 3, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Form_follows_function
(last visit 29.02.2016).
[4] A. Loos, Ornament and Crime: Selected Essays, Ariadne Pr., Vienna, 1997.
[5] D. Jauslin, Architecture with Landscape Methods, Chair of Landscape Architecture
TU Delft, pg. 29 par. 2, 2012
[6] P. Schumacher, The Autopoiesis of Architecture, Volume II: A New Agenda for
Architecture, John Wiley & Sons Ltd., Chichester, pg. 1 par. 2, 2012
[7] P. Schumacher & R. Chan, Parametricism, 2013, min. 2:59,
http://www.wallpaper.com/architecture/parametricism-film-by-patrik-schumacher-and-
rosey-chan/6905 (last visit: 29.02.2016)
[8] J. Peter, Zeitgeist: Moving Forward, 2011, min. 9:30,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z9WVZddH9w (last visit: 29.02.2016)
[9] R. Coyne, Reflections on Technology, Media and Culture – What’s Wrong with
Parametricism, http://richardcoyne.com/2014/01/18/whats-wrong-with-parametricism/
(last visit: 29.02.2016)
[10] P. Schumacher, The Autopoiesis of Architecture, Volume II: A New Agenda for
Architecture, John Wiley & Sons Ltd., Chichester, pg. 10 par. 4, 2012

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